I was having the same expectation in French, hoping to survive with only present, passé composé, future proche and "en train de" and avoid more complex things :

I was having the same expectation in French, hoping to survive with only present, passé composé, future proche and "en train de" and avoid more complex things :) And it will probably be enough, if I'd master them, but I still don't remember tons of verbs, words and the pronunciation, oh my god.. As an Italian it shouldn't be that difficult, many things are almost the same, and in some situation it is (e.g. reading it) but the pronunciation is not easy and false friends are everywhere, so most of the time I don't know if I'm saying something that is sort-of French or I'm just mimicking French by removing some vowels and consonants here and there from Italian words...