Parlez vous français?

I have always loved to learn new languages, and my new-old passion is French. I took 2 years of French in elementary school, and recently a semester in Institut Français in Tel-Aviv. Having little time for my studies, I try to brush up my vocabulary by reading some "simple French" books. It's not as easy as it sounds, since my vocabulary is pretty ... basic. However, sometimes I am pleasantly susprised by my own intuition. Let's see one sentence and try to decipher it. (It's from a book named "Lancelot", telling about Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table).

À minuit, une lance très pointue tombe brusquement du toit et va se planter dans le lit, juste à côté du chevalier.

To me it sounds like:

At midnight, a lance, very pointed, tumbles briskly from [something1] and is going to plant itself in the [something2], just beside the cavalier.

After checking the dictionary, it turned out that I was spot on! [Something1] turned out to be the roof and [something2] is a bed. The rest was almost 100% correct. Amazing, isn't it?

Is French akin to Esperanto? ;-) ("La inteligenta persono lernas la interlingvon Esperanton rapide kaj facile")