French Kat in England

Phew, I am glad I don't have to "learn" French PS: I am French

Hi there ! Just a few remarks from my experience. I am French and have lived there until I was 29 when I moved to England I was taught that putting your elbows on the table is rude, but I'd say that you would have to be with upper class people to actually care about that. What I usually do, is be careful not to put them on the table for a start and observe what the other people do. If they don't mind doing it themselves, then feel free to do it ! It really depends on who you are with. As for the fork and knife at the end of the meal, I have never heard of any rules there. It is only in England that I realised that some countries do have one Usually, when your plate is finished, you will be asked if you want a second helping, but the position of your cutlery won't mean anything to us

And thanks Pucette for your e-mail. I will try and answer it as soon as I can   French Kat in England

Thanks everyone ! Sorry I can't name you as I don't see your name (a problem with my firewall apparently ), so I will just quote you      "I too asked this question when I first found this board and was given a very hard time for asking". What's wrong with this question ? I will have to do some searches to see the post in question to find out    "We came to ski, nothing more, nothing less, there was skiing and a job in the region" That's an unexpected reason, but why not after all ? Do you actually like there now and think you made the right choice ?    "It is a fascinating though isn't it, and I still do not really understand why there is this wave of folks moving here or wanting to move here." Yes, fascinating. But I also understand that with all thoses programs about moving to France, one feels like going there.  They make me dream too After all, France IS a nice country, with beautiful landscapes and in general with a nicer weather (I feel so depressed by the weather in England Coming from a very hot place like the South of France, I can tell you I can see the difference...).    "And I have a question for you, is there a board like this for french people living in the UK." I don't know a board quite like this one, but know a few for French mums in the UK yes      "Il s’agit de cœur, pas de raison.  " I can relate to that, as it is for the same reason that I am in England   Tresco, retiring in France looks like the perfect solution to money problems (and the difficulty to find a job) it seems. I hope that despite the fact that you are not the one who originally decided to move to France, you do enjoy it now    "I'd just like to add the obvious, your written English is superb" Thank you so much for that compliment ! I wasn't expecting it and it touched me a lot      "We were in a remarkably similar position. My wife is French and I'm English and we spent 4 1/2 years together in England before moving to France in July 2003. As for your boyfriend: 1. What does he do for a living? 2. Can he speak any French? 3. Has he spent much time in France? 4. Does he like any particular regions of France?" Wow, this does sound very much like our situation indeed  Except that we are not going to get the money we were half expected (we got the verdict tonight ), so for the moment, our plan is  "a l'eau" . We have to find a way round the financial side and that can take years unfortunately To answer your questions : 1. My boyfriend is a lab technologist (I think that this is title anyway ). 2. He can manage in french but doesn't feel he knows enough to find a job (our plan was for him to take a year to study french in France at university). 3. We have known each other for 10 years so he has travelled a lot to France. 4. He wanted to come really for me, who is missing my family so much They live near Marseille and we had planned to live at my parents' 4 bedroom house for a while, to give us the time it takes for me to find a job and a flat nearby and for him to study french properly He is quite depressed with his job at the moment and I am depressed because I am homesick. So he thought that by coming to France at least one of us would be happy . To give our 2 year-old daughter the chance to grow up with her cousins was one of the other reasons

Blimey, I have just realised that I missed 2 pages of this topic ! I didn't realise the debate had gone that far. I am sorry if I offended anyone. I was just reacting to the poster who talked about spelling mistakes. About the comment about the French being possibly tight fisted (wow, just learnt a new word ! ... and I can't remember the right spelling already ), you must admit that it is easy to buy cards here. I got my 30 ones for 75p ! And they were nice too ! You will never find that kind of price in France French Kat in England

"Absolutely, New Years' cards are sent in the New Year, and exclusively to those who one cannot greet in person... " I agree completely with this and I would add that you are supposed to do it between the 1st and the 31st of january Now about the remark about the French not being able to spell, wow, what a great comment when you realise how bad the English are at spelling their own language I was and (still am) surprised when I arrived in England 4 years  ago at how common it is for people  not to be able to spell here ! It seems like everyone write according to their ears (is that english ? ). "hear" becomes "here", "their" becomes "there" etc... not talking about the seemingly unknown rule about when to use an apostrophe ! This is particularly frightening when I can identify about 3-4 spelling mistakes from a A4 document coming from my daughter's preschool , or in newspaper or  subtitles on TV (the one that I will always remember is a certain "mast bate" for "*********e" and no, it was not a naughty programme but only Big Brother )... And about the tradition of sending cards to everyone here, all I can think of is what a waste of paper ! Ok, I am not in my country so I do it to not to offend people. But I still find it hard to understand the aim of all this (unless it is to win a popularity contest ? ). If at least, the cards were personalised a bit and you would actually use them to ask for news from people you don't often see, then ok, but what the point of just a "dear X" and a signature at the end ? Why can't you just say it in person ? I have also dutifully written 30 cards for all Abi's friends at preschool, most of whom I don't even know, but felt I had to do it as the teachers gave us all a list of all the children for that purpose... Help, I can feel I am going to get lynched now Be merciful please But I thought it could be interesting for you to read a french point of view too French Kat in England

what should I ask for in French to describe the fridge? I would say "réfrigérateur encastrable" or "a encastrer" I don't know about the hob. Good luck ! French Kat in England

Sorry I can't find a general discussion category so I hope this one will do. My question is simple : why have you decided to come (or intend to go) to France ? Maybe I should introduce myself a little. I am a 33 year-old French girl. I come from Provence, near Marseille. I have been living in England with my English boyfriend for 4 and 1/2 years now. We might receive a large amount of money and we are hoping to go and live in France. Somebody recommended this site to me as I am now trying to get some information about what the conditions are for my boyfriend to emigrate. I have been reading this forum for a few days and got quite a lot of answers to the questions I was asking myself. I find it fascinating to see France from an english point of view and I am having lots of fun So, to satisfy my curiosity, will you tell me what made you come to live in France ? Thanks French Kat in England

Thanks Dick. I know that phonetical alphabet because I have used it at university when I was studying english. I didn't use it because almost noone knows it And also, it doesn't work to describe a french sound anyway.   "LOL My accent is firmly from the NE. I think this is so funny, we don't even say 'you' as perhaps you would imagine either." Exactly Anyway, I thought of other words we use in french : Le racket (as in racketing at school) and le ticket (which is so commonly used that people forget that it is a english word (or is it ? ) French Kat in England    

It is not easy to talk about sounds in writing, is it ? It is possible that the "djast" I am thinking of is different from what you think I mean (does that make sense ? lol ), just because I am thinking in french and you in english. So to try and see if I understood right, do you mean that you don't say "just" like in the "queen's english", but you have a different way of saying it and the "u" sounds more like "you" when you say it ? Fascinating Maybe I should try and explain again what I meant : There is in french the word "juste" that is used to say "tight" (as in "cette robe est un peu juste"), or "short" (2h pour y aller, c'est un peu juste) or "nearly, just in time" ("j'ai attrapé le train, mais c'etait juste" which I would translate by "I nearly missed the train" or "I caught it just in time"...). Well, "juste" with that meaning, in coloquial oral french, is sometimes pronounced "djast" (or a bad attempt at copying english if you want ) instead of the french way. It is, I suppose, a way of sounding a bit "cool" Well enough of that nonsense, I am doing my own head in now French Kat in England

"Normann, what is the english way, I'm from the north and there is a very pronounced 'uh' sound when I say just. In fact the 'j' is quite pronounced too. Where as I have friends from the south where it sounds like jast. " I suppose you are talking to me ? To me, the english way is to pronounce the "j" as "dj", a bit like "djast". The way you pronounce it in english basically. The french way is when you say "juste", with a french "u" sound and no "dj" sound. It is not easy to explain I found it interesting that you have never heard it before. I should maybe add that it is only used in colloquial oral french Well, never mind, that was just my little contribution anyway French Kat in England

Hi ! I understand the original poster has probably changed his mind now about moving to France, but I just wanted to say that I agree with one poster (sorry can't see authors' names ) who suggested to rent rather than buy straight away. The rents are definitely lower than in the UK from my experience (being in Essex, not too far from London, might also explain why my rent is so ridiculously expensive ). I come from Provence, near Marseille, and although not a cheap place compared to some rural places, the rents are nothing compared to the UK. Renting would enable you to try and find a job with a bit less pressure and more time (and you will need it !). That said, I wanted to point out that, regarding your wife's job, she has to be aware that teaching music in France could not be that easy as we use a different system from yours. A, B, C, D... becoming la, si, do, ré, mi etc... It might take a while to get used to it. Best of luck French Kat in England

What about boys bands ?

Aren't you free to choose your gp in the uk any more? I have lived in England for 4 years now, and my personal experience about GPs in the UK is that you don't have a choice of surgeries. You just have to go to the one of your catchment area. Then you don't have a choice over your chosen doctor but you can ask to change it later. My surgery being quite busy are starting to refuse new patients. For example, my boyfriend couldn't go to it (but I was accepted as I had never been registered before), and had to stay with the surgery he was already registered in before we moved, which is a bit further away but in the same town. I don't go there very often luckily, but when I do need to go, I hardly get to see my designed doctor anyway. You have to ring at 8:00 am and you get an appointment the same day with any doctor available in that same surgery. More often than not, they tell you that there is no appointments available and you have to ring again the next day. That can go on for 2 or 3 days  before you get seen I thought it was my surgery being a bit ackward but from your input, I see now that it is common pratice. French Kat in England

"Zoom...... as in allez zoom!" Sorry to disappoint you, but the correct expression is  : "Allez, zou !". Well it is the one I use anyway Still sounds good, doesn't it ? In the same range, there is "Allez, ouste !" to encourage someone to go out of the room. What do you think of the way, we French people, use the word "just", pronounced the english way ? Example : "On a reussi a prendre le train mais c'etait just !" meaning something like "we caught the train just in time". I don't know where we got that from, as "juste" pronounced the french way would do just as well French Kat in England