Albert the InfoGipsy
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Posts posted by Albert the InfoGipsy
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My personal experience is based on bringing up three kids bilingual. My wife is French and we lived in England. Our policy was to speak French at home and to rely on the boys absorbing English from their environment. It worked with all of them.
When our eldest (David) was about 18 months old we were talking to the Anglo-French parents of a one year old about this. I demonstrated that David could distinguish between the languages and respond appropriately. I gave him an appl;e and asked in English what it was: 'Apple!' A few minutes later I did the same thing in French: 'Pomme!'
David always spoke to people in their own language, although at first he thought I was a francophone. When he was two and a bit we were looking at a picture book together and talking about it in French. There was a picture of a beaver and he asked me what it was. I had to say that I needed to ask Mummy and that was the day he realised I was not French but English. After that he automatically spoke to me in English.
All this made it a bit harder to apply the same methods with the other two, but we succeeded until Jerome, the youngest, realised that all the 'big boys' -- his brothers' friends -- spoke English and decided that French was distinctly uncool. Today the two eldest are effectively bilingual and Jerome still has a better level of French than the average Brit of his age and background.
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[quote user="Repulse"]Can't click on any of these and get any info to backlist. Only an icon which tells me if active or not and will allow me to delete. [/quote]
I'm away from the Orange system now. It might depend on which version of Livebox you have -- is it the latest one? I can't see any problem with deleting the neighbour's machine. I just prefer something less drastic in case of error.
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Sorry, Lambkin. I'm not the one to ask.
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[quote user="Repulse"]Ok folks last question I promise !!! If I change the security key will I need to do anything to my own computers and I phone to reconnect ? Promise this is the last !! Thanks everyone :-)[/quote]
Yup. You'll need to set them up for your new settings. This is why I suggest that you disable the neighbour's access instead -- it doesn't affect your own kit.
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If you mean the Wifi security then you can 'blacklister' a computer.
Connect to your livebox via your browser (type livebox in the address box at the top.
Put your password (normally 'admin') in and select the Configuration tab. It should show you all the computers that are, or can be, connected to the livebox.
Click on your neighbour's machine.
In the Wifi section of the page that opens click on the 'Blacklister' tick box.
That should shut them out.
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Please don't be obtuse. I just described the 'English way' of wiring. The house in question may exhibit all, or none of these characteristics, but it seems likely that some of them would be presnt.
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[quote user="LEO"]
NOBODY SAID IT NEEDS TO BE REWIRED !
[/quote]No need to SHOUT!
The OP's statement sounds pretty convincing, unless you mean that it should just be left as-is.
[quote user="Laurier"]... I am going to look at a house for sale and understand it has failed the electrical diagnostic because it was wired in the English way rather than the French way. [/quote]
Based on that I'd expect UK-style twin & earth, ring mains rather than radials and possibly even 13 amp square sockets. I wouldn't touch that with a barge pole in France because of probable problems with insurance and with having any future maintenance or modifications done.
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Sounds peculiar to me. If the vendor wants to give money to an English qualified solicitor it's up to her. I'd talk to your notaire about it. If she's the only one (ignoring the solicitor) involved she'll charge the standard 'conveyancing' fee plus deal with the various taxes and fees due to the State.
I would pass any document originated by her solicitor to the notaire for approval and advice before signing anything. As for the CdeV, you could sign it at home and post it off. As far as I know there is no requirement for the signature to be done in any lawyer's office.
It is possible in a 'normal' French sale for the immo to hold a deposit (depending if you trust them) so an English solicitor should be OK.
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Essentially, each satellite is aimed at a particular area on the Earth's surface, where a small dish will usually suffice. Outside that area the signal strength drops off until it's totally useless. In the boundary area a larger dish can 'gather' more signal to offset the reduced strength.
As Brian says, you'll need to look at the map to see what size you are likely to need.
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Apart from the asbestos I'd be concerned about posible rot in a wooden floor covered with lino. I've seen French houses with unventilated voids under the floor where the boards and joists were only fit to be a mushroom farm after a decade or two of lino covering.
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[quote user="Cendrillon"]I think the real French person just has coffee and a fag for breakfast! [;-)]
[/quote]It's the way they dunk the fag in the coffee that gets me.
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On the subject of the guru from Ariege, I expect (from experience) that if enough people can show holes in his arguments he'll throw his toys out of the pram and ask a mod to remove all his posts, ever, from the forum.
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[quote user="AnOther"]I know Chambres D'Hotes qualifies as I have friends doing it but is B&B classed the same ?[/quote]
What's the difference apart from the language? Genuine question.
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[quote user="Val_2"]Albert was that the place advertised in central Brittany near Rostrenan when they did that re-locating programme with that Johnny from A Place in the Sun Home and Away and the couple looked at four businesses in Brittany including the restaurant at Lac Guerledan, a fishing lake near Dinan, Kayak/boat hire and then a large manoire with gîtes etc?[/quote]
Sorry. Never seen the prog. The manoir is one I know personally near Rohan.
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True.
There's a manoir for sale in central Brittany at an asking price of about a million. That was bought by a Brit family in a very similar situation. One couple baled out after a few months and the others had to buy them out. They never really got enough business to be viable and the credit crunch, plus their reliance on the UK market, wiped them out.
There's plenty of room for all the owners plus several gites, a restaurant and some B&B rooms. It's been on the market for at least a year, together with a few hectares of field and forest.
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[quote user="frankgarton28"]... their son is 10 months old. They all have GCSE french ...[/quote]
Wow! Bright kid!
Seriously, a rusty GCSE is not necessarily much use if you want to live and work in France.
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Very true. I have 2 personal domains. One of them is on its third service provider and the other on its sixth.
The French one allows me to have a nice simple address of f[email protected] (name changed to protect my privacy). Funnily enough it takes a bit of effort to convince people that there should not be an orange, sfr, neuf or whatever somewhere in there.
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This is why I still keep a box of blanks and an external USB floppy drive. I've needed them a couple of times in the last decade.
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An axe. Quick & effective.
However, the setup disks shouldn't have anything personal on and it's unlikely anyone would dig floppies out of land-fill anyway.
I only recently ditched my DOS.5 and Windows 3.11 installation diskettes. Gave away my Lotus Ami Pro ages ago.
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[quote user="NormanH"]No you are covered immediately with no minimum turnover, but you have to pay contributions at some point, or the business can no longer carry on[/quote]
Currently the limit is two years without declaring any turnover. It was originally 1 year, then changed to 3 and then down to 2.
If it takes more than 2 years to get your first customer payment then you've chosen the wrong game.
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If you're near enough to the exchange you can get broadband and TV easily enough. This also usually gives free phone calls to most of the world. If you're in a typical 'Brit out in the sticks' location it could be harder or more expensive. There's also the question of whether you are in a degrouped area. This means that you don't have to have a France Telecom (Orange) number and can just use your broadband connection to provide your phone, saving a fair bit. For TV you can get it as part of your broadband deal, depending on line speed, or via an ordinary aerial or a satellite dish. You'll need a sat dish if you want to pick up UK channels.
I'd start by talking to Orange first, because you'll need a physical land-line anyway and they'll be able to tell you about the feasibility of broadband. Other suppliers will probably be cheaper but this will give you a benchmark. I believe they have an English-speaking helpline, but don't know the number.
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[quote user="pachapapa"]The Crac 40 froles 3400 from the underneath.[:D][/quote]
Any chance of getting that in a language at least some of us can understand? It looks like it was written by Lewis Carrol. Does it have anything to do with mome raths?
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[quote user="Sprogster"]Norman, is it really that easy in practice? I would have thought knowing the French they would crack down on the use of the AE scheme as a loophole to get health cover, by applying some form of minimum level of contribution, or just be plain obstructive![/quote]
That's a very immigrant/expat oriented view of things. Most AEs are French and already in the 'system' from salaries, pensions or ayant droit via a spouse. I very much doubt if any French fonctionnaires are busy looking for Brits in the way you seem to expect. Unless you do something else that attracts attention I can't see anyone investigating your circumstances.
Anyway, if you turn over 50€ a week (2.5K a year), which equates to 'a few hours of grass cutting' you'll be doing as well as many AEs.
It would be perfectly simple for the powers that be to adjust the AE rules so that it could not be used as someone's only route into health cover, or to impose a minimum contribution level. The fact that they have not, although other rules have been tweaked, indicates that it is not a big preoccupation in Paris.
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AE is actually the 'auto-entrepreneur' business regime -- for most trades it's the simplest way of starting a small business.
Having a Baby in France - What to do about language?
in French Education
Posted
But who will teach the child to write English?
[/quote]
We taught our kids to read (in English) from about age 3 onwards using a flashcard method plus Ladybird books. All of them could read fluently before starting school. We wanted to include French as well but found it difficult to track down any suitable books.
As far as writing goes, I'd probably leave that until the child has mastered the mechanics of putting letters on paper at school. We never tackled that aspect and left them to learn French spelling and formal grammar through their secondary school classes. All of them got good grades at GCSE/Alevel in both languages, plus a couple of others. Only one can write French faultlessly now (all in their 30s); one (the only one with a degree in French) is pretty good and the youngest is still better than his UK contemporaries.
I'd say that that one advantage of being brought up bilingual is that learning other languages is seen as more natural. Between the three of them they have qualifications or various levels of fluency in six other languages and Jerome is currently learning Thai.