Moving to France with a 13year old girl

[Lori]

Thank you Gay.

 

[cooperlola]

Pangur, you are so right.  When I learnt French, Latin and German at school, English Language was a compulsary subject.  We learnt grammar rules as a matter of course, which made the other languages much easier to construct as a result.  A friend of mine who lives opposite, just started speaking French when she moved here a year ago, and is making a supreme effort to learn by attending classes, joining every group she can, watching French TV and studying for 2 hours a day on her own.  She is only half a dozen years younger than me but struggles terribly with the grammar because none of the basic rules such as parts of speech, tenses etc were ever taught to her when she was young.  She so regrets this now, given her new situation.

[Wendy]

Hey, dont have a go at Mikles!

He calls a spade a spade, just how I like it. Miki, I dub thee an honorary Aussie. I hope thee considers it thus.

By the way, what does jpe stand for?...

Anyway, I think we have all provided Alison with plenty of food for thought.

a) Look carefully where you buy;

b) find out where your child will be ACCEPTED into school, dont just go by how close the nearest school is, as we did. Your actual 'local' school within your commune might be a one hour trip away, each morning and each evening. Speaking from experience here;

c) I would visit your local Inspection Academique to gauge their attitude towards non french pupils attending their College's and Lycee's if their French is not up to scratch. Very important. Well, it decides what happens to them at the age of sixteen;

d) In two years time? enrol ALL OF YOU with the nearest Alliance Francaise and start learning the lingo. Makes all the difference.

Ok, now, combine this with buying your home here. Where you want to live MUST coincide with where your kids can go to school, beyond Ecole Primaire and College.

Info like this only comes with hindsight. if only we were all armed with hindsight at the start.

[Miki]

[:D][:D]

G'Day Wen,

We sure are doing well in the Ashes, eh mate !

Come on Ozzie come on... sometimes it's pretty good being an 'onnery ocker... Go on Shayney, bowl him round his legs mate [:)]