Moving to France

[mint]

Hi, Boo, it's good to have you come back and tell us a bit about your plans.

I think French is a very beautiful language and I am trying my damnedest to get better and better at it.  The grammar I find boring and uninspiring.  However, there are many compensations and speaking it, understanding it and reading it are all very exciting activities.

Today, I had a phone call from a man delivering my order from Lakeland and I explained to him how to find us (between the church and the cemetery!) and we had a good laugh about the location afterwards.

I asked him if he found me easy to understand and he, very gallantly, said he understood everything I said [:D]

If you came with an open mind and an eagerness to learn and make friends, I am sure you'd do very well; so good luck with your move!

[Quillan]

[quote user="boo"]

As I started this thread I would just like to say both my husband and I are learning French and would love to associate, be friends with and live with French people in their country, I do think we would like to associate with ex pats as well.  Thanks to all for your interesting comments.

Boo

[/quote]

Quite right to Boo and I wish you the best of luck.

The best tip I can give you and I am sure some others will agree is not to buy initially but rent for 12 to 18 months if you can. If you can work things so you can rent out your UK home then even better as the money you get will go a long way towards renting here even perhaps paying towards some of the bills as well plus it will give you the opportunity to 'try before you buy' as it were. The rule of thumb down here used to be that 1 in 3 didn't like it once they got here for various reasons although the two most common were being away from their children and grand children realising they were spending more and more time back in the UK because they missed them and the second is the climate. The person, whoever he or she is/was, who said you get 300 days of sunshine were wrong, you don't. Renting will help you to acclimatise and discover if a life in France is for you without burning your bridges back home. It will also give you the opportunity to take a leisurely look for the the house of your dreams.

[Sprogster]

Quillan is right about renting and trying before buying, especially now in the depressed French property market.

As for the 1 in 3 not liking it when they arrive and deciding to go back, you can add another 1 in 3 who stick it out for a few years and then go back. Most have returned home within eight years, so keeping a property in the UK makes sense if you can afford it.

As for the weather, Quillan is right again, if you are looking for mild winters France is too far north. Even the Cote D'Azur has had freezing temperatures and snow down on the coast on several occasions recently this winter

[Quillan]

Re the weather. Since January we have had more rain than we would do in 5 months. The weather is much the same as the UK north of the Pyrenees. If you watch the European weather when it comes to rain it's like tadpole with the head over the UK and the tail whipping round swiping across southern France. If the cloud is high enought to get over the Pyrenees then the weather down the on te coast will be the same. You get a lot of rain in the UK and within 24 hours its raining here but not so much. Rain however round here is good in winter, slightly higher up they have had between 1.6 and 1.8 metres of show at the moment. If you consider how 10cm grinds the UK to halt think what 1 metre plus can do. This year so far the temperature has been quite mild during winter dropping to zero only a couple of times. Normally it can get down to between -10 and -12 with the occasional drop to -17, a bit colder than the temperatures being recorded in the UK at the moment.

From that you go to the extreme in the summer and in August it can hover between 38 and 40 degrees, even higher (normally by about 3 to 5 degrees) down on the coast. The only way to deal with this, if you can't afford air conditioning, is to close all your shutters to keep the sun out, you do the same in winter to keep the heat in by the way. That's the most common reason why when you drive through villages they often look deserted and all closed up.

Another thing people don't often tell you is the price of things like electricity. I remember reading a couple of years ago that EDF customers in the UK were subsidising French EDF customers, not actually true. Around that time I used an English website to see what electricity cost in the UK and actually the UK price per unit was about the same. What the article didn't say however was that in France you also pay an annual fee to be connected which can get as high as 700 Euros plus per year depending on tariff and the amount of power you need. In some places the water is very cheap and others it is very expensive. My water is cheap, my bill has just arrived and it is 200 Euros but then I use a lot of water. Four kilometers down the road the price is triple.

These are just a few minuscule reasons why I recommend rent before you buy. The expense of coming here and living in a Gite for three weeks is not typical of living here full time, it is quite different.

 

[woolybanana]

Q, since SWMBOI departed you have positively prolix in your postings. Should one put this down to relief, the being off the lead syndrome, or an earlier than usual nip or just plain boredom?

[idun]

I'm glad you posted again Boo and am glad that you are learning french. Believe me there are good french friends to be made, and if I was the only brit in our village for 25 years, I most certainly would never say I was 'alone'. Even with my terrible french, because I have no talent for the language at all..... I made the effort, just got stuck in and bit by bit got to know people and made long lasting friendships which continue to this day, even though I no longer live in France.

We rented when we first moved, and then built. Ours was a very very quick move.  We got help initially, then I did the same for other newcomers that came after us, but I never expected that help to go on and on and it never did.

NickP, if I make myself sound like someone I'm not, then so be it. IRL, I am a very helpful person, my husband gets annoyed that I'm always doing stuff for others....... never the less, I don't suffer fools and I don't like being used. I have had it happen to me in the past and have seen it happen to others all too often.

[Sprogster]

idun, moving to France as a retiree is very different from moving when you are much younger, because as you get older making new friends and learning another language gets more difficult.

Also if you have young children that more often than not opens doors to make friends with the parents of other children.

From my experience, as French people get older, the less they socialise outside family.

[idun]

I agree that it must be harder to learn french when one gets older, strikes me that learning anything new takes longer than it ever used to. And that is why I believe it so important to learn. Everything we have to do in every day life has to be done in french in France, even bad french like mine, why would anyone think any different. And there is ofcourse for many of us 'more' as we get older, ie hospitals and doctors and dentists to deal with, not these professionals responsibilty to translate and not some 'stranger' one has just met at the boulangerie and a couple of drinks with. Can you imagine, you move within the UK or even Channel Islands [:D] and ask your neighbour to help you with your tax form OR go with you for a gynae or proctology appointment, getting all the gory details.....really, would anyone do that.

Friends, not sure about that.......I was in France for a very long time and I was very friendly with quite a lot of parents whilst my kids were young, however, my best and long term friendships started when my kids were no longer young. And as my friends and I all have children of varying ages, then for all we vaguely knew one another for years previously, ie on bonjour terms, but no more, so our friendships started far later. And I have made other friends since, of all ages, some younger than me and some older. I do hope that becoming friends is not supposed to have a 'sell by/use by' date, that would be awful and I'll pass on that notion, thankyou all the same.

I reckon that I'll always be able to make friends, if I take to anyone and they seem to like me too, then we usually become friends or very friendly. It wouldn't be hard for me, even if I moved back to France now. They'd have to be a rum old lot for me to have no interest in anyone, where I moved to and I would certainly move on, I'm not talking about any british people, I mean french people.

[Quillan]

[quote user="idun"]Everything we have to do in every day life has to be done in french in France, even bad french like mine, why would anyone think any different.[/quote]

Wow now that is a BIG statement and quite frankly not true. I was out and about yesterday, bank, supermarket, doctors, laboratory, pharmacy and the car parts shop to buy new windscreen wipers for my car (I was caught on the hop with the latter, I would normally look up the French word for windscreen wipers, write it down to take with me) all without speaking French except for an odd "bonjour". To make my day the lady who owns the pharmacy said that a lot of English don't bother to speak any French were as at least I try and she said that in English. I should hasten to add that I do normally speak French with them but she and her assistant have been learning English and she likes me to correct their English as the older French find English very difficult to pronounce.

Filling out a French tax form is not that difficult even when you have a business. All I did was visit the Tresor Public, not the little one in the nearby small town but the one in the much bigger town 30 minutes away. They have a person there who deals with immigrants specifically and speaks English. I have seen them twice, once when I got here 11 years ago and another time when there was a change that I didn't understand. If something is really difficult or way beyond the scope of by basic French I use an interpreter. Whilst it is not perfect doing things this way it is possible.

Learning a new language when your older is for many harder and there is a lot of scientific evidence to support this. I read somewhere that language is like a song and after a certain age you find it much harder to hear the tune. When you learn to speak as a child you have to work at it and gradually it becomes automatic. The area of the brain that normally controls this is called the Broca's area. Once we become older speech becomes more and more automatic and the Broca's area goes completely in to automatic mode and stops learning. This is why many people, including myself, have problems with pronunciation, we have to teach the brain to start relearning sounds. Some people are unique and the Broca's area stays in learning mode all their life, these are normally those fortunate people who are multi lingual, speaking many languages which is why it is often referred to as a 'gift' when in fact it is really an abnormality within the Broca's area.

As to getting help from neighbours, well I have only done this once when I wanted to debloque a mobile phone but then I get on well with my neighbour, we look after each other's cats when we each go on holiday.

So learning French is a good thing to do and very helpful but I certainly wouldn't let it get in my way of moving to France.

 

[Chancer]

Well I have only once in 8 years come across someone that spoke English to me, OK I have always tried to speak French but in the early days I was pretty hopeless, even now people have to have the ear (or more likely patience) to understand me.

The time it happened to me was when the doctors surgery gave me directions to the analyse lab (its just over the road) after failing 4 times each time returning to hear the instructions again one of the women explained to me in quite good English.

The gods truth that is the only time ever, even when I was hospitalised.

Some of the friends I made at AVF Amiens did speak English and one of them wanted to practice, on another occasion a Parisien couple who had recently moved to the area said to me "would you prefer us to speak in French or English?" a gesture that really touched me as it was so insolite, I chose French though.

I honestly dont know how the non french speakers get by in my area, and there are a lot of them, my médécin speaks English, I dont know how well as we only speak in French but he has told me that he is unhappy and uncomfortable to be forced to speak in English with the patients that he has that have all been refferred to him one by the other.

[Quillan]

Where I am coming from is that not speaking or only speaking a little French may be a handicap but it is not the end of the world. I learned mine by a set of CD's (the Thomas ones) and 'having a go'. What I said was I didn't need to speak French yesterday not that I was being rude and forcibly not speaking French. Windscreen wiper, took it off, took it in the shop, the bloke looked and then sold me replacements. Apart from him telling me the price there was little conversation either in French or English, I doubt he speaks English anyway.

I deal with a lot of French people on a daily basis with my business and some of those that pick on my English accent talk to me in English. Hospitals, doctors, vets etc well for the more technical you can usually find at least one who speaks English. You do have to ask, they don't go round with big signs stuck on them. I usually start my conversation in French and when I get beyond my limited vocabulary I ask if they speak English for the technical bit, seems to work. You can get round anything if you try hard enough. Perhaps it's my old military training, everything can be done, sometimes you need a less direct approach to get there.

I am very envious of those amongst us who can speak better French than I, try as I do my French improves very slowly and some words I just can't get my tongue round when I try to pronounce. One of my big problems for example is saying ten hours and desert in French, they always sound the same for some reason but then people understand and at least I get a laugh. I doubt very much if I am alone in this. Quite frankly I have come across some English in France who profess to speak perfect French, even boasting about it, yet when they are talking to French people the French just don't understand a word yet they can (just about) understand me for some strange reason.

[ebaynut]

Idun wrote,

And there is ofcourse for many of us 'more' as we get older, ie hospitals and doctors and dentists to deal with, not these professionals responsibilty to translate and not some 'stranger' one has just met at the boulangerie

 

Does the hospital not provide a translator free of charge in France ??

I have recently had a minor op at a hospital in Cambridge and at the pre admission appointment, I had to fill in a form and one of the questions on it was " do you need an interpreter?".

I asked the receptionist " why does the doctor not speak good English" and she went on to explain that happily for me he did, but if  the patient did not then the hospital would provide an interpreter free of charge.

[Quillan]

[quote user="ebaynut"]

Does the hospital not provide a translator free of charge in France ??

[/quote]

No they don't, if you can't find and English speaking doctor or whatever and need a translator then it's down you to find one and for you pay. They don't have 'Welcome' in 27 languages like they do in 'Newham General' nor do the print documents in multiple languages. They spend the money on more important things like treating people. Last I heard the UK was spending something like £18bn across the whole country on translators inside the NHS, think how many people you can treat with that. [;-)]

[andyh4]

Q

 

I have to say that my experience is much closer to that of Idun and Chancer than yours.

Doctor - "pas un mot"

Hospital - " une peu" - and it was peu

Prefecture - I would have stood a better chance with Arabic.

Garage - are you joking?

Supermarket, Brico shed - bring your dictionary if you need to ask for something, because there is no other way.

In fact the best English speakers around us are the local vet (thankfully)  - whose English has improved greatly over the last 10 years, probabaly due to these stupid English who keep bringing their cats in - and the owner of our local bar/restautant, who helps from time to time with our French in return for us helping to improve English skills.

 

Clearly there are some parts of France where this is not the case, but to rely on it would be a big mistake.  Hence Idun, I, et al.  all suggesting that getting a good grounding is essential.

[idun]

Quillan as I have often said on here, I live(d) in the other France,

...... full of french people............who were not apparently  beholden to the

british  to speak english. I say that, as I simply cannot find any

proper description for those who move to another country and will not

learn the language, AND expect the locals to speak english. And frankly as no one is made to move, then why should being older ever be an excuse.

Let's face it, there are plenty of ways of getting around a sparse vocabulary, just needs a bit of good humour and people do play the game, I never ever had anyone who did not help me. From the butcher selling me a fresh pigs trotter, to buying some bricolage stuff which I have no idea of it's use or what it is called in either language, him at home sending me to Bricolage in the middle of a job. I've never envied anyone elses french, I do my best.

Let's try this

the other way round, if a french person moved to Liverpool or Leeds or

Newcastle, would they expect anyone to speak to them in french? I don't

believe that they would be so gonflé to be honest at least I sincerely hope not.

Ebaynut.......... a

translator would  be found...........an extra service that isn't charged

for, maybe it should be an add on and billed? certainly not

reimbursed...........in fact; why not? And it is the same in France, time wasted by staff who could be doing other things finding someone to deal with the non french speaker. I accept that holiday makers, second home

owners, being quite a different kettle of fish.

When I had my big stay in a french hospital, I was in a room with firstly a maghreban woman, who spoke french and then an italian woman who also spoke french. All of us had strong accents, but the hard pressed staff didn't have to have the run around looking for someone to deal with the very simple thing of being able to talk to us. What a waste of time and money that would have been.

[Chancer]

[quote user="Quillan"]

I am very envious of those amongst us who can speak better French than I, try as I do my French improves very slowly and some words I just can't get my tongue round when I try to pronounce. One of my big problems for example is saying ten hours and desert in French, they always sound the same for some reason but then people understand and at least I get a laugh. I doubt very much if I am alone in this. [/quote]

 

You surprise me with that example Q, were it the difference between desert and dessert I could understand but do you really pronounce dix heures (deez-eur) like desert (dezz-air)? Sorry but I dont know how to use the phonetic alphabet.

I know that I must pronounce cinquant ans the same as St Quentin as they both sound exactly the same to me when I hear them, mind you when an English guy said "Saint Qwentinn" I had no idea where he was talking about, when the penny dropped and I corrected him he told me thats what he had said.

[Russethouse]

We had friends with the family name of Quintin which they pronounced kan- tan

Surely the number is more like sank on ?

I'm hopeless at French so probably wrong :-)

[Quillan]

[quote user="andyh4"]

Q

Clearly there are some parts of France where this is not the case, but to rely on it would be a big mistake.  Hence Idun, I, et al.  all suggesting that getting a good grounding is essential.

[/quote]

Perhaps thats why the OP was looking to come down this way although as somebody else mentioned Spanish is the prefered second language here and I can't speak that anyway apart from 'Hola'. [;-)]

[Quillan]

[quote user="idun"]Ebaynut.......... a translator would  be found...........an extra service that isn't charged for, maybe it should be an add on and billed? certainly not reimbursed...........in fact; why not? And it is the same in France, time wasted by staff who could be doing other things finding someone to deal with the non french speaker. I accept that holiday makers, second home owners, being quite a different kettle of fish
[/quote]

Your not seriously saying that the staff in a hospital in France who speak English would only do so to a holiday maker or second home owner and not to somebody who has come to live here that has a problem speaking French?

Once you move away from nurses it is my experience that many, many, French doctors, surgeons and specialists speak English. They have to else they can't stay ahead of the game when it comes to their profession. I also found the better educated professionals from places like Paris etc often speak excellent English else they will never get on in the international environment. In fact the two languages that you really must know and speak are English and Spanish else your 'world' becomes a very small place. Great for me as I am nearly half way there. [;-)]

 

[Quillan]

[quote user="idun"]Let's try this the other way round, if a french person moved to Liverpool or Leeds or Newcastle, would they expect anyone to speak to them in french? I don't believe that they would be so gonflé to be honest at least I sincerely hope not.[/quote]

Well as it happens I have been in a shop in Belsize Park (according to the BBC thats where the bulk of the 400,000 French that live in London reside) where the French woman behind the counter did not speak English and had to get her daughter to translate for her. Likewie many of the shops are French, for the French and everything is in French. It is also the same now in Brighton, a small area in Wolverhampton and Nottingham. Combined with London these four places have the highest concentration of French in the UK, have a look on the Census website.

[Quillan]

[quote user="Chancer"]

You surprise me with that example Q, were it the difference between desert and dessert I could understand but do you really pronounce dix heures (deez-eur) like desert (dezz-air)? Sorry but I dont know how to use the phonetic alphabet.[/quote]

Yes sorry having a bad day today, it's ten o'clock and dessert. Spell checkers are wonderful things but they don't pick up grammar errors. I know it's crazy but I just can't get my mouth round the dessert sound so it comes out sounding like ten o'clock which is what brings on the smiles. [;-)] As well as having heart problems before I came to France I had a small stroke and lost speech (much to Mrs 'Q' pleasure) for about 8 months so even with English I have to think about pronunciation all the time. If it's the wrong time of day and I forget to pronounce properly I get some strange "he's drunk" looks yet the really funny thing is if  have a drink I pronounce better (both English and French, great excuse for a drink), weird or what?

[ebaynut]

Quillian wrote,

They don't have 'Welcome' in 27 languages like they do in 'Newham General' nor do the print documents in multiple languages. They spend the money on more important things like treating people. Last I heard the UK was spending something like £18bn across the whole country on translators inside the NHS, think how many people you can treat with that.

---

 

I agree that the host country should not have to pay for an interpreter, but is it really as much as £18bn?? Still, driving through London a few weeks backs, you could be right. [;-)]

 

But do the French spend the money they save on not supplying interpreter's go on more healthcare??

Seems to me what with the top up insurance that is needed in France , paying every time you see a doctor, paying "hotel" charges when staying in hospital, plus anything else the insurance company can manage to wriggle out of in the small print, that for the cost of all this to the individual it would cover private healthcare in the UK, yet alone the NHS which is FOC.

Plus you have taxes and social changes to pay way above anything in the UK for the working person. No I think the French government screw their own people good and proper, so any money saved will not be spent on more healthcare.

 

 

[Quillan]

[quote user="ebaynut"]

I agree that the host country should not have to pay for an interpreter, but is it really as much as £18bn?? Still, driving through London a few weeks backs, you could be right. [;-)]

 

But do the French spend the money they save on not supplying interpreter's go on more healthcare??

Seems to me what with the top up insurance that is needed in France , paying every time you see a doctor, paying "hotel" charges when staying in hospital, plus anything else the insurance company can manage to wriggle out of in the small print, that for the cost of all this to the individual it would cover private healthcare in the UK, yet alone the NHS which is FOC.

Plus you have taxes and social changes to pay way above anything in the UK for the working person. No I think the French government screw their own people good and proper, so any money saved will not be spent on more healthcare.

 

 

[/quote]

Well personally I have only paid to see the doctor and the dentist in France but then the money is back in my bank account within 48 hours. If I were really poor I wouldn't pay even that. I have had surgery in France, use of a scanner etc and it has not cost me a penny. Even better if I were back in England I would be paying prescription charges where as in France I get a 'wheel barrow' full of drugs and it does not cost me a penny either.

[Russethouse]

Q, If you are either a pensioner or had an ongoing condition you wouldn't pay for your drugs for anything in the UK (my husband has type 2 diabetes and hasn't paid a prescription charge for many years) where as my impression is that you only get free drugs pertaining to the disease you have in France....

Is that wrong ?

[woolybanana]

Correct, RH.