Learning the Language

[Deimos]

For those with limited language skills I think how difficult things are depends on people’s individual characters. Fortunately not everybody needs to be fluent in a foreign language before visiting a foreign country. People do it all the time when going on holiday and they cope quite easily.

I can see how people with strong language skills think if might be very difficult for the rest of us but in practice people manage, have a good time and maybe locals appreciate the effort more. It might take longer to achieve something, to find things out, etc. but all the greater feeling of achievement when you do.

I am in the limited language category yet have (so far) managed quite OK. Crises always happen and you cope with them (you generally have little choice about that so you just get on with it).

I’m very much in the Lynda&Richard “camp” and would encourage people not to be put-off by language issues. Fine, learn all you can but if you wait until you have “enough” you will be moving into a French “Maison de Retraite”, not the house you currently desire.

Ian

[WJT]

Hi, I seem to remember reading that there was an emergency number to call in France for English speakers with medical emergencies but not sure where I saw this information.

I guess we fall into the bonkers category as well. We don't live there full time at the moment and have been taking French classes for the last three years or so as well as doing tapes and watching French television etc.. and are still rubbish. We did have help from our agent but were able to sort out most things on our own (out of necessity). I found with EDF and France Telecom and others after a few minutes they would start speaking English or soon ask me to hold and soon someone that speaks a little English is on the phone (very embarrassing). In my experience, in most cases if one makes an effort people do seem to be very helpful.

I cringe every time the phone rings with an unrecognisable number, in most cases they are just trying to sell something so not understanding them or speaking French well has come in handy in those cases .

I have also had a medical emergency and had to go to the hospital emergency room for treatment and stitches and was very worried about my poor French. They were absolutely wonderful, the doctor was terrific (extremely handsome by the way ) and a nurse was present that could speak a little English so managed to communicate.

There are cases where people do live in their own little bubble and do get by. We used to have a neighbour that was Cypriot and has a mother that lives on her own and is in her 80's and does not speak or understand a word of English after thirty years of living in the London area . He said she listens to the Greek broadcastings on the radio and just manages in the shops etc..  This also reminds me of a trip we made a few years ago to the states, we toured down the eastern coast and ended up in some very rural areas. In fact in Tennessee, the Smoky Mountains (very touristy area) where you would expect everyone to speak English. In a restaurant, I asked several of the staff (Mexican one of many, a long way from Mexico) where the toilet was and they did not understand me and had to go get someone that could. So it does appear that it is not only in rural France

Having said all that, I find it very frustrating not to be able to communicate with my neighbours properly. I can communicate on a basic level but certainly want more. I am just hoping by the time we are able to move there full time in a few years I will be much better, it won't be for lack of trying.

By the way, I think even the worst French speaker should learn to understand "Where is the toilet please" in French.

[GRT17]

"moving into a French “Maison de Retraite”,

Hopefully you will be fluent by the time you reach this stage otherwise you could find yourself well and truly in a fix and leading a very isolated life.

I don't think anyone here is saying you have to be really fluent or bilingual before you move to another country but " every little helps".

IMHO Having a holiday and living full time in another country are two quite different things.

rereading Richard&Lynda's posting, .......you can't be serious, can you?

G

[Renaud]

What everybody agrees on is that some sort of a grasp of the language is necessary before buying a house. Ranging from the bonkers end of the scale (moi) to the French classes most evenings swots.

The people that mystify me are those buying houses in Croatia ("Dalmatia is the new Dordogne" etc)* Whereas even my fellow bonkers can order a meal or mumble "Mousierdamme" as we enter a shop - how are the Brits in Croatia ever going to communicate? Amanda Lamb never quite seems to go into this.

*This mystifies a dalmatian of my acquaintance.

[zeb]

Well I'm bonkers as well!! I moved here three months after my partner and by that time he could speak reasonable French so he did all the shopping, the telephoning etc etc until one day he got fed up and said he wasn't coming out with me any more! So I got the tapes and Cds, had a daily "chat" with my neighbour, went to lessons (the first time was with a group - fat lot of good that was for me as I just sat and let everyone else do the talking). Anyway, slowly it came - I'm one of these people with a blank spot in my brain (or so it seems) so it was hard. My maths is good until it comes to algebra or trignometry, my French is good until I'm actually face to face with a French person and have to conjugate and then the blank spot kicks in!!

On my first trip out in the car alone, it was pouring with rain and the windscreen wiper broke. Luckily I had my cassettes in the car and I stopped in a layby, found the tape which covered car problems, practised what I was going to say over and over until I got to the garage, marched in with broken wiper in my hand and, before I'd opened my mouth the garage guy said in English "Would you like a new wiper fitted"!! Doh! Anyway, I'm Ok if ever I need a new wiper.

As I jokingly said on another thread, one doesn't need to learn the language now. The local bricos employ English speakers, the Charente Libre has an English web version of the paper and now, La Poste as their information on line, in French and ENGLISH!! But, my neighbours refuse to learn any English, thank God, so if I couldn't speak any French we would have a pretty poor relationship!

I used to get so frustrated and low as it seemed so difficult to learn and I have a business with French (and English) clients, so I had to be able to speak and write French fairly well. It's still pretty poor but I'm definitely getting better. Folks seem to be able to understand me now! You'll get there Lynda and Richard - if I can do it anyone can.

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Nice to see that we aren't the only 'bonkers' people out there!

And, yes, we are serious.    We are here for an adventure and immersion learning has definitely been the best way to learn.  We have learnt more in our three weeks here than we learnt on tapes in the last six months in Australia.  We bought our house (sight unseen) from an English-speaking agent (house was much better than described), we ordered our new car over the internet from Australia and it was ready for collection two days after we arrived, we have an English-speaking bank manager at Credit Agricole, EDF has given us our own English speaking person and their personal number to phone with any queries or help required, France Telecom in our department had an English speaking girl, etc.. etc..  We are somehow managing and having a great laugh at the whole thing.  Our Maire doesn't speak any English, but I just sat down one night with all my questions and my translator and put them into French on paper.  I gave him the paper and he was able to answer all my questions.  He even filled out the Declaration de Travaux for us!

We aren't saying that we only speak English.  We carry a translator each with us and 99% of our conversations are in very stilted French.  Because we are Australians, we are a bit of a novelty in our little town and all the locals just love saying 'Gidday' to us and are bending over backwards to guide us into the French language.  Because we are being embraced by our little town and everyone wants to talk to us (because we are wonderful people!), we are finding ourselves trying to speak French all day long, so it's really nice to come home and watch English Satellite TV!

I wanted an adventure..... and I've got it! 

Lynda

 

[Tourangelle]

[quote]Margaret, if you want to get into school teaching, I'd start by trying to improve your English grammar - its not really grammatically acceptable to say 'I'm wanting' even though David Beckham does...[/quote]

That sounds harsh, but having been through it I can confirm that to get into school teaching (of English) you have to be practically perfect in one language, and pretty good in the other, both at a written and spoken level.

Lynda and Richard, I'm glad it's all working out for you, but it takes years to learn a language, aren't you worried the novelty will wear off?

[WJT]

Lynda, I say good on you and best of luck to you. Gosh, by the way it does sound as if you have plenty of it as well. Cannot imagine buying a house sight unseen   It took us over a year looking at many houses and most if not all were a disappointment and usually much worse than the agents description. We ended up hiring a gite where I made it my business spending every day for over a month until I finally found our house. May I have your secret please?

Just as an after thought to my previous post above; MWJ, you do ask how people get on without being fluent in the language. Just out of interest, I believe you mentioned that you are currently living somewhere in the Middle East. Do you speak Arabic or are most of your contacts English or French speaking and if so how do you manage in the situations you mention?

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Hi WJT

I think we were fortunate with the house but even though we did buy it site unseen it wasn't expensive (only 68,000E) and we did insist on a builder inspecting it before purchase to make sure it was structurally sound (we also had a second opinion and he also concluded it was structurally sound). I think our specifications are quite liberal and we never worry about decor. All we wanted was a house in a quiet village with beautiful views, a garage if possible, not too big and a nice amount of land (we had too much land in Australia, never get time to make anything of it. A 1/4 acre is too much, we had nearly an acre).

We've bought and sold about 9 houses in Australia in the past 7 years (homes we've lived in and also rented out) so we have a fair idea of what we want. When we look at houses we do all the research on the type of house and location we want before hand and very rarely look at more than 2 or 3 before making a purchase. Long term I've never heard of a house losing money, we've certainly never experienced it thus far (not in Oz anyway).

As for the language again, we've just had a wonderful night out tonight with some of our closest French friends again barely speaking the lingo, but somehow it doesn't seem to matter, we seem to understand each other anyway.

Of course there will always be crisis in life, and I'm sure we'll get through it somehow as we always do. So far in our lives good times have outweighed crisis, but then a lot of it is about attitude anyway.

I dare say Lynda will add more to this thread in the morning but I thought I'd add my two penny's worth.

Richard

[Hewitts]

Well all I can say is "Good on 'yer" Lynda and Richard. I think you are very brave, and full of the "get up and go" which I have learnt to love about Australia and Australians.

[Opalienne]

I think it's great that people are managing to get by and enjoy themselves, too, with limited French.  But I really do hope that you are doing this on your own, and not relying on English neighbours to help you out all the time.   Sorry to sound an awful old grouch, but we are really fed up with some English people who arrived in our village 18 months ago and who still don't speak French.   They just haven't tried, and one of the reasons is that they have found us!

We are asked to act as interpreters and general guides when they have problems with builders, electricity, TotalGaz, fosse septique, CPAM - I even accompanied her to the gynaecologist!   We have tried saying "It's time you did these kind of things for yourselves" but when you are faced with someone tearful on the phone saying no-one understands, you give in rather quickly.   They are nice people and they probably don't realise how much of our time they take up, but how to get them to stop relying on us I just don't know.

 

 

[Teamedup]

Opalienne, you poor poor thing. I am very lucky. We were helped a bit and we have helped people a bit but everyone has done it and learnt. And even if 'the couple' haven't both managed usually one of them has.

 

 

[Patf]

Going on from Opalienne's point, the same thing can happen with a married couple too. When we first came husband spoke no french and understood only a little so I was constantly "on call" to communicate for him. I didn't find it easy either so often felt my head was bursting. The phone was worst - still is. So our relationship was quite strained for a while. Now he understands better tnan me ( he says I don't listen properly) and can make himself understood in french. Pat.