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20/11/2007, 19:16 Jura Joined on 28/11/2005 Posts 805 Re: Moving with a reluctant teen? - views welcome Well, the general consensus is that if you cannot speak French then you should not be here, or consider coming here...right?. Is France a  'members only club' of some sort?.      Report

20/11/2007, 19:16 DerekJ Joined on 19/10/2007 Surrey and the Lot Posts 256 Re: Moving with a reluctant teen? - views welcome I struggle with the view that the French should be able to speak English as a requirement to live in their own country. I would agree that if a French person wishes to do business in an international environment the current requirement is likely to be that they speak a degree of  English... and probably in the near future Mandarin. But if their lives or business is purely within the bounds of France why would one expect them to speak English? To do so would be pure arrogance in my view. Derek    Report

20/11/2007, 19:19 Jura Joined on 28/11/2005 Posts 805 Re: Moving with a reluctant teen? - views welcome Derek, they don't need to speak any english at all...just be more tolerant of those who cannot speak French that well at the off .    Report

20/11/2007, 20:17 Iceni Joined on 23/08/2004 Lot 46 Posts 3,038 Re: Moving with a reluctant teen? - views welcome  Jura wrote: I am not 'doting' in the sense you make out, and please do not be so condescending. My son is making every effort. So your 21 year old son chooses to live in a country where he does not speak the language and then you whine that those nasty Froggy-woggies won't employ him.  Many might have expected you to have learned from your other son's experience as a non French speaker but you have either failed so to do or did not impart the information.  Or perhaps it is just a great conspiracy against you and yours ? Maybe this would be a good opportunity to follow the example of Norman Tebbitt's father ? John not Di How do I get MY free website?    Report

20/11/2007, 20:43 raindog Joined on 26/09/2007 HERAULT Posts 796 Re: Moving with a reluctant teen? - views welcome  Jura wrote: Well, the general consensus is that if you cannot speak French then you should not be here, or consider coming here...right?. Is France a  'members only club' of some sort?.   It dosen't bother me whether people who choose to live here can speak French or not, but I wouldn't expect them to whinge and complain about France if they couldn't. If you go and live in Italy, Spain, Sweden or any other european country, surely you must expect to learn the appropriate language or simply muddle by. sociability is just a big smile and a big smile is nothing but teeth    Report

20/11/2007, 23:04 Sprogster Joined on 23/08/2004 Var & C.I. Posts 359 Re: Moving with a reluctant teen? - views welcome Jura, According to French government statistics, average unemployment in France for under 25 year olds is 23%. In certain rural areas it can be as high as 60%. Employers in France are extremely reluctant to take on young employees French or otherwise, because of the difficulty in letting them go if they can't do the job, because of unduly restrictive employment laws that the new President NS wants to change. That is one of the main reasons so many young French people move to London. I have never understood why anyone would want to take nearly adult children to a country that has one of the worst youth unemployment rates in Europe, as even if your daughter spoke fluent French there might be no increased likelihood she could find reasonable paid work.    Report

21/11/2007, 11:18 Deby Joined on 23/08/2004 Posts 641 Re: Moving with a reluctant teen? - views welcome Cant quite get my head around the dont come to France unless you speak the lingo bit!  How on earth do you learn a language then?  Most people only really start to speak a language when they are in the country?? I could count to 10 and that was it at first now I speak it well enough! This lady only asked for opinions and boy did she get them, I wish people would be a little less aggressive when they impart the opinions, you can say the same things and get your point across, but does it have to be so aggressive?!  I do wonder how people go through life with this attitude and seem totally unfazed by it and how it affects others - are they permantly having a bad day.   Deby http://www.chateau-de-clerac.com    Report

21/11/2007, 12:37 Eos Joined on 10/09/2007 Leinster / Herault Posts 185 Re: Moving with a reluctant teen? - views welcome I asked my teenage daughter about this post. She too would be a reluctant teen if we were to move ANYWHERE right now. She's a bright girl who speaks French quite well and, as is common with most of us, understands a little more than she might be able to say. We have many French friends so that wouldn't be an issue and she's also very familiar with our area of the country and would know some of the teachers in the local secondary school. She's about to do her first set of public exams next summer and therein lies the problem as she sees it. If we were to move, she would never know how far she could have gone with this system in which she has invested so heavily. Education is a bit of a game for her and she enjoys the whole process. We have three years til she goes to uni, wherever that journey might take her. We missed the boat perhaps when we decided against a permanent move when we first bought our house in France five years ago. As those five years have passed so quickly though, we have three years til she goes to uni, wherever that journey might take us!! An apology is a good way to have the last word.    Report

21/11/2007, 13:47 Albert the InfoGipsy Joined on 01/07/2006 Kingdom of the Middle Saxons & Vannes (56) Posts 633 Re: Moving with a reluctant teen? - views welcome We first considered moving to France when our eldest was 14. We decided not to disrupt his education at a fairly critical stage and then his brothers followed on so we decided to stay in the UK until our youngest was completely off our hands. Language wasn't a problem -- my wife was French, all the boys fluent to bilingual and my French is good enough for work. If our circumstances had allowed us to move even two years earlier then it would have been very different. Albert the InfoGipsy "So welcome to the Citadel where the question is 'Am I?'"    Report

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France Forum » Living » French Educatio... » Re: Moving with a reluctant teen? - views welcome

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