(This post is the first in a series of responses to the questionnaire posted at Would you like living in France. See the ‘expat requirements’ category for all posts in the series.)
The first question asked was ‘do you speak French?’.
Ah, obviously the answer is, there is no point moving to France if you can’t speak French.
Well, no, that isn’t the answer. We moved to France with more or less no French language skills – reckless perhaps, but it hasn’t done us any long-term harm.
To the best of my knowledge, we don’t actually know anyone who has moved out in the last few years who had anything like a good level of French speaking skills when they arrived (French degree students excepted).
Many people who profess to be fluent before arriving fade into silence when confronted with a ‘real’ French conversation. And many who admit to having studied ‘a little bit of French at school’ are really quite good.
So your own opinion of your level of French is likely to be wrong, at least until you get out and talking to French people. Your ability in communicating in French depends at least as much on your level of confidence as it does on your knowledge of verb conjugations.
Or more exactly, it depends on your lack of embarrassment when you are speaking very slowly and know you are making lots of mistakes. The benefit of evening classes before you come isn’t so much the actual words you learn, but the confidence they give you to ‘have a go’.
Note that I am not setting myself up as Mr Expert, I often lack motivation to sit and study, and don’t spend enough time practicing and learning. But even a small continuous effort pays off in the long term.
After you arrive you need to ensure you are having some kind of regular communication with French people, even if it is just striking up a little conversation in the bakers each morning. Reading, studying, learning, watching French TV etc all help but none is as efficient as a real five minute conversation with a French person.
Why? Because afterwards, when you realise what you said, and what you actually intended to say, you’ll cringe and be horribly embarrassed. But this embarrassment will guarantee that you remember what you said wrong, and will stop you making the same mistake again.
Don’t worry, there are plenty of other mistakes still to make in the months and years ahead, but at least you’re learning!
So in conclusion, the answer to the first question is: it doesn’t matter what your current level of French is, as long as you (honestly and truly) believe that you can make the effort to learn after you arrive.
The possibility of living in France and not speaking French at all – entirely possible and the option chosen by a remarkable number of people – is not one that I personally think is credible as a long term plan. Nonetheless it is possible.
So that’s the first tricky obstacle out of the way. In a day or two I’ll look at the financial challenges of moving to France…
You ARE right: there are only 45000 Brits in France (which for some will come back and also not many will go to France from now, as the houses in the UK are so expensive since 2004 that they cannot even sell them like they used to, for expatriating themselves) on a 62 million people population (for a big majority French).
Not to speak French in the long term is foolish. Besides, even now, with the Euro against the British Pound, and not having gone to the Iraqi war, the French feel, more than before, that they can reply in english (if they know some) or not when they wish, or not at all, when spoken to in their country in english, because they have that lever now and because they start to get tired of it.
Interesting: I’d been to France once since leaving school with O level French. Since 2004 I’ve been to Pyrenees Atlantiques 4 times and once to Paris. My French isn’t good – I don’t have enough vocabulary – yet I’ve retained a lot of the grammar. And my confidence is growing with every visit. I’m fortunate that my partner is a former French teacher so I don’t have to rely on my rusty school French in an emergency but I’m looking forward to making the move to the Pau/Tarbes area confident that I will at least be able to do more than ask for a baguette!
As is often the case when telling people you live in France, the question they ask is wrong. The most important thing to my mind, is, ‘Do you understand French?’ To which the truthful answer is, or should be ‘no’ Many of us can speak it at a level that indicates a better command than is the ‘actualitie’, and French people usually respond in French, which is where the problems commence for me. My usual rsponse is ‘lentement,or doucement s v p. (in full)’ which usually works.
When French people reply in (fractured) English, I always say, in French, that as I am a guest in their country, we must speak French. It usually gets a friendly smile and agreement and with a bit of luck I learn a new phrase or two.
Terry Burke
hi guys – can anyone recommend a good French language course in the Lourdes/Tarbes/Pau area?
I’ll be moving to Lourdes in April 2010 and looking for an intensive language course to kick start my life there!
Grateful for your recommendations!
Lina
Hi Lina,
First place to check is the local Mairie – a lot of departments (possibly all) run special courses free for new arrivals in a region.
They sometimes like to keep quiet about these courses, it took several years before we found out our own department does them.
But they will be more basic-intermediate than high-level intensive.
Take a look through the listings at our directory for some learn French courses – we get a reasonable number of intensive courses listed, might be one in your area
Cheers