Comments on: Can you speak French

By: Boris

Boris — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:46:57 +0000

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

By: Lina

Lina — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:09:44 +0000

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

By: Terry Burke

Terry Burke — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:57:59 +0000

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

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 19:22:38 +0000

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!

By: Pascal Henry

Pascal Henry — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 07:45:54 +0000

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.