Properties in
01 Planning your move
As the number of house buyers looking at France seems once more to be on the increase, we’re starting a little series today which will take you through all the steps from when you first have the idea of moving to France or just buying a Summer home here to settling in.
Over the course of our little series, we’ll cover all aspects of buying a house in France in enough detail to let you do it wit... full details
02c The Language: French for your children
As with yourself, there are two aspects of this ie what to do before you come here and what to do after you get here.
Before you get here, you should try to encourage your kids to enrol in French classes where they are available. If you're near a large town or city you may be able to enrol younger children in French language playgroups and the like. One thing that you shouldn't do is to ... full details
02a The Language: becoming fluent in French
After planning your move, the next most important thing is acquiring fluency in the language.
This aspect will take you the longest period of time so it’s best to start work on it first. You might think that it’s an impossible thing to do or that it will take many years. Fortunately neither is the case and even if you are starting from no knowledge whatsoever of the language yo... full details
02b The Language: staying fluent in French
In many ways, the hardest part of learning a language is maintaining your fluency.
If you have reached a good level of French before you move, you need to put the effort into maintaining that level of fluency which can often seem like a chore. If possible, you should continue with further courses through, for example, the Open University but if that’s... full details
02d The Language: the local language in France
This is one aspect of French life that is really simple. This is France, so everything is in French.
Well, almost. You didn’t expect it to be so simple as that, did you?
There are various regional languages in France from Breton in Brittany to Catalan in Catalonia. For the most part, these languages are barely paid lip service by the French authorities. For example, the capital of the Pyr... full details
