Foreign Perspectives

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If you’re moving house that usually entails moving the car or cars that you have too. Easy enough if you’re not moving that far but if it’s across the country or internationally it’s a whole different matter.

That’s where car transport come into their own. They can take all the hassle out of the move. No lengthy drives to tire you out, not to mention not doing the car any good either, which is before you even consider the business of needing to check into a whole string of hotels along the way if the distance involved is sizeable.

Internationally is even more complex with requirements to re-register the car, change insurance and so on. With an international move, a qualified company is pretty much essential.

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At first thought, it probably seems to make a lot of sense to start speaking French to your children if you’re planning on moving to France and to keep doing that after you’ve moved. However, that first thought is very definitely wrong!

Unless you are a native French speaker, your accent, vocabulary and grammar just aren’t going to be perfect. Of these the accent is most noticeably a problem with many children from english speaking families still saying BON JUR rather than BOZHUR even many years after they have settled into a French school. However, both the vocabulary and the grammar are a problem too in that the French which children speak isn’t quite the same as that which adults speak so that you’ll often find it easy enough to chat in French to adults but really struggle in talking to their children.

Perhaps the greatest aspect of the problem is that if you stick to not-quite-perfect French with your children and they’re fairly young when you start down that path (say, under 5) then they may well grow up without any solid “native” language at all. This effect takes some years to be really noticeable but eventually you’ll find that you can’t explain how some aspect of grammar is supposed to work to them, not because your language ability isn’t up to it, but because they just don’t have a solid understanding of how any language works.

However, even if you get past those problems and are blissfully assuming that your children will grow up bilingual just naturally: you’re wrong, because they won’t unless you work at it. One of the most difficult people to speak to that I’ve ever met was an “English” estate agent who’d been born 20-odd years ago in France to English parents. He’d never been to England and never had the opportunity to even see British TV nor read English books or magazines so the only English he’d heard was from his parents. Net effect was that he had a perfect English accent when he spoke but was neither fluent not could he understand English spoken to him by anyone other than his parents. However, even these days few parents put any effort into building the English of their children and just assume that they’ll pick it up from them: this doesn’t work because the majority of English that you learn is at school therefore unless your children are going to a bilingual or english speaking school, they simply won’t learn it.

So, no, don’t speak French to your kids but do make a point of developing their english speaking, listening, reading and writing abilities.

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If you’re looking for property in North Carolina then you’ll find that the Charlotte area is a hard one to beat.

Some of the Charlotte homes are very much at the luxury end of the market with, of course, prices to match. For those prices though for the money being asked you can live on a Jack Nicklaus Signature Course community which is luxury with a capital “L” with 3/4 acre sites, real stone, real stucco and real wood.

Charlotte real estate is in an area which lends itself very much to luxury housing such as those above and in other areas such as Lake Norman Real Estate where you’ll find a wider range of housing options from waterfront condos through to historic villages as well as the golfing communities which I’ve already spoken about. The Lake Norman area is particularly well served with all the anciliary services that are required by a diverse community including good schooling options, leisuretime activities from fishing to nightlife and so it’s no surprise to learn that it was rated one of the top 100 places in which to live.

Whether you look towards the luxury end of the market with the golfing communities or towards the more regular lifestyle of village life this is one area which won’t disappoint.

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