Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Relocating’ Category

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.

One thing that’s very noticeable in Valencia is that everywhere you see employment vacancy signs which implies quite a strong local economy.

As in other places in Spain there’s building work going on just about everywhere but it doesn’t seem so intrusive as it does in some cities (notably Madrid) with many quiet areas around the city. There’s more of a laid-back feel about the city too: everyone is certainly going somewhere yet they’re not going at the hectic pace you often see in Barcelona.

With the building work, there’s certainly money to be made in property speculation of course and the apartment we rented was owned by a relatively young Spaniard.

And the banks? It seemed like almost wall to wall banks in most of the central area of the city. Both more branches and a much wider variety of banks that I’ve seen anywhere outside London. They’re all competing for business too with many offers available on loans, credit cards and so on.

I’ve been going back and forth to Northern Ireland for quite a while now but in the past year it’s started to change quite dramatically.

For instance, the elve taking the money for the Santa photos was Polish and just about all the waiters/waitresses in the hotel were Polish. In fact, Polish workers are seen just about everywhere in Northern Ireland now.

The immigration to Northern Ireland is probably more striking than it is elsewhere in the UK in that there was virtually no immigration to Northern Ireland as recently as three or four years ago. So far, it’s not really changed much about the province but I’m sure that’ll change as the new immigrants settle into live there and start wondering about a few of the peculiar things that go on.

Actually, no, it isn’t.

Obviously you can take it as read that it will be much warmer in the south of France during the Summer than it is in the UK but once you get into the December to February period it’s almost always the reverse situation that applies.

For instance, in the last week I was running around Belfast sweating with the heavy coat that you’d think would be required at this time of year in Northern Ireland yet in fact that coat is the one that you actually need in the south of France at the moment.

So, don’t just make the assumption that if it’s warmer somewhere in the Summer that it will be just as much warmer in the rest of the year because often it isn’t.

As usual when there’s a Spanish holiday, we were pretty much completely full over the last couple of days and yet nobody took a breakfast!

In some ways that suits us as it gives us a bit of a break from the need to get up very early to do the breakfasts.

But why don’t they take them though? They certainly take breakfasts in hotels in Spain so why don’t they take them in France? Although it’s hard to give a definitive answer I suspect that it has a lot to do with the absolutely pathetic excuse for a breakfast that you get in most French establishments although funnily enough the price is the same or even higher than for breakfasts in the Spanish equivalent and in Spain you get a very full breakfast for that money.

So, it’s probably down to the French not really “doing” breakfast as a proper meal.