Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Relocating’ Category

Poor little John is scared to go out of doors at the moment as he can barely stand up in the wind at the moment!

So far we’ve had no snow though sometimes it has seemed cold enough for it. That’s a bit misleading of course in that the wind chill factor makes it seem a good deal colder than it really is and in fact this morning it was actually warmer outside than it was inside the house!

It is pretty dreadful weather for this time of year though. Ordinarily, we’d not be expecting such severe winds until February and even then only for a short period rather than for days at a time as we’ve been having lately.

I’d like to say that we’ve been using all the time indoors to get caught up on the Winter schedule of activities but instead we’ve been busy organising our Christmas holiday over the last week or two. Still, at least that’s booked now so we just need to source a turkey to take to Spain at some point in the next month or so (Wendy won’t get it in Spain as they do unspeakable things there including leaving the head on!).

A long time ago, I was brave enough to ask the question which many are afraid to ask: do you need to speak French if you want to live in France?

It’s not such a simple question to answer as it might appear. For one thing, there are many expat enclaves throughout France where, by and large, English is the only language used. Within these enclaves, the shopkeepers and so on can be expected to speak English and indeed even if you speak French to them, they’ll reply in English. So, yes, you could live in France without speaking French.

However, in many other areas (most of France in fact) you couldn’t do that. The locals either cannot or will not speak English. After all, why should they be expected to? It is France after all. Except that everywhere else in the world the locals DO speak English: that’s why people expect to be able to move to France without speaking French.

Funnily enough, just a few miles south in Spain the locals won’t speak Spanish and actually insist on using English. Well, to be fair that’s Catalonia and few people outside it ever have the opportunity to learn Catalán which tends to dictate the use of English with foreigners.

Buying a house isn’t just your ordinary purchase, it’s about buying a place that will become your home.

People often overlook that in the rush to buy a place to live and end up with a house that’s not really suitable for their needs or one which is in an area that doesn’t have the amenities that they need. For example, if you have kids, it’s important to consider the schools in your chosen area and think about how your children will get to the school that they’d be going to.

For that matter, will the school even accept them? You can be very unlucky if your house is at the wrong side of the road in some areas as that can mean a different school district. As regular readers will know, we didn’t follow our own advice here and instead of being able to go to the school 1 mile away as we had assumed, junior has to go to a school over 20 miles in the other direction which is down to our house being at the wrong side of the road!

These complications make real estate one of the most complicated purchases that you’ll make and therefore it’s best to do as much research on an area as you can before you start narrowing it down to looking at specific properties.

If you’re looking at specific areas eg Atlanta Homes for Sale or Charleston Real Estate, think carefully about the search parameters that you are using. Don’t think that you can squeeze into a place with fewer bedrooms than you’d planned because you probably can’t and likewise think about adding another bathroom to your requirements if your children are approaching their teens.

Likewise, watch how you specify the area. Zipcodes are great things to narrow the search but they can change when you cross the street so try those for neighbouring areas too. Sometimes you can find fantastic bargains that way eg move outside the Beverley Hills zipcodes (90210, 90211 and 90212) and you’ll find that the prices drop dramatically whilst the quality of area remains high.

You’d think that France and Spanish culture in the areas along the common border would be very similar after so many years of that border being open but there are still considerable differences.

For example, as soon as you cross the border, you see girls sitting or standing by the roadside. They’re prostitutes yet you don’t see any by the roadside just over the border in France. OK, that’s probably down to some legal difference, but even so.

What’s not down to a legal difference is that in France the restaurants serve food from noon to 2pm. After that, you’re basically talking the likes of McDonalds if you want to eat. Yet drive a couple of miles south and you’ll find the Spanish will serve food most of the day with no really sharp cut-off times at all. Moreover the portions are considerably larger and the prices considerably lower.

It looks like it’ll be generations before that difference starts to fade rather than the few years that many expected it would be.

Whilst it’s peculiar to think of the difficulties faced when immigrating to the UK, that’s a situation that we will be finding ourselves in within the not too distant future so we’re considering some of the logistics.

Even for “native” English speaking children it’s not as easy to do as you might expect.

Why? Well, in our experience most people returning to the UK are doing so after they’ve been abroad at least two years and normally it’s more than five years. For simplicity, let’s take the case of a five year stay abroad of a British child who then returns to the UK schooling system.

If they were just born when the family emmigrated, then the child would be about five and therefore be starting primary school. You might think that would be fine but if they’ve been playing with non-English speaking children for those five years it’s not quite so simple. For one thing they won’t know the english words for all the toys nor the name of the TV shows. That’s even if they speak english at all of course because some emmigrants try to immerse their family in the local culture and language. However, this is by far the simplest point.

What about, say a six year old, moving back at age 11. They will find it fairly difficult as they’ll have picked up a lot of the foreign language in school and will need to learn the english words for all those terms. In fact, it’s generally the case that kids of that background can only speak english to their parents and other english speakers find them virtually impossible to communicate with in english so you can imagine the problems they’ll have in their initial period in an english speaking school.

The worst ages come later though. Someone trying to start A-levels who’d been abroad since they were 11 would have severe problems. They’d not know any of the specialised vocabulary in english for the various subjects that they’d studied. In fact, they’d almost certainly have to go to english classes before trying to get into a school. These problems are magnified a little more if they’re trying to get into a British university but haven’t gone through British A-levels.

So if you are planning on returning to the UK after a stay abroad of more than a few years, don’t just assume that your kids are english speaking because, in most cases, they are far from fluent in english and certainly very far from fluent in academic english.