Moving to France - school age children who don't speak French

[Mrsmoo28]

So, we're getting disillusioned with life in the UK. You've heard it before, I guess . We're worried about loss of family values, cost of further education, house prices etc etc.
We've sold our house and can't find an alternative after looking++. We could afford to rent / buy a good property in France and we could afford not not work for a year or so or could return home to contract to bring money in whilst we learnt the language / established longer term plans. We have 2 children 7 and 6 who are settled at an outstanding primary and are very bright.
DH and I speak minimal French but are willing to learn. We'd be thinking of putting the children in a French school.
We have had an itch pre and post children but don't want to scratch it to the detriment of our little people.
Thoughts please?
Positives and negatives, realities and correct/incorrect stereotypes welcome.
Thanks

Be very careful of people like Iflyaway saying things like: "Your kids are at the age where they would pick up French in no time."

There is a lot of myth around children picking up languages like sponges. Your children will be in for a hard slog to learn French, it will not happen through exposure alone. They will need to hit the books: grammar, spelling , conjugation. The French system is old fashioned and merciless: rote learning, punishments, public embarrassment for those deemed under par, very little provision for SN. It is not just another country, it is a whole other world.

"Learning languages to genuine written and spoken fluency takes years. Of course it's doable and not related to academic status, but it takes years."

This is a very British perspective. If you are exposed to a language enough you'll learn it - the problem for English speakers is that the internet has made it too easy for expats to live in an English speaking bubble.

Younger children learn quickly once in immersion - they might not have quite the same vocabulary as monolingual native speakers, but variations in vocabulary size are common in monolingual people too. It doesn't mean you can't speak the language.

I recall my DD's French pre-school teacher being bemused when, age 3 or 4, it emerged that she didn't know the word for toothbrush - even though her French was otherwise excellent (and ahead of native speakers of her age). But it's fairly obvious if you think about it for half a second that young bilingual children may not know words for common household objects in their "community" or "school" language, because these are not necessarily words they would encounter in the classroom. It does not mean they are not bilingual/fluent.

Don’t do it.

It’s really hard to integrate in France even if you do speak the language.

Your kids are young enough to make the transition. I agree with all the posters above who say it takes years for them to become really fluent.

If you do go, keep a property in the UK - this is really good advice.

Anything nice you can buy in France will be cheap because it’s rural nd there are no jobs/infrastructure.

How well tbey do depends on the quality of language input they vet at home as well, I see many English-speaking children here who are fluent native-accented French speakers BUT lacking all the extra baggage of richer, more sophisticated and varied home conversation, and whose English lags far behind where it should be, because although it is native speech and used every day it is just transactional stuff and stagnates around the age they were when they arrived in France. Many of them don't read in both languages at an age appropriate level ( ie younger children's books in the native language and only school books in French).
I also see adults who have lived here for years who still can't speak French at anything remotely approaching a level that they could use for anything but eg a fruit-picking job, and they are consequently stuck in the English speaking ghetto, which seems a pity.

Get, not vet.

Madamfrog: but all that is true of native speakers too. We live in a relatively deprived part of southern France and my English-French-Spanish trilingual daughter has far more cultural baggage, in all her languages, than many of her monolingual peers. This is nothing to do with languages and everything to do with social class.

Ok so a couple of people have mentioned it , but not enough - BREXIT

As of next march you will not be an EU Citizen so will not have the right to reside in France. Yes they won't though people out who have the right paperwork - but to get a carte de sejour you need to be able to speak French and prove that you can support yourself (ie have a job or a business with enough years of operation or a decent pension) Savings do not count as being able to support yourself. You will not be able to get work if you don't speak French.

As for the children - the biggest problem is that they will miss out on the CP year of schooling, which is the most important year of primary. They will no doubt catch up eventually but redoubling a year of primary is likely. Fluency in 6 months is a joke - yes they will be able to talk and follow lessons, but it will take years before they are at the same level as their peers.

Cheap houses in France are cheap for a reason - they are in areas where there is little work and the houses need a lot of work to modernise them. Heating them in winter costs €€€ so many French pefer to go for the modern builds rather than plough money into old property. Selling French houses takes forever, once you buy one you are stuck with it.

We have been here for 15 years and have made it our home, but it has not been easy and I wouldn't recommend it.

Oh and if the cost of further education is a problem bear in mind that there is no student loan system here, and while unis don't have fees many other establishments do. We are currently paying 12k€ for our DD1 (including her living costs) if we couldn't pay it she wouldn't be able to do that course. DD2 is going in September and while her course has no fees it will still cost us 7k€ for her to live in the city.

*throw people out obviously! must learn to proof read.

@frenchfancy - what I thought. Thanks for clarifying.

You don't need to be C1/C2 to be fluent. Even the CEFR says B2 is :

"Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialisation. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options."

C1/C2 is proficiency/mastery. C2: Can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read. Can summarise information from different spoken and written sources, reconstructing arguments and
accounts in a coherent presentation. Can express him/herself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in more complex situations."

Not saying B2 is easy or quick from zero though.

I would be wary OP. French grammar is a bitch. My DC were born in French speaking Switzerland in a non expat community so only spoke English with me, pre-school and friends were all French. After 3 years of local school DC1 was finally up to speed with her class mates in terms of grammar, writing etc but it was a push to get there and she had lived there almost 7 years. Her English reading and writing was non existent, that was the trade off we had to make to ensure she could totally concentrate on her French.

I personally don't like the French school system, but some do.

It will probably take you a long time to learn French. I had A level French and lived for 10 years in France and French speaking Switzerland. I could chat to my neighbours, attend parents evening etc etc but still really struggled in the business world. Please don't underestimate how hard it is to learn a foreign language as an adult.

Anyway, goodluck.

I moved to England in primary school and after about a year my English was OK. Not bilingual by any means, and I won’t say “fluent” as clearly that means different things to different people, but good enough for any conversation and good enough to keep up at school. (For adults, the process in my experience is much slower, not least because it is harder to achieve the same level of exposure – you will not be surrounded by French speakers all day.)

But yes, kids will in time pick up the language and catch up with peers academically. However, emotionally, I found the first year was very tough: adapting to a new culture, a different education system, making new friends, etc, etc, all alongside learning the language. It is not something I would want to put my kids through unless I was planning to stay in that country for a few years as you would just end up enduring the slog and the upheaval and miss out on the eventual rewards.

Ultimately, though, I think the biggest issue with your plans is finances. Commuting to a different country is expensive (flights, accommodation) and will hinder your efforts to really settle in France. The housing market there does not have a reputation for steady price rises, so if you sell in the UK you may struggle to buy in the UK again in the future should you wish to move back. (Good schools also fill up so kids may not be able to go back to the one they were at.) After a year (and perhaps even years), your French is unlikely to be good enough for a proper job in a French company. There are, of course, some professional jobs in multi-national companies where language will be less of an issue, but how realistic it would be to get such a job would depend on your CV, where you are in France, etc.

You need a firm, realistic plan for work, housing and finances, and a detailed budget to be sure that it could all work. Otherwise you risk exposing the whole family to a lot of heartache with no certainty of being then able to return to where you left off if it does not work out. And I offer this note of caution as someone who has lived in a number of countries, is generally up for adventure and values multi-cultural and multi-lingual experiences.

My children are bilingual (En/Fr) ans we have always lived in France. So many friends and family say "they are so lucky!"

I know they are lucky, I love that they are balanced bilinguals but it takes a lot of effort on the part of the parents Nd no small effort for the children Learning to read and write to a decent level in two languages takes effort.

My children are trilingual, they speak English, we live in Brazil so they speak Portuguese and we lived in Chile for 6 months, so they learnt Spanish. But they were bilingual when we went so the jump from Portuguese to Spanish is not that hard. It really does depend on the children, the parents and the language/culture/school. In South America and especially as we don't/didn't live in big cities it is not common for anyone to speak English very well. Even the school English teachers! So my children had no one that could ease them in, speak to them or translate for them. In the long run this actually speeds up the language learning process. France would be different but the danger is they could come to rely on the people that initially help them.

As for learning another language from scratch in a short space of time. I think, again it depends on the children. My children were 3, 6 and 8 when we came to Brazil. The 8 year old was at pre-school in Brazil until he was 3 and then educated in England and America before going back, so it was easier for him. It was much more difficult for the three year old, he refused to speak for at least 8 months and just had daily fights at school, he has special needs so his experience will not be standard. He is now very happy and fully bilingual.

For the other two it was hard as well, there were many tears and BIG hurdles. It is not rose tinted at all. It also meant that they were already bashed by life when we went to Chile for 6 months, so that experience was much easier. Brazil was a little more difficult, but they had already lived in two different countries, so they were not as nervous as perhaps they would have been if they had lived all their lives in the UK up until that point.

The reason children often become fluent is based on the type of work they do. School isn't just about playground interactions, there is often questions like "In your opinion....blah blah" they develop critical thinking skills in another language. It is absolutely possible for children to become fluent in 6 months. It really will depend on so many factors though.

For you personally are you sure you want to go through the difficulties of living in another country? Even after all these years and with a full time job in Portuguese I find daily interactions much more difficult than I found England and the USA. Play dates for example can be so annoying to arrange and occasionally I will avoid them, I try not to do this but it is hard some days. Parents meetings for things similar to the PTA etc can be very difficult. You have the ideas in your head but not the words to express them. You cannot express yourself with ease, but you have to deal with the nitty gritty of everyday life, not just the supermarket and buying clothes. For a long time I was desperate to talk to someone, or anyone other than my husband and children. I got frustrated and lonely until my language skills turned a corner. My husband is native to the country we live in and fluent in Spanish and I found it hard enough, I cannot imagine how much more difficult it would be if both parents are not native level fluent. It's doable and I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. I think everyone should try things rather than spending your life playing it safe. But you have to be very very strong to go through it.

Thank you for the wealth of information. I guess it's difficult to know what to do. Jump or not to jump. Regrets, no regrets.

Can you do a trial jump?

IMO, although DC brought up bilingual in the way of immersion might struggle academically because of it, there is still a trade off to be made. Bilingualism is a massive skill and an understanding and fluency in two cultures is a gift as well. If they lose out a little at school because of this, I am not worried about that. I don't think life is all about school grades.

I don't think it's especially easy or (arguably) even possible for children to learn a language before moving somewhere. Adults who are motivated and determined, yes. Children just don't tend to pick it up though unless they want to. That's why they pick it up so fast when they do arrive. I appreciate everyone has a different opinion, but it doesn't matter IMO if this is simply functional - because it's much easier to pick up and improve upon a language base which already exists than to start from scratch.

It probably is easier if you have one parent speaking each language but it's not the only way. And it is usually possible to find groups of English speakers in order to keep your own sanity intact, even though this does hamper your own integration - it's perfectly fine to choose both? I know loads of people in my local English speaking network who speak excellent German and interact with Germans more than English speakers right down to those who stumble through interactions at the supermarket. Most of us sit somewhere in the middle - it's just about finding your niche/groove and where you're happy really.

Mrsmoo jumping could be the right option, as long as you're doing it with your eyes wide open, not with some fluffy naive fairy tale idea that everything will be sunshine and wine on the terrace of your idyllic yet incredibly inexpensive French cottage, with your delighted neighbors while your children prattle away in perfect French to their new friends, 3-6 months in...

But I think this thread has probably already made that clear

It's not that it's a bad idea, it's just that you should be prepared to work hard for years at integrating yourself and the kids if you really want it to work. So many people move overseas either without really realistic expectations or despite reservations and end up desperately unhappy. If you're moving to a country where none of you speak the language you have to be very determined to make it work and know that there will be times you feel desperately miserable, isolated and hopeless as well as times you think it's the best thing you've ever done.

Eventually you'll just be "home" but that really takes a long time to be a permanent feeling rather than part of an emotional rollercoaster.

While i was one of the postwrs steessing how hard fluency in a second labguage is and how long it takes, that soesnt mean it would be a bad move. You jusr have to be realistic. I've moved abroad twice - three times if you count moving from Wales to England - and have had very positivr experiences on the whole. I just think you need to explore it properly. And there are lots of international schools around if you wanted to make it easier for the children although they are of course fee paying.

Whereabouts in France? I live in central Paris and love it, but wouldn't live in the French countryside if you paid me. Living in the French countryside is nothing like living in the English countryside. Houses that are cheap are cheap for a reason and if they are cheap to start with they will very likely be difficult to sell if you change your mind and want to come back. I don't think picking up French will be a problem for your children, I think the fact that neither of you speaks Frenchis much trickier. This comment sums it up for me It takes a lot of effort on the part of the parents and no small effort for the children. Learning to read and write to a decent level in two languages takes effort. My kids are bilingual, educated in the French system (which will be a massive shock to your dcs' system if they have already started school in England). It might look effortless to monolingual family and friends, but it takes an enormous effort to keep up both languages. Ultimately I think it's worth it, but it takes work. If you want to give it a try I would rent somewhere for a year, put your kids in school and then you will start to get an idea how feasible it is going to be for them, but more importantly for you.

I work in France a fair bit and I’d say go for it.
Kids will pick up the language and I like the French educational system which starts reading later and is excellent at maths.
Childcare is sooo much cheaper in France at nursery.
I really think they have everything there in terms of holidays and culture.
There are negatives but I have worked in France or for French companies for years and like their work life balance and better attitudes to food (for kids).

We did this but in Spain. Only regret was we didn't keep a property in the UK so it would have been easier to jump back in when we came back after 8 years.
We spoke no Spanish and DS was 10 when we went. State school rather than International. Some people thought we were mad and would wreck his education. He passed all Spanish exams with flying colours and returned to UK to go to University and did a post grad at Oxford. Speaks 4 languages, 2 fluently.

Worked for us but it's not easy and is a risk, especially if your children are happy and settled at their current school.

My only advice would be if you are going to do it, do it sooner rather than later from an educational point of view as the older they get the harder it will be for them to adjust.
Good luck whatever you decide to do.

golondrina Tue 19-Jun-18 13:15:31
You don't need to be C1/C2 to be fluent.

I teach ESL and B1 is what I call minimal functioning in a language, B2is the same but with ease in the language. To have anything remotely like an easy 2-way conversation on politics with the neighbour or get what you want in a meeting with the planning department or school teacher, then you need to be at a C1/C2. Without a doubt. Don't underestimate the degree to which you will have to learn the language to feel at ease in French society and help your children with their homework.

I taught EFL for nearly 20 years (admittedly not in France) and I would say B2 is fluent. Maybe we have different ideas of what fluent means. A good B2 can manage perfectly well, C2 is much much more than fluent, C1 I would call a high level of language ability.

I agree that fluency is an unhelpful word. It means different things to different people. As someone who lives in the second language, I can attest that meaningful, rich interactions in a good range of social spheres is still pretty difficult at B2. But I agree, some people may be satisfied with the ease that communication at B2 brings. It depends on what you compare it to.