Learning to Speak French in France
It will help your long-term career, integration or holiday plans if you understand 100 per cent of what is being said and written, even if you yourself never attain absolute perfection in the written or spoken word. An exception is in the enclave of Monaco, where speaking good English, which suggests you've got a healthy bank balance, usually gets you a better reception than speaking passable French.
Although employees of multi-national companies will correspond, converse and prepare official reports, especially technical ones, between their national offices in English, in-house meetings and work will require a certain level of proficiency in French. All companies in France with more than ten members of staff are obliged to invest 1.6 per cent of their annual salary bill in professional training for employees if they don't have an internal company training division. Ideally, for foreign employees, teachers in external French-language teaching companies should be ex-business or technical people who have subsequently qualified as teachers of their language.
Unemployed people registered with the Agence Nationale Pour l'Emploi: ANPE (National Employment Agency) may be entitled to partially or completely subsidized French courses if they already have a basic level and can demonstrate that a better level will help to get them employment corresponding to their experience.
Finding a Language Course
Retirees, or anyone else who wants to improve their French primarily for personal or social reasons, have several possibilities. The Alliance Française (similar to the British Council) promotes the French language and culture through written and spoken teaching courses and the organisation of inter-cultural functions, shows and meetings. It has organisations in Antibes, Barr, Bordeaux, Brive-la-Gaillarde, Cap d'Ail, Cherbourg, Clermont-Ferrand, Dieppe, Dijon, Grasse, Grenoble, Les Sables d'Olonne, Le Touquet, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Nice, Paris (head office), Rouen, Saverne, Strasbourg, Thann, Toulouse, Tours, Tulle, Valenciennes, Vendôme, Vichy and Wasselonne.
Tour, in the Indre-et-Loire département , has the reputation of being the 'Oxford' of France because of the neutral, clear accents of its native inhabitants. The UK's Foreign Office has been known to send diplomatic staff there for French lessons. Interestingly, country people known as 'berrichons' from the Berry area which extends mainly over the two neighbouring départements of Cher and Indre have broad accents and heavily rolled r's. Canny Scotsmen who speak good French can pass themselves off as berrichons.
If you live or holiday in South-East France, Britanny or Normandy the English website www.angloinfo.com has information on language schools in these areas. The British Embassy (Paris) or the Consulate Office in Amiens, Biarritz, Bordeaux, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Calais, Dinard, Dunkerque, Le Havre, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes or Nice may also suggest websites to consult for information, although they cannot as a government organisation send out addresses for individual schools or give recommendations. Visit also www.britishembassy.gov.uk/france.
Other Ways of Learning
Qualified private or state-school teachers often advertise in small ads in shop windows. Classes arranged with these teachers directly on an ad hoc basis have advantages and disadvantages. You pay as you learn and stop when you want, and opting out is easy. The going rate is around 23€ per hour, which for individual tuition at your or their home is cheaper than a one-to-one class in language school premises. Students who advertise their teaching services, undercutting qualified teachers' prices, at around 15€ per hour, are not necessarily a good solution. Language school group classes should of course be cheaper than individual language school tuition.
Watching and listening to TV news, including weather forecasts, is good comprehension practice and reading the French sub-titles for English-language films on the Arte evening channel helps to speed up your reading rate. Sub-titles are necessarily summaries of dialogue and are not strict translations.
