I am moving to Paris, what the h**l should I know???

Question

I studied the French language for 4 years in high school, But are there any other things i should know?

Answer 1

I hope you can at least have a basic conversation with the locals (i.e. - have you had a chance to really use the language so that it rolls out fairly well), because I heard that unlike some European countries, very few people in France can really speak English, so it's hard to get by if you hope to depend on your English at all. I studied Spanish for 2 years in high school and 4 in college, but didn't learn conversation skills till I actually used it at my old job. Good luck.

Answer 2

probablement ou tu comptes loger... ca serait une bonne idée de prévoir ca à l'avance si possible.

Idéalement, il te faudrait un contact à paris pour te donner un coup de main, si tu peux en trouver un. Mais bon, ca, c'est vrai pour n'importe quel pays, après tout, donc...

Pour ce qui est de parler anglais, les parisiens sont quand meme plus anglophones que le reste de la france, donc t'auras pas de problemes si tu oublies 1 mot de temps en temps, donc t'inquiete pas. (garde quand meme un dictionaire avec toi, ca peut quand meme etre utile)

Sinon, si tu veux des infos plus specifiques, alors je te conseille de voir avec le site l'ambassade americaine http://www.amb-usa.fr/consul/acs/guide/d... il y a pas mal de choses interessantes à lire, surtout vu que c'est expliqué du point de vue d'un americain. (enfin, c'est surtout interressant si tu es americaine, bien sur... si tu es australienne, il y a peut etre des comparaisons qui pourraient n'avoir aucun sens pour toi. Dans ce cas, tu ferais peut etre mieux de jeter un oeil sur la page de ton ambassade.)

in english :

might be a good idea to know where you're going to live before you get here, if possible...

It wuold be best if you already had a contact here in paris to help you out. But I guess this would be true for any country.

As for speaking english, the citizens of paris are more fluent than the rest of france, so you should have any problem there. So if you worry about forgeting a french word, don't hesitate to use an english word in the middle of a sentence if you really need to. (keep a dictionnary with you nonetheless. It could come in handy anyway)

And if you want more specific information on paris, you migh want to visit this website :

http://www.amb-usa.fr/consul/acs/guide/d...

It's the american ambassy webpage and hold a lot of usefull information. most usefull since it's explained from an american perspective. (well, it would be usefull if you're american... if you're australian, there might be a few things you don't care about in there... in that case, browse your ambassy's webpage ;) )

If you want a contact in paris, or want ot ask a few pointed questions to a french guy, send me a message