Quote:
Originally Posted by jaxie
I don't know enough Brits living in France to be able to comment on their language skills but would hope that the sensible ones will learn enough language to communicate.
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Our home in France isn't a tourist area and so the small clusters of English families tend to fit in with the French and that includes speaking the language. I have met English people who just don't bother but they more likely live in large ex-pat communities.
The thing about the Brits is, unlike many of our European cousins, they aren't taught a different language at a young age. Romanians for example will learn Russian, English and French from infant school upwards. British kids don't normally start learning French/Spanish/German till senior school and language class isn't taken seriously. Most kids leaving British schools will speak little to no other language.
This means, when we go abroad for a holiday, we can usually rely on those foreigners speaking our language. If we go and live abroad, we can usually get by, by learning the minimum. For those that do make the effort to learn the language of the country who is hosting them, good for them but we have to be sympathetic to those with learning disabilities, elderly people (who often find a new language very difficult) and certain types of dyslexia which makes learning a new language almost impossible. We must carry those same sympathies over to foreigners in Britain with the same problems.