Readers write ..... "English ?"

Hi Alan
Great to hear all the latest news...
But one thing confuses me. Why are you starting services in English? Unless I have missed something, I did not realise that there was a large English-speaking community in Bordeaux. Are these English people, or people from elsewhere who use English as a lowest-common-denominator currency?
Enlighten me, do...
Every blessing

Hello Reader !

We have both.

Firstly, since Eleanor of Aquitaine married Edward the -3 in the year ought-dot and inadvertently started the 100 years war, England and Bordeaux have had immensely strong trade links. The Bordelais fought for the English against the French during said war.

Then modern times have seen two influxes - people passing through with their work and people coming to retire after their working life is over. The former often Americans. The latter almost always Brits.

Last but by no means least - the overseas students who come to study in France with not a word of French but with basic functional English - they choose France because fees etc are so high in Britain.

English - it's the lingua franca, you know !

Blessings

There is also lots of scope for work in Chinese (Mandarin), and in Turkish, Spanish, etc. etc.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A bit about music exams in UK and France

They're really different. I think I have already mentioned that while in the UK people generally find a private teacher for their instrument, or do it through a school scheme, here there are municipal music school, conservatoires and so on. The situation is a little more complex than I had first understood, because the schools vary in the rigidity of their organisation: the most, the conservatoires, next the municipals, then the associations. Our music school is an association, but it tends to apply the standards of the municipal schools with its programme of cycles, etc. Britain - grade 1 to 8, grade 8 being roughly equivalent to A-level, pre university/conservatoire. France - 3 cycles, each taking about 4 years, with 3ème cycle being roughly equivalent to grade 8. Theory of music - UK to take grade 8 you need theory grade 5. In France you study theory alongside your instrumental studies, very slowly. Catrin's flute music is MUCH more difficult than the stuff she does in theor
Read more

A brief sortie to North Wales

 Following the Great Keswick Debacle, when our volunteering at the Keswick café was sabotaged by our assorted indispositions, we had airline tickets to use up. Yes, we had not taken travel insurance, so we paid even more money to change our tickets to fly for a short visit to North Wales. This time we were able to go. We passed extremely slowly through a very crowded Bordeaux airport but in good time to get our plane. All seats in the terminal were taken so we leaned against whatever we could find while waiting to board. Hey, bags need seats, too! though sometimes pointing out to Pat, "No, that's a bag seat", makes the bag find a new refuge on the lap of the person sitting next to it... Once on the plane we quickly found our allocated seats - right at the back on the left hand side - stowed our bags and the flight was smooth and uneventful.  We had 30 minutes in Manchester to disembark, get through immigration , hustle off to the station and board our train for Shotton. I
Read more