Email from client on 3rd November 2015

Evening David,

Well since I last "spoke to you back in January - our lives have completely changed. From April until August things were manic and the way it worked, the office closed where I worked at the end of July and we sold our house in the UK  on the 31st July too!! All very crazy but exciting too. We were homeless in the UK for 2 days, so had to rough it in a hotel then we came over on the 3rd August full time. We had hired a van mid July and brought over the bulk of the furniture, brought more with us when we came over and the last few bits are in a storage unit for now in the UK.

Mixing in with French neighbours - 

We have now been here three months and we are loving every minute. We are getting on well with our French neighbours and have had aperitifs or coffee with them and returned the favour. It is helping our French immensely and we love the fact it is all French - we are in France and want to speak French and the people really do warm to you. Every Wednesday we have a lady who comes round in a van with bread, and various other epicerie items and I meet my elderly neighbour at the van and get the kiss on each cheek.

Learning French -

We do our research and find things out for ourselves, which has sometimes been much easier than others have implied - proof of this was getting our phone line and Internet sorted at SFR, all done in french with the assistant and we took all the necessary documents as I checked it out online first - we were in, sorted and leaving within 15  minutes.

We are taking french lessons at the local AIKB with a lovely french lady and we are amazed how many people we have met don't make the effort to improve their french or make the effort to chat with their french neighbours.

Dont spend the rest of your life saying "what if" -

Anyway, life is good and we seem to have amazed friends and family by following our hearts and making the move. At the end of the day - you have to just do it, so we dont spend the rest of our lives saying "what if"

The next few months will hopefully see us sorting our carte vitale, registering for work and transferring our car and van over to French plates.

Hope everything is going well for you and Sharon.

Kind regards, Karen.

Karen bought a house in France with Cle France in the Cotes d'Armor department of the sunshine region of Brittany.

We arranged everything of course and made sur Karen was fully informed of the buying process right through to completion day in 2013 and beyond.

It is nice to keep in touch with our clients even more than 2 years later, it is that personal and professional service that makes everything worthwhile.

Last week was le jour (the day) that Marty McFly went into the future, but with le voyage dans le temps (time-travel), being off by a week doesn’t matter too much. There’s still plenty of time to watch the movie in French!

The title of the film is une traduction littérale (a literal translation):

"Retour vers lé futur"

Image by Alan Preciado / Mr. Pinkeyes on Flickr.

Le film (the movie) is just as iconic in France as it is in the US and the UK. All the talk about BI reminded me of one of the best ways to practice French.

Rather than watching les films en VO (movies in their original langauge, Version Originale), find les films en VF (movies dubbed in French, Version Française)! It’s bizarre watching un film en VF, because the lips don’t exaclty match the dialogue, but it’s easier to follow the story if you’re already familar with it and, more importantly, already know you like it.

Par exemple (for example), I watch Harry Potter films for hours to have a relaxing way to practice French when I’m too tired to sit down and study textbooks with all their grammar and vocabulary.

Even if you don’t like les films en VF, it’s worth trying to give yourself a new way to practice and a new way to appreciate your films préférés (favorite movies)!

Blog submitted by: Alex at The French Property Network - Cle France.

This blog was originally posted on The French Language Blog pages.

L’Heure D’Hiver - Standard time

Last week was l’équinoxe d’automne (the autumnal equinox) marking shorter days and colder weather. It also marks la saison des moissons (the harvest season) and many holidays across the world. However, there’s one tradition d’automne (autumn tradition) that is annoying for everyone involved.

Photo by icolo J on Flickr

Now... for us in the UK it is very easy to manage the time changes and easy to remember by the phrase 'Spring forward / Fall back' [Fall being the Americanism for autumn] PLUS the time changes are on the same day in France and the UK, easy!

But if you live in other parts of the world it is not as easy as that, take America for example... 

En automne on gagne une heure (you gain an hour in autumn). The shifting clocks sont un casse-tête pour tout le monde (give everyone a headache) while people spend a week trying to wake up at a new time. Malheureusement, c’est encore plus compliqué (unfortunately it’s even more complicated) between France and the US.

I live in France, but mes parents habitent en Floride (my parents live in Florida). Normally, le décalage horaire est de six heures (there’s a six hour time difference) between France and the US East Coast, and heureusement (thankfully) that’s easy to figure out on a 24 hour clock.

There’s a period in autumn when the US falls back, but France still uses l’heure d’été (daylight-saving time) creating a 7 hour time difference between the two countries. Le décalage horaire (the time difference) lasts long enough to get used to before France falls back as well.

Le passage à l’heure d’hiver (the transition to standard time) happens on le dernier dimanche d’octobre (the last Sunday of October) in France and on le premier dimanche de novembre (the first Sunday of November) in (most) of the US. Having to figure out all these time changes is un casse-tête, and only gets worse when travel is involved.

Blog submitted by: Alex at The French Property Network - Cle France.

This blog was originally posted on The French Language Blog pages.

For everything you need to know about French property visit www.clefrance.co.uk

We tend to deal in more 'normal' numbers at Cle France but we would be happy to have clients with a budget of say 'un billion' but what are these big numbers?

Les grands nombres (large numbers) are hard to understand in any language. The difference between one trillion and one billion seems so abstract that it’s impossible to conceptualise the huge quantities that are being referenced.

French numbers are already difficult at 70 and 80 et en plus (and what’s more) the punctuation for numbers is not the same as in English. Now add on to that the confusion of un billion not being the same number as one billion!

The technical description of why they’re different is that in English every number greater than a million gets a new name for every number that is a thousand times larger than the previous number. Mais en français (but in French), every number greater than a million gets a new name for every number that is a million times larger than the previous number.

 Photo by Jorge Franganillo on Flickr.

After that confusing paragraph, I can already hear the shouting.

Je ne comprends pas ! 

I don’t understand!

To make things easier to understand, voici des exemples (here are some examples): 

One million 1,000,000 

One billion 1,000,000,000 (UK 1,000,000,000,000 and America 1,000,000,000)

One trillion 1,000,000,000,000 

One quadrillion 1,000,000,000,000,000

Un million 1 000 000 

Un milliard 1 000 000 000 

Un billion 1 000 000 000 000 

Un billiard 1 000 000 000 000 000

The French words un milliard et un billiard (one billion and one quadrillion) make these grands nombres a bit confusing. Ce qui est important (what’s important) is remembering that un milliard is not one million and un billion is not one billion.

Heuresement, there’s another way to express these large numbers if you get confused. Un milliard (one billion) can also be called mille millions (thousand millions), and un billiard can be mille billions. Keep all this in mind the next time you have to count les zéros of a large number!

As a challenge, try to count all the way to un milliard in French!

One chap who is very good with numbers is Ben, our Cle France dedicated currency expert.

Ben Amrany from FC Exchange follow this link or phone and ask for myself and quote "Cle France" on 020 7989 0000.

You may contact me directly using this form (click here) with your requirement and I will explain the options that are available to you in getting the best exchange rate.  

Blog submitted by: Alex at The French Property Network - Cle France.

This blog was originally posted on The French Language Blog pages.

For everything you need to know about French property visit www.clefrance.co.uk

French Expressions with Chien

Earlier this summer (mais où est donc passé l’été? – where has summer gone?), I wrote a post with expressions and proverbs using the word chat. Whether you’re a cat person or a dog person, it’s not fair to exclude the dogs of their own post... so, for all my fellow dog lovers, let’s get started!

As I was doing a braindrain on expressions with dog I knew in French, I realised just how many we have in English.

Think about it – top dog, can’t teach an old dog new tricks, a barking dog never bites, dog-eat-dog world, dog days of summer, the hair of the dog… The list goes on and on.

French also has many uses for le chien – there are so many expressions idiomatiques and proverbes. Maybe it’s because dogs are considered man’s best friend*. Maybe it’s easier to compare a dog’s behavior to our own. Regardless of the reason, here are some fun expressions with le chien to broaden your knowledge of French!

* = and we certainly use their help when we can! Il y a les chiens d’aveugle (guide dogs), les chiens d’utilité (working dogs), les chiens de berger (sheepdogs), les chiens de chasse (hunting dogs), les chien de traîneau (sled dogs), les chiens policiers (police dogs), les chiens secouriste (search and rescue dogs), et les chiens de garde (guard dogs)!

Let’s get started!

(hot diggety dog! new vocabulary!)

Expressions in French:

arriver comme un chien dans un jeu de quilles – arrive like a bull in a china shop

avoir du chien – to be very attractive

avoir un mal de chien – to be sick as a dog

couché en chien de fusil – to be in the fetal position

entre chien et loup – at nightfall

être comme chien et chat – fight like cat and dog

être d’une humeur de chien – to be in a foul mood

être malade comme un chien – to be sick as a dog

il fait un temps de chien – the weather is pretty awful

ne pas attacher son chien avec des saucisses – to be cheap/miserly

nom d’un chien! – holy cow!

parler à quelqu’un comme à un chien – to treate somebody badly

se regarder en chien de faïence – to glare at each other

Proverbes in French:

Chien qui aboie ne mord pas – A barking dog doesn’t bite

Qui couche avec le chien, se lève avec des puces – If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas

Bon chien chasse de race – similar to ‘like father, like son’

Les chiens ne font pas des chats – a child is the spit and image of his parents.

Blog submitted by: Alex at The French Property Network - Cle France.

This blog was originally posted on The French Language Blog pages.

For everything you need to know about French property visit www.clefrance.co.uk