Hi All,

I'm new to the forum but could really use some advice. I will shortly be moving to Paris by myself for at least a year to teach English. I do not know many people in Paris and want to know other people's experiences of moving to France, making new friends and generally developing a social life over there!!

Many thanks!!!!

Hi Kats,welcome ,firstly congrates on the jobIm sure there is someone on here that has experiance of Paris,do you get accomadation?
You must be really excited,what a great oppotunity for you.Hope you get someone soon who knows the area you are going to.Keep us posted and loads luck

A lot has to do with your age and free time.
TERRY

Hi

I think Paris is hard. I have worked near La Defense for just coming up to a year now. After spending 6 months in hotels and commuting back to the UK at weekends on eurostar, I have now moved the family over and live in a village about 10 miles west of Paris and commute in on a scooter daily. Before all this I worked in London.

Developing a social life in Paris is not that easy.

If you join a company in the UK you will probably end up going for beers on a Thursday night, or other such social functions where you will meet people. The French tend to separate working life with home life more and don't socialise. I know girls that hate it here. One Columbian girl told me that if you get a job in the UK you have friends within a couple of weeks but that here it just doesn't happen. She couldn't wait to get back to the UK.

You will probably meet a great ex-pat bunch all teaching English and you will have a great time but infiltration into French society around Paris is hard. Getting a French boyfriend could shorcut all this obviously. (i'm assuming 'kats' is Katherine and female)

Where we live now we are getting to know people but that is due to the communities that exist around the schools and activities for our children.

A good book to read is 'Almost French' which an autobiography of a young woman and her difficulties in being accepted and adapting to Parisian life. And she did have the French boyfriend who explains to her that the French establish their friendships at school etc and are not really interested in meeting new people.

I think coming to Paris will be challenging and rewarding and I think you can develop a social life. Only it may be more challenging than you think. On the other hand the greater the challenge, the greater the reward.

Paris is an excellent city to live in, you have so much to do and the monuments and paris in general is a beautiful place to be, i should know i've lived here for the past 18 years.

My first year was difficult though as i was learning the language aswell a new way of working, but once i got over the phobia of my poor french and realized that the french don't speak a word of english apart from "my tailor is rich" everything sort of smoothed itself out.

I've worked in many companies in Paris and have always made 'French' friends outside of work that now have become life long friends, so to say the french don't mingle is imo rubbish.

You should try at least to know the basics of the french language if you want to be understood though, just buying 'une' baguette can be a shuddering experience especially when u have the boulanger looking at you as if u are speaking to him in russian, a good way of getting around the feminin/masculine thing in the french language is to order 2 of the object you want.

Some examples in my life of double french living:

Une baguette svp - no wrong, deux baguettes svp (so u better like french sticks)

Une biere svp - no wrong, deux bieres svp (either say ur waiting for someone to come along or just drink the other one, careful of alcohol abuse though)

this method sort of gets stuck when u start to fill out your appartment/house with furniture or other stuff, make sure u don't wind up with 2 TV's or 2 sofa beds.

have a good day, bon journée...