Seth is moving to Paris although to be fair, I got this e-mail months ago, he may have moved there already and he has a few questions and concerns. Here they are:. As you might have guessed, this opportunity involves me moving to Paris. I know that there are about a million Americans out there thinking how lucky I am, but I have some serious concerns over the move.
My hope was that you could give me your thoughts on some of my main trepidations. However, first of all, my first advice would be to stop putting two spaces after each period. I think I will try to take evening French classes after work, and maybe try some computer software but I really have to go under the assumption that I will never be fluent or at least not for many years.
Do you think this is going to be a big issue? I happen to be trilingual English, Spanish, and Hebrew , do you think that will help me at all in France? Obviously my main concern is living in Paris for several years without being able to have any meaningful relationships due to language barriers. I know no one in France, and will be there all by myself. Is it going to be a big issue? If you want to call France your home, or at least you want to have a fruitful experience in France, well, yes, it is one.
Do these people have an experience of living in France that I would call rich? No, I would call it stupid. If you only care about having drinking buddies in Paris, worry not, you will find plenty, even without speaking French. I read and hear all sorts of things about how anti-Semitic the French are.
Should this be a concern of mine? Well, let me put it this way. Me and several other millions of my compatriots. I am familiar with Mediterranean culture I spent 6 months in Tel-Aviv once , however European culture is new to me. What are the main things I should be bracing myself for? If you could think of one or two things I can do ahead of time to prepare myself for Parisian living what would those be? Apart from that, what can prepare you for Parisian life? Well, simply put: do some research.
