Update. Exchange student arrives in late July. I've been talking to him and his dad via email for a while now. Will be a mindblower for our boys, a 9th and 2x 7th graders. At least I hope it will. German boy is same age as #1 son.

Family is headed for a trip to Europe a month prior. First week of trip will be in Germany so we'll meet the boy and his family. I'm working hard to bring my German back up to "somewhat useful". I've got the kids working on German each night too. The kids will have much more fun in Germany if they speak just a little bit of the lingo. In 2wks we have to shift to Italian.

My grasp of Italian is limited to bikes and cars so that will be rough going.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

Cool. We picked up a girl from Finland about two months ago as things were not working out with her host family. We are learning alot about sauna. Our other girl is from Versailles just on the doorstep from Paris.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Where in Germany is he coming from? Different regions can have thick accents compared to “high German”, which might make your efforts to communicate in German even more difficult.

If you are looking to get some German practice in, you might see if there is a German Meetup in your area. I was an exchange student in Germany for a year ( many years ago and also studied it at Uni) i go to a German Meetup in my town whenever I’m not flying and it really helps to keep it up. http://www.meetup.com

That sounds awesome!

Re: Italian. Use your hands a lot. Add vowels at the end of everything. Speak loudly. You'll be fine.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

 I'm working hard to bring my German back up "somewhat useful"//

Congratulations on getting to this point, should be a blast for your kids. And dont worry about speaking German, virtually everyone there speaks a little English, and a lot are quite fluent. Italy on the other hand is a lot like France, not quite as bad, but a lot of people dont speak English. Usually they have some French or German, so maybe brushing up on German wouldn't be completely wasted. When I raced there for 3 years I took one of those business language school courses. Super accelerated and only dealt with speaking, no reading. 3 months of that twice a week and I was going pretty good. Of course didn't need it at all, and they all wanted to practice their English on me!!

1) brits, and i think Americans as well, language abilities are an embarrassment - In general

2) we put both our kids in French nurseries and now school. My daughter constantly embarrasses us with her French. She will be fluent, and learn colloquialisms but she does miss out on language kids get at home if their parents are native speakers but I figure if she can even get 95% of the way there its a massive advantage

3) this is a really crass generalisation but my experience of France and the French is that they are super patriotic and really believe it is the Best, even when sometimes that belief is slightly misplaced......

4) i would really recommend having kids in language classes outside of school. It will pay dividends in the long run

That's generalizing a lot: look, I'm American and I'm fluent in both French and Spanish, and my German isn't terrible ;-)

The plural or anecdote is not data ;)

My thesis stands most English speakers are quite lazy ;)

I’m American and speak German and my Spanish is still pretty good.( I was an exchange student in Mexico as well) I do agree that a lot of Americans are lazy about other languages. ( and geography) Years ago I was London based and took a transfer to Hong Kong on a whim. My roommates decided to transfer as well. One of my roommates boyfriend (American, at university) gave her a book on how to learn Japanese. When we asked him why a book on Japanese, he said to help us learn Japanese because moving to Japan it would be helpful. When we pointed out that Hong Kong wasn’t in Japan and that they speak Cantonese he said aren’t Japanese and Cantonese the same?

I just got back from HK last night.

First time there having been to Guangzhou and Shenzhen this week

I am back there in 2 weeks

Based on 6 hours there I'd move there and i have moved to other places with out even visiting

Its pretty amazing. Never seen so many tesla's in one place and there is so much cash

It’s a pretty fun place. I moved there without ever having visited. Met my husband there, got married there. I’m not there full time anymore, which kind of suits me at the moment. My commuter place is out in a village on South Lantau. We have cows and water buffalo wandering around. We are minutes from the beach. There is fantastic hiking and trail running. I like being able to get away from the crowds of HK. It looks like you had fantastic weather.

I hope you noticed I was being facetious ;)

You're spot on about how the French perceive France though.

I did. You are not representative ;)

I can't believe you just called me a biased sample. Brits are so rude. That's why we got our independence from you guys (says the guy who has yet to celebrate his first year as a seppo...ah crap...can't say that anymore, can I?)

Little Francois is arriving in 12 weeks and we are reading all we can so that he picks up french from me, Spanish from his mum, and English.

We've decided that the easiest way to learn French is to adopt a French baby

Lol you'll never know where to put your euh if you adopt a French baby.

Just don't teach him Australian. Please god no.

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