What problems do you think these people might have? an English person who moves to the USA an Algerian who moves to France Think about: ▶ language ▶ weather ▶ finding a job ▶ culture / other people
Practice
2 Read the text to see if your ideas from Activity 1 apply to these people.
What does each person say about the points above?
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Reading
Mary: born in England, now lives in Florida, USA
My husband and I decided to move to Florida in the southeast USA just under three years ago, when he lost his job. As a computer engineer, he thought it wouldn’t be a problem finding employment, but it hasn’t been as easy as we expected.
The main appeal of Florida was the weather, plus the house prices. We sold our medium-sized house in England and bought a much bigger one here for roughly the same price. My fellow countrymen back in the UK would think it was really upmarket, but here it’s quite normal. As for the weather, it’s warm and sunny a lot of the time, but when the storms come in off the sea, it can be quite frightening.
One thing I didn’t expect was that we’d have to get used to the language. I never even thought about it. But it’s astonishing how many basic words are different. As well as that, we obviously sound British, so I don’t think we’ll ever be accepted as ‘real Americans’. But people are very friendly, and they all say how much they love our accent.
Reading
Sadiq: born in Algeria, now lives in Paris, France
My family moved here when I was a teenager, over twenty years ago. Like a lot of North Africans, they regarded Paris as a place of opportunity. They opened a restaurant in an area where there were a lot of other Algerians and Moroccans, and it did quite well. I worked as a builder for two years, and then took over the restaurant when my parents got older.
I used to find the climate here a bit difficult – rather cold and wet compared with North Africa. But I’ve got accustomed to it. The only difficulty now is other people’s perceptions of me: there are a few who still think of us as foreigners who shouldn’t be here. I was brought up speaking French as well as Arabic, and in fact my whole education was French, so I never had a problem communicating. Personally, I don’t have identity problems. If you ask whether I think of myself as Algerian or French, my simple answer is: both.