IIRC only @james can change names which can be done by request in a PM.
and, of course, if @Anon wants to stay that… fair enough… it just gave me a jolt to see a first-timer marked Anon and I wondered for a nano-second what this first-timer had done wrong… 
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I am now fluent (and French) but 20 something years ago I was less fluent (and less French). And I agree that managing without good French can be challenging, However people are generally helpful so I would use friends, and accepted that things would go wrong because of my inability to communicate, and I would miss things as subtlety went over my head. As long are people are actively trying to learn then it’s fine as we all have to start somewhere if not our birth language .
What I find frustrating is people complaining about France, the French, stupid French practices,etc etc basically because they didn’t understand as their French is so bad, and say things like “I get by” to excuse making no effort to improve.,
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Without sounding overly harsh to the OP, neither did I really which is why I moved on by, however well intended they, and the thread, may be.
Starting with
Then immediately saying
When even a cursory read of the forum would suggest to me that virtually everyone here has some degree of ability to speak French as and when needed, some better than others of course, but I’d imagine actually that as a rule people here have considerably better skills than some who actually do shut themselves in a pocket of Britishness in France. As I say, I’m sure it was very well intentioned but to me it rather hit the wrong mark as it was written as ‘how do you cope?’ When it should perhaps be ‘how do THEY cope? ‘
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Everybody’s different, aren’t they? I came to France after working all over Europe, and occasionally Asia and Africa, for 20 years. When you might be in Kosovo one week and Myanmar the next you get very used to not speaking the language! Even with my limited French at the time, everything here seemed pretty familiar (and I’m in Brittany - if you think French is hard, you should try Breton! - but at least it has almost the same alphabet, and reads from left to right…).
My question to the OP would be: How would you cope in a really alien environment?
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Orange have english helpline read this thread for the current number.
PS I am not an ex-pat.
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I’ll second this is in a very slightly more official capacity, if you need help doing so let me know.
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I agree with John. Those of us who moved here to live, from elsewhere, are immigrants. Ex-pats are people who are, for some reason, temporarily living in a country other than their nationality country but will leave when the reason they are there no longer exists.
And your point - having none at all of the local language must be … challenging is hardly a start to describe it.
I had very little Spanish when I moved there but because I have workable FR I wasn’t starting completely from scratch. I was soon able to operate day-to-day.
When I was with Orange Orange I had excellent service from the Eng lang call centre. And they even helped when I moved to Sosh.
Me too. One can dive onto ‘Translate’ and deal with it almost in ‘real time’.
Not being too good with FR on the phone my outgoing message has it that if the caller really does wants to communicate with me [not try to sell me a mutuelle] they should send a text.
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Slight change to the number you quote: we have… 09.69.36.39.00 and just checked it works.
We’re not expats either…
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That happened to me. His accent was unfamiliar so I asked him where he was based and he told me it was Sousse, Tunisia.
Like others, I too don’t consider myself an expat. I’m an immigrant. Unlike in the UK where the term immigrant seems to have negative connotations, I’m happy to be considered as such. I don’t want to be called an expat by anyone.
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I think that this is quite common in southern Spain.
Those people picking tomatoes in a sweltering poly tunnel are immigrants. Us lot, swanning on the costa, are ex-pats.
Do you mean just amongst the Brits? Do the Spanish differentiate between expat and immigrant in the same way? I’d love it if, to the Spanish, there’s no difference between those picking tomatoes in the poly tunnel and the Brits 
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Dangerous waters these days, your real name isn’t Mrs. Hussey is it? 
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I had a recent tussle with Orange - now resolved (no doubt due to my impeccable French 
). I went in to a boutique and the woman said best to phone late morning or early afternoon, and not at weekends when callcentres based in France weren’t open.
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Not sure how well known this is, but these days all younger French doctors speak pretty good English. One of my daughter’s friends is a medical student in Brest, currently panicking a bit because the standard of English she has to pass to qualify is so high. You cannot qualify as a doctor in France without good English nowadays. This is I believe common across all professional qualifications (both in France and much of Europe).
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Ah - you are obviously not married.
We’ve been together 35 years and communication is still touch and go, and that’s speaking the same language - supposedly.
I blame it on the fact that he’s going deaf. He blames it on the fact I have my back to him while talking and am unintelligible.
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I call it “womanese” - always taught in Girls only schools under the subject of “how to confuse men” - My OH has an A level in it! 
Our own version of Verlan!
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He was having trouble understanding me and vice versa. We had been having a lot of trouble with our internet connection and had seen or spoken to various engineers to sort things out. Sometimes at the house. I just expected him to be somewhere nearby. And btw I’m not a hussey !
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