I notice that when I travel abroad, I cherish my inter-personal encounters with natives more than touring monuments and museums. How else would I have discovered that French children relinquish their lost teeth to the Tooth Mouse rather than the Tooth Fairy.
Can anyone point me to somewhere in France or Switzerland where I could practice my language skills in an immersion environment (French only). This might be a class, or what else?
Thanks in advance.
There are a lot of opportunities to do something like this all around Europe. I can't give you specific suggestions in Switzerland but you can do an internet search and come up with some pretty quickly. I did 3 months of language classes in Munich and took an option for a home stay with a local family. I highly recommend doing that, if you can. They had a few students staying with them and encouraged us all to practice our language skills over dinner each night. It was where I got the most improvement in my language skills.
Try the village of Apples in Vaud. The only non Swiss I've met there are owners of the local Thai restaurant.
I enjoyed our visit to Western Switzerland, Murten and the Vully region. We spent a day traveling the Absinthe trail in French speaking Switzerland. As we traveled further away from the main cities, French was predominately spoken in this area.
