Stefanie S. is a German expatriate who followed her husband in France in 2009.
In Germany, she was in charge of helping her clients integrate their professional life.Today, she lives in Toulouse, in the south west of France. She is a German native speaker; she speaks English and French fluently. Stéphanie would like to work as a human resources officer since she has a lot of experience after working as a coach and assistant director in IBB GmbH professional training center in Germany.

However, she will never forget her first misunderstanding with a French doctor:

« It wasn’t long time after we moved to France that my husband fell ill. He had a pretty bad temperature and really wasn’t feeling very well. So we went to the doctor. My husband’s French language wasn’t much better as mine at that time, but sometimes he understood at least something. Of course, the doctor was very nice, like every Frenchman that we met so far, but not at all patient. He spoke as fast as a machine-gun and my husband, who was more dead than alive, and me tried desperately to make ourselves understood. He gave him something against the fever and sent
us home – without a medical certificate. Two days later we tried it again. The fever wasn’t better at all, rather worse, and he felt really poorly. Using hands and feet we tried again to communicate his situation. At least we managed to ask him for the certificate and – obviously annoyed – he wrote it. He told us to show up again a few days later. By then my husband felt much better and so his French was better and he even was able to communicate a bit – as suddenly and unexpected the doctor started to speak English – smirking?!?After all we were able to have a good laugh about, but at that time… » by Stefanie S.