OF all of the things associated with moving to a foreign country, it is probably the most important element that is overlooked. It is not the accommodation issue, which is normally taken care of before any packing cases are filled. Transport to your new home is easily remedied if you have access to a computer and some rudimentary keyboard skills.

The clue to us all should lie in the word foreign', as in moving to a foreign country. The implication is that the other people who live there will probably speak a different language to us. However, almost none of us take this issue very seriously and shrug it off with vague comments of buying a Linguaphone, buying a book or taking some lessons when we get there.

For once, I am not simply mocking the other' people. I am just as guilty and should really have known better. I had a good basic grounding in the language gained at the grammar school in Bournemouth, albeit from an archaic master by the name of Ernie Veater whose enthusiasms were for canes and spanking boys (in the nicest possible way, if that is possible). The academic side was complemented by a particularly good exchange scheme that was extremely warmly received by the French students who got to spend three weeks hanging out on Bournemouth beach.

I found myself nearly 20 years later leaving school heading to France with basic language, but not much more, having taken seven years at school just to be able to string together a fairly basic sentence. I should have known better than to utter the words "I think I'll probably be fluent after about four months."

After nearly six years of working with colleagues who thankfully have no wish to speak English I think that I could probably be described as fluent, heavily accented (thanks to Dorset), but fluent.

This is a level never achieved by most people, as illustrated by one couple who had been in France for more than a dozen years. The lady said to me, "I expect we sound like wogs to the locals." When I eventually picked my jaw up from the floor, upon hearing a word that I thought had been consigned to the rubbish bin of English language at about the time Ernie Veater was beating future imperfects into us, it gave me food for thought. Putting aside the xenophobic and racist sentiments of the sentence, she did have a point. When you speak a language badly, there has to be a point when you cease to be charming and become just a bit annoying to the people of your host country. Not to mention even more of an embarrassment to your kids.

It is a proven fact that kids learn languages much more quickly than adults, especially when they are dumped in a new school and the only way for them to fit in is to speak the same way as the other kids. This leads to ex-pat parents taking their kids to the garage with them when the car breaks down to explain the problem, to the doctors and dentists, and even to the solicitors. Thus leaving the parent, who may well have been a competent professional in their former life, looking like a simpleton who needs a child to speak for them. Some kids even refuse to let their parents speak to them in English in public because it is so embarrassing.

So next time you are accosted by the mad Polish guy up the road and you nod your head not having a clue what he is talking about, or complain about the rude jabbering Indian family next door, spare a thought. He may not be mad and they may not be rude, it may be that they just didn't set aside that half-hour every day for the Linguaphone.