Learn French in Paris or Nice with EF

I spent a month in Saint Raphael this summer with EF. I had so much fun and made connections around the world. Great if you’re just starting out! It got so hot in the classrooms though in south France. You have to get your own water bottle because we only got water at meal times but that was just me as an American ha. I loved going to places on the weekend like Monaco and Antibes. That’s probably my favorite part! I am an Ambassador for them and they treat me really well! Have fun traveling!!!!!

During my 2-week spring break, I decided to travel to Nice, France, for EF's intensive language immersion program. I had a wonderful time learning the language, interacting with locals, meeting new people, and exploring surrounding areas. I think the program is best geared towards younger students (ie high schoolers), but I was lucky to make friends with fellow adult learners. I was already at an intermediate-advanced proficiency in the language and would go back to France in a heartbeat if given the opportunity.

I love the atmosphere and that there are so many wonderful people to meet and connect with. All the teachers go above and beyond to help those who don’t understand and the staff make the campus as warming as possible. I love living in a host family where I can practice my french more and get tips from a native speaker that you wouldn’t learn in a classroom. I’m glad I was able to undergo such a wonderful trip with EF. There are so many opportunities that you can take with this course and I highly recommend that you do the most you can, it doesn’t matter how long you’re staying. Just have the most amount of fun you can!

It was fun living in Nice for two weeks. I liked my teachers and my French got better. However, the homestay was not what was promised. I was in a basement apartment with 5 other girls sharing one bathroom. There were 10 girls total at the residence. We barely interacted with the Home Family except for the dinner. We were not allowed in the main house. She was not a good cook and would make us carbs and premade food heated up. Frozen pizza, hot dogs, potatoes, etc. No vegetables. We were scared to ask her for more items like toilet paper, towels, and breakfast items. Also, no a/c in bedroom during 90+ degree days.The homestay almost ruined the experience for me. EF Nice has to do better.

Spent almost 2 months in Paris with EF and it was a time well spent during my Gap Year! Made friends from all over the globe that taught me their countries traditions and such. The staff were so friendly and after the first day I felt so comfortable with the school. Everyone there was so nice and we all became close very quickly. My French prior to arriving was so basic and I knew almost nothing. At the end, I left Paris being able to have a full convo with any French local. Its a great opportunity to go if you have the chance! I came back with more knowledge than just the French language.

The EF program was very informative and from the beginning, the staff was extremely helpful. I immediately felt at home with my host family and even though communication was a challenge at first, my classes taught me useful grammatical skills that I could practice at home and in daily conversations outside of school. I made lasting friendships with people from all around the world. The city was gorgeous and there are so many opportunities of travel. It is a place that honestly suits any person; whether you’re into partying or touring castles. Even if you get bored with the Nice itself, the train is extremely accessible, so you could easily take yourself to somewhere like Monaco or Cannes with only a 30 minute train ride.

This past summer, I spent two weeks in Paris, France with EF. Prior to that, I had studied just about two years of French in school. When I arrived to the school and my host family, I was very nervous considering I had never really spoken to a native French speaker in my life. However, my host mom was the best mom I could ever ask for, the teachers at EF were super charismatic, welcoming, and funny. I felt extremely comfortable in the environment. I also learned a great deal of French just from two weeks and was able to skip a year of French when I got back to school in Hawaii. My host-family's house was a little far, so sometimes it was hard to get to and from there every day, however that was only a minor issue. Nonetheless, I made so many life long friends that I still keep in touch with everyday. Not only did I learn French, but I was opened to a whole new world of people and cultures. I really got a globalized perspective on life from this trip. I am definitely going back next summer for even longer. It was an incredible and unforgettable experience and completely worth the money!

Translation from Spanish: The great experience of spending 15 days in Paris was overshadowed by the great SCAM and incoordination of EF, which ended up sending us to a 2-star hotel with BUGS and no alternatives. I'm not exaggerating.

Next I count it step by step:

This trip to Paris to learn French was a gift from my son to my niece and to me, knowing the great illusion that would make us. During the reservation process in Spain, we were informed about the EF residence where we would stay, with kitchen, common areas and very good looks. We fly to Paris with all the illusion of the world to spend the first half of July and what is our surprise to discover once there, that the residence is saturated and they will redirect us to a hotel. The “surprise” becomes perplexed when we see the state and conditions of this 2-star “Jeff” hotel and the room they give us: a fourth floor with a narrow spiral staircase that had a ridiculous elevator with room for 1 person and highly claustrophobic. Therefore, and despite my arthritis, we did not even use it because it gave me no confidence.

But the big bomb arrives in class, when they tell us that we cannot return to the hotel all day (without prior notice to collect our things, stored in the suitcases in any way by the cleaning ladies) because there was a BUG INFECTION in the hotel and they had to spray.

At that time I lost my patience and went with my niece to the address, to ask how it is logical that please change us to the official Residence, which was what was advertised when the course was paid. They tell us that it is impossible, so we are helpless in the face of the problem. I do not want to worry my family and we endure the return to the hotel with the corresponding fear and disgust of the plague of bed bugs. This makes us sleep very uncomfortable, waking up and not being focused on the course we wanted to learn.

And this does not end there. In 3 different days this scenario was repeated in which we cannot return to the hotel all day for anti-bed bug treatments, even with the appearance of bites and a student's hospital visit.

I had the opportunity to visit the residence and verify that they do have a kitchen, a normal elevator and, above all, hygiene.

As we did not have a kitchen, we were forced to eat out all the time, with the corresponding expense of money that implies, also in a city that is not cheap. We went with the idea of ​​having the advantage they enjoyed in the Residence of being able to buy, store, and cook our own food.

I don't have anything bad to say about teaching and teaching at school.
The teachers are of excellent quality and impeccable class education, a great dedication for all their professionals.

However, the schedules were not what they said in Madrid, where they assured us that the classes would be at 8 in the morning and from noon we would be free. At the end each day we had a different schedule, and also classes until 6 in the afternoon. In addition, the excursions were not coordinated with most of the classes, so in order to go you had to miss class.

In conclusion, the teaching is of quality, but the organization of EF is a DISASTER. From the beginning there has been great false advertising. We were not even mentioned the possibility of sending us to a place other than the residence, much less Jeff, a hotel that had nothing to do with the conditions of the official Residence, in which we were in fourth-floor rooms, with a Indecent and most outrageous elevator, infected with bed bugs.

It is not fair to pay for services that are supposed to offer and we find this amount of nonsense, which when we complained we were not given any kind of solution or compensation.

On the last night of our stay, the roommate next door cried to our room, because she went to get a bag and a bed bug fell on her shoulder. He spent the night in our room with a phobia attack. By the way, she intended to stay a month, but has gone to Malaga back, because they did not seek a solution to the problem.

Regarding the hotel receptionist and the person in charge of us at the hotel, they did what they could to please, but the solution was not in their hands.

Too bad for not being able to take advantage of and enjoy the excellence of the classes for being worried about something unnecessary and that it did not correspond to us as it is everything mentioned before.

Back in Spain, I have the conviction that EF takes advantage of the young age and inexperience of most of his students to deceive them in this way. However, I was an exception because at my 58 years I was fortunate to be able to travel to Paris for 15 days, and I was able to realize everything that happened.

I am not a particularly demanding person. Some of the problems that I have mentioned such as the disorganization of schedules or the lack of cooking can be compensated with the quality of teaching and the great experience of being in a city like Paris for a few days. Even the inability to go to the residence could have been resolved by sending us to decent accommodation, or attending to our request once the situation in the hotel became embarrassing. BUT NOTHING!

The saddest thing is that the problem of this hotel, looking for information, we know that they have it since 2017, it is in the networks. And EF knows it. My complaint is to the organization and responsible for EF. It is a shame after the money paid for everyone to go crazy and keep fooling people selling an experience that is not real.

Ana María López Martín