- 10:01am Oct
15, 2001

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Quelle signification donnez vous au mot travail? Depuis la France, on a une image des Etats Unis comme d'un pays ou les gens voient leur emploi plus comme une contribution à la réussite du pays plus que comme un moyen de gagner sa vie...du moins c'est ma vision des choses, suscitée par certains exemples comme la silicon valley. en france ce n'est pas vraiment ca, moins de gens me semblent réellement impliqués dans leur travail.

- 10:22am Oct
15, 2001

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Moi j'ai l'impression qu'en France, on peut très bien vivre avec un seul salaire alors qu'aux Etats-Unis il faut généralement deux salaires pour vivre correctement. Est-ce que je me trompe? J'ai également l'impression que lorsque vous travaillez, vous avez beaucoup moins de congés payés. J'ai l'impression qu'à travail égale, votre niveau de vie est supérieur mais que vous avez moins de loisirs. C'est une qualité de vie différente.

- 10:10pm Oct 15,
2001

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Hello!

Capucine, I'm not sure what you mean when you say that you need two salaries in the United States in order to have a happy and satisfying life. Do you mean that in a couple (husband and wife) both people need to work? Or do you mean that every single person needs to have two jobs? It is very common in the United States for both members of a marriage to work; yet, it is not necessary for both adults to work in order for a family to be financially stable. Sometimes one person will have two jobs, yet this is not the norm. If someone has two jobs they are rarely both full time jobs! I noticed in the word association activity that under "work/travail" someone wrote, "35 hour week," I am assuming this is a regular work week in France, correct? In the United States a regular work week is 40 hours - usually either 8-5 with an unpaid hour lunch break, or 9-5 with a paid lunch hour. From the one time I was in France it seemed as though people were more relaxed about work, they worked shorter hours, and they had more time to spare - I remember seeing the streets of Paris full of Parisians on a daily basis at any given hour. In Boston (the city we are near) the streets are a lot emptier during office hours - as much of the population is at work.

Vacation time is very short when anyone starts a new job in the united states, yet they acquire more and more paid vacation time every year - is this the same in France? The paid vacation time is different for every company, yet a reasonable amount of paid vacation time for a new employee would be 3 weeks per year, and it would increase every year. How does that compare to your paid vacation time?

And in response to the other question that was posed, "Quelle signification donnez vous au mot travail?" I think that there are a few different ways that americans look at the word, "work" - first off "work" and "homework" are often interchangable in our vocabulary - one can say that they have a lot of "work" or "homework" in college, and both statements mean the same thing. I also think that americans view work as a means to make money, and further the success of their company - yet I don't think that the average american is concerned with the success of an entire nation when he is at work - that would be quite a burden for one man or woman!

- 07:16pm Oct
17, 2001

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Salut Ruth. En fait je voulais demandé si les deux époux avaient besoin de travailler. Il semble en effet qu'en Fance, nous travaillons moins. Le temps légal de travail est maintenant de 35 heures par semaine. Nous disposons également de 5 semaines de congés payés. Ce sont des avantages que les syndicats ont acquis aprèd de nombreuses années de lutte. En France, nous critiquons assez souvent toutes les grèves qui ont régulièrement lieu mais ce sont grace à elles que nous avons acquis ces avantages sociaux. Cela nous permet d'avoir beaucoup de temps libre et de pouvoir partir assez souvent en vacances. Même à l'école nous avons beaucoup plus de vacances que vous.

- 08:17pm Oct 22,
2001

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Hey there again Capucine (or whomever else...)

Just another question out of curiousity - what is the vacation schedule for the students in France? Our vacation schedule at MIT is very different than my vacation schedule back in High School. We have one three-day weekend in September, and one in October. We get 2 days off in November for Thanksgiving. Our biggest break is for Christmas. The actual Christmas break is only 2 weeks long, but then during the month of January we don't have normal classes. You can either stay on campus and take "fun" classes, or you can stay home, or travel, or do whatever you want. So if you include that as vacation time, we get 6 weeks off for Christmas. Then we have a 3-day weekend in February, a week off in March, and another 3-day weekend in April. We finish our final exams around May 20th, and then we have summer vacation from then until the first week in September. I'm just curious, what is the vacation schedule for INT? Similar?

- 05:02am Oct
26, 2001

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A l'INT, nous avons les mêmes vacances que les lycéens. Une semaine pour la Toussaint (ces vacances commencent d'ailleurs ce soir), 2 semaines pour noël, 2 semaines en Fevrier, 2 semaines en Avril, en mai il y a tellement de jours fériés qu'il est difficile de compter le nombre de jours de repos et nous finissons les cours en juin. La date dépend de l'école dans laquelle tu te trouve et de ta classe. Pour moi je crois que c'est le 15 juin et je reprendrai le 15 septembre. Mais là je ne t'ai pas compter tous les jours fériés que nous avons un peu partout et qui nous font de longs week-end.