Folks, at the beginning of July, my family and I begin a grand adventure living in Valencia for a year. The kids have been in Spanish immersion school for a while here and can understand almost everything. Speaking is another thing entirely but we've been pushing them to communicate in Spanish more. We've already made two trips to scope out schools and neighborhoods and we're working with expat specialists.
ASK: hints and tips for living abroad for an extended period.
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And yes, they speak a mix of Castillian Spanish and Valenciano (similar to Catalan) in Valencia but they are not as strident as they are in Barcelona. The kids' school will actually teach mostly in Spanish.
Additional info: I grew up spending some summers in northern Italy and an entire summer working in Switzerland when I was 20. My mother was a French teacher so we frequently visited friends in different parts of Europe. But living in my early 50s with my family in Spain for an extended period of time is a somewhat different beast...