the latter not being recommended, even if French health care is the best in the world! Consider learning a lexical item in its entirety without breaking it down into its individual parts: if you want to say 'I went' in French it's je actually necessary to know that is the first person singular of the verb which here is the auxiliary in front of the verb Just learn it, then add things to it. Knowing that je means 'I went', how difficult is it to work out what the following to work in the National Health Service, albeit in the HR function and dealing with accountants rather than patients. I have also spent ten years in France being a recipient of their healthcare system. It could be easy to make misguided comparisons but nearly every British person living in France would say: 'Why can't the English be more like the French' when talking about healthcare. frenchmart