This essential dictionary and phrase book provides every term you need to know when buying, maintaining, renovating or building a home in France. Accessible and comprehensive, it includes the technical words you won't find in an ordinary dictionary for tools and equipment and every aspect of painting, carpentry, roofing, plumbing and drainage. It also equips you with terminology for planning structural changes such as extensions and determining boundaries. An appendix of emergency phrases will make this a book you'll want to keep by the phone at all times. Whether you own a home or work in France, this book will help you talk to French tradesmen with authority and avoid costly misunderstandings as you pull down the language barrier brick by brick.