All I know of boarding school is movies. Long pause. His expression slowly changes, mouth pulling back and brow furrowing as a thought dawns on him -- Not that kind.

Yes, thank you for clarifying.

They're hard to keep, yeah? His Arabic suffered for a while up until he got a crash course refresher in Beirut. There are a lot of English speakers there, but English is, actually, his third, and about as bad. Here. The city makes practise hard. In terms of finding other people who speak a particular language well enough to practise, and then liking them enough to want to hold regular conversation with them.

Although he did notice the arrival pamphlets come in French, for more worldly condescension.