this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2024
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[–] Randelung 41 points 4 months ago (10 children)

The French do the same with all other languages, so fair game.

[–] Ibaudia 30 points 4 months ago (9 children)

One time when my mom visited France, she asked a shop's clerk for directions. She tried French but kind of gave up and used some English words scattered throughout her sentence for words she didn't know. The clerk acted annoyed and pretended not to understand, so my mom tried to use only her broken French. The clerk responded very quickly in French.

My mom then said, in English, "I'm sorry, I didn't get that, French is such a beautiful language but I'm having a hard time learning it". The clerk then completely 180'ed her attitude, acted all happy and switched to perfect, fluent English, with almost no French accent.

That situation taught me that some French people apparently just want you to suck the metaphorical dick of their culture before they choose to be nice to you lol.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

All those people online with their anecdotes agreeing with what you wrote, yet my experience has been the complete opposite. I think the problem is Americans being insufferable assholes, and the French not letting that fly as much as other countries.

[–] Noodle07 2 points 4 months ago

Yup, much more likely

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Depends. They also like to watch you to awkwardly stammer through your hardly recognizable French sentence just to reply in perfect English (or even your mother tongue in border regions).

[–] Droggelbecher 10 points 4 months ago (2 children)

My favourite is when they ignore you when you speak English (which isn't even your native language either, just the most likely language to be understood by both parties), then when you speak bad French, they reply on even worse English. Bonus points for those that do it to tourists in France and as tourists in other counties (both have happened to me but ofc I can't know if the same person would do both).

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[–] Shapillon 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I'm French and foreign languages are one of my hobbies. I'm proficient in English and Spanish. I can at a lower level speak some Russian, German, Czech, and Italian.

Imho the fault lies in our education system which puts a heavy accent on STEM studies and tends to treat anything outside of that as lesser subjects.

Also from anecdotal evidence the younger generations are quite better than the older ones.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I'm French Canadian. A friend of mine lives in Paris. I go to Paris fairly often. When I'm there, I speak exclusively English to anyone I don't know.

If I speak French, my god damn native tongue, they either make sure to tell me my accent is horrendous or they reply in German. In either case, they take this condescending tone... You know the one.

When I speak English, not only do I have the upper hand on the language, but they don't know I can understand them perfectly. Win win for me.

Vous êtes chiants, les Parisiens.

[–] Daerun 3 points 4 months ago

In France they are known for this thing with their language where anything that doesn't sound like parisine french they call it "patois" (I think I wrote it correctly?). You probably won't have this problem if you go to the south of France.

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[–] ummthatguy 21 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Oh, an Anglo Canadian living in Quebec I see

[–] Sneakyweasel90 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Ive had to drive through quebec so many times. My french isn't the best but i will try and communicate with someone for either food or directions. It blows my mind at how some people can just tell you are english and then they stop talking to you or they get this disgusting look on their face.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

I live very close to the Quebec border and I've never once in my life experienced this. My French isn't all that great and not once did a Québécois give me a hard time. If anything they were super patient and were happy to see an Ontarian do their best to speak the language.

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[–] suction 16 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I once turned down a really good job offer because it would have meant having to listen to French people try to speak English.

[–] kinther 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Were you being paid to watch that episode of The IT Crowd where they call French tech support?

[–] suction 2 points 4 months ago

I need to find out all about that, didn't watch much of the IT crowd

[–] TheBat 15 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Baguette 👎

Long bread 👍

[–] hakunawazo 5 points 4 months ago

Don't reinvent the freedom fries again.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It is "Sfilatino" in Italian

[–] TheBat 1 points 4 months ago

What's San Francisco Latinos got anything to do with long bread?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)
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[–] Kaput 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Are you from Montreal West Island?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Ah the good old english loyalists hiding on their mountain hoping the dirty french peasants won't touch them.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Let's be honest, who actually speaks French outside of Canada and France?

[–] Jiggle_Physics 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Some places in africa, and some islands in the indian, and pacific oceans?

[–] nforminvasion 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

South American countries too

[–] Jiggle_Physics 2 points 4 months ago

Yeah, I actually realized I didn't mention that once I was off of lemmy a while. Brain not braining.

[–] Shapillon 3 points 4 months ago

The cajuns and acadians in the USA beside the obvious that have already been named.

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[–] Godric 3 points 4 months ago

Incredibly based!

[–] pigup 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

⚠️🚫☠️🤢fr*nch🤮☣️🚫⚠️ ₗₐₙ₉ᵤₐ₉ₑ, ₑᵥₑᵣᵧ բᵣₑₙ꜀ₕ ₚₑᵣₛₒₙ ᵢ'ᵥₑ ₘₑₜ ᵥᵥₐₛ ꜀ₒₒₗ

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