Damn, Paris has changed a lot. In my days you could talk in basically any language, living or dead, to a Parisian and they would understand every single word. And they'd still only answer in French.
Tbh, I tend to do that sometimes. The number of languages I can somewhat understand outnumbers the number of languages I can attempt to speak.
Especially when it comes to reading: it's a lot easier to see a bunch of cognates and understand the jist of the sentence than it is to come up with those words and conjugate, order, and pronounce them correctly.
On multiple occasions, I've tried to use my limited knowledge to order food or something in another language, only to have the person on the other side look at me confused until I restate myself in English.
I like to think of it like Star Wars where everyone just speaks and responds in their own language.
That's actually a legit technique to improve your understanding in a language. They speak theirs, you speak yours. It does depend on both people having a good understanding of each other's languages though.
Kind of the opposite for me but ONLY with ordering food in Spanish - I speak awful Spanish, can read it better than speaking or listening, but food - all my life, foods here are labeled in English and Spanish, and often I order so confidently that the person at the counter thinks I only speak Spanish. In absolutely no other situation would anyone mistake me for fluent. It helps that Spanish is so phonetic, and that in the US there are people from so many different places there isn't one accent.
I'm French and I bet that it's the rythm. I can hear this foreigner with a perfect accent but with a way too perfect rythm with the same tonality:
"Bon-jour-deux-croi-ssants-s'il-vous-plait"
A French would sing it.
Bonjour ! : High pitched, the "bon-" louder than the "-jour", quick, dynamic.
A pause...
"Deux croissants" medium pitch, without any pause before:
"S'il vous plaît". Sometimes said very fast, since it's something you say everyday ("Silouplai"), and with a low pitch since it's the end of the sentence.
A simpler explanation is that people tend not to be able to hear their own accents.
Someone who wasn't brought up speaking French will probably never have an "absolutely perfect" accent. They may think that they sound exactly like everyone around them, but to someone brought up speaking French, they don't.
There are a lot of British actors who do American accents for various parts. These are native English speakers who grew up listening to American accents on TV shows and in movies. They work with dialogue coaches, and can rehearse their lines until they think they can deliver them perfectly in American-style English. Any slips in their accent can be fixed in ADR before the film is released. Yet, many people, including me, are able to spot a few quirks in their speaking and often identify these people as not American.
For French in particular, it has the "u" sound that also exists in German, but doesn't really exist in English. Many people who weren't brought up with that sound can't even really hear it, or can't hear it as different from the "oo" sound that they associate with the letter "u". As a result, words like "ouverture" don't have two distinct "oo / u" sounds for them. So, they might think they're speaking flawlessly and that nobody can notice, but it's really obvious for anybody who was brought up hearing and speaking French.
Everybody has an accent. But, do you mean that you can still tell that English isn't her first language or something?
A friend of mine is a champion unconscious code switcher. I lived in Australia for a bit and I don't think my accent drifted much. It was enough of a problem that when I went to restaurants and asked for water they'd look at me confused, so I had to learn to say "whoa-tah". This friend came to visit me in Australia and within a week he was using Australian terms and drifting into an Australian accent, even when talking to me, and it was completely unconscious.
Everyone cites Hugh Laurie as the best UK-born imitator of the American accent, and I completely agree, but I also think it's fucking hilarious that now a lot of UK actors trying to do an American accent also end up imitating Hugh Laurie's gravelly voice.
The Fauxmerican Accent is now Grumpy Doctor Voice, 11/10 comedy
Same as every american sketch comic trying to do a German accent, does a Brüno imitation (Sasha Baron Cohen's character).
Brüno's accent is really good, being a mixture of many characteristics, one of them German, another being typical gay speech patterns.
So now everyone who thinks they're doing a German accent, does a gay German Brüno voice. Not quite right.
amusingly, Laurie complained that he had, in fact, lost his British accent after so many years of working on House and had to work with a dialog coach to get it back.
That would be more like "bo------r, (nods vaguely toward the croissants)" the "s'il vous plaît" is implied, but definitely there somewhere. The "merci" will be a slight nod backwards.
The only French I know is the lyrics to a bunch of songs from Clair Obscure and I guarantee, I am butchering the absolute fuck outta it. Except for "dim dim dam dada dim dim da dada dim da lialom." I nail that shit. 😤
Only reason I really played it all the way through since I wasn't too keen on the combat, even with the more active parrys and dodges and what not. That and the story, but I kinda hated the ending/explination of what was going on when I finally got there.
When I was in Italy I felt like lieutenant Aldo Rains. Italy was the only place I actually struggled because English was far less common, and when I was in France for a day I had a near fluent linguist with me. I can speak a little German but never had to.
Speaking French like a native is so hard. They basically smush every word together into one long sound. I think the French also may not just say “two croissants please, you need to stick a “je prendre” in front or something. I know people who speak fluent French who still can’t speak to the locals in certain places because they can’t understand you unless you get the accent just right.
Yeah, i'd instinctively say "je vais vous prendre" in front of the phrase. We have a lot of weird and technically useless or wrong phrase structures like that in everyday language, so speaking grammatically perfect french is basically sus from the start.
This is my struggle learning Mandarin as well. For individual words or short phrases, my pronunciation is pretty good, but for long sentences, my cadence is shit enough that people have trouble following unless I intentionally speak like an idiot. Like, my immediate Chinese speaking family understands, because they are acquainted with my accent, but random people on the street look at me like I'm an idiot.
It's the same in any language, the people that were born learning it spoken will always have an instinct that those who didn't learn until school won't have. That said, if you live there for a decade you would pick it up to.
I was just in Bordeaux. Not a single issue with my weak French and I’d almost always get a reply in French. I promise I am nowhere near fluent, maybe A2 level.
But in Paris, nearly every reply was in English and even if I replied back in French I’d get that look “please stop butchering my language” before they’d reply in English. It’s a running joke now, but I really question if it’s just parisons being assholes or maybe they just want to practice.
Ps. Never had this issue with Italian. My accent is almost Roman too and I’m again, not fluent.
I spent way to many years traveling to France for business and spending several weeks there at a time. I don't speak French of course as I studied a bit of Spanish. When there as a foreigner you generally get either pleasant and wonderful people or snobbish assholes.
Parisians lean more towards assholes though I met many wonderful people there. It's more of a disdainful bored attitude without much bite. They know tourism is necessary for their jobs but dealing with tourism is a pain the ass. This interaction pretty much sums it up.
When you are outside of Paris the reactions get more extreme. I got some of the best and worst reactions when I was in smaller cities like Nantes or Lyon.
Never been to Bordeaux so didn't know about the reputation. As a foreigner I always had the impression in France that the more you go south the nicer they are (my own lived experience, due to circumstances I live in the Occitanie).
As an American I'd just be happy you're trying. The fact that you try to speak a native language IMO shows respect, even if it isn't that good. You care enough to try.
I haven’t had issues in Paris, but it might help that I often apologize for my French in advance. I’m Canadian and clearly have learned a different accent, but most people I encountered were quite eager to help me practice.
From my experience in Spain, if you don't speak Spanish and they don't speak English they will still try to help you. In the store they may just show you how much you have to pay on the screen. In other places they will quickly open google translate and use that.
In France they just stare at you and make 0 effort to help. Best they can do is just repeat it in French again.
I was taught the French language by a person born and raised in France. Every English speaker comments on my impeccable French accent. Every person from the nation looks at me with disgust when I try to reproduce their tongue.
I’ve done it, with a québécois accent, and the fucker still answered me in English.
And she was supper polite too. I asked to confirm that I could park my car in the street next to the hotel and she said “I don’t know, I don’t have a car.”
French guy here, It's always the accent. You think you don't have one, but you do, and when it's not the accent it's a confusion about grammar or the gender of a word.
Nobody talks without interferences such as "euh", "erm", "like", etc, because in real life people don't read lines like actors, they talk as they think. In your example, the person is obviously hesitating about what to order.
For sure, but it’s the rate at which the French use them which always blows me away. And I know I shouldn’t have to say this, and I know it will be ignored anyway, but yes obviously this isn’t every single French person.
I remember a specifically bad example from a person who was, if I remember correctly, introducing their website where they would speak in French and you could listen for practice. Great, sounds good. Except! I couldn’t follow them because they couldn’t pass three words, maximum, without a “uhh”, “beuhh”, or “eeeuhhh”. It was an extreme example, but I think about it all the time.
It all reeks of trying way too hard to hard to convince everyone how laid back they are but they’re some of the most stressed out people I know. I have to wonder if it’s the fact that I live in Montréal so we get a fair number of Parisien.nes here.
I've heard it described similarly. In much of the US, it's pretty normal to smile or nod at someone you're passing as an acknowledgement. But in cultures that aren't accustomed to that, I've heard it feels like if someone walked up to your car at a red light and knocked on your window just to say hi.
The directness one cracks me up. Is that where the word 'frank' comes from? Also, ime, they're pretty direct when no one asked.
The second reason we might think the French are not nice is because of their direct communication.
Ah, the famous French frankness! Unlike some cultures where things are left unsaid and hints prevail, the French often prefer to say things as they are. This transparency aims to prevent misunderstandings, but it can be surprising, even shocking. But believe it or not, it's often done in a spirit of clarity and mutual respect. After all, why waste time guessing what the other person is thinking?
So, don't be surprised if a French person speaks directly to you and doesn't tiptoe around you.
In English, if you get the word order wrong, or you say "how", when it should be "what", or you speak a bit too clearly, like, you say "Good morning", instead of "g'morning".
I expect there are plenty of nuances in every language that can tip off a native speaker, that they don't think about until it happens.
And, does the French person respond with perfect English, or do they have a bit of an accent?
The French are very cool people, who know how to throw a revolution, and that is what matters at the moment. Respect.
Given how dominant English has been on the world stage for decades, there's been a few times in my life where I'm listening to someone speak English and I didn't realize that they weren't American/AngloCanadian. (Dear Canadians, I am sorry, but like, dude our accents right on each others borders are near indistinguishable)
A guy I know complained they kept talking English to him, although he was native. I told him to ditch the raincoat and shave the stubble. I mean, the guy dressed like a stereotype.
One thing I learned while living in Japan and teaching English is that people who speak foreign languages might hear things differently from you.
The most striking example was that my students often couldn't even hear the difference between "she" and "sea" unless I was pointing it out in isolation. The difference is obvious to English speakers, but subtle to Japanese speakers.
And yes, there are examples the other way, but they're harder to explain here. Often, it's the difference between vowel sounds. Japanese are more strict, but an English speaker might not distinguish between an 'i' and an 'e' sound at speed. And have a bigger tendency to slur their pronunciation in this case.
But anyway, it wouldn't surprise me if there were similar things in French and English.
So how can you know if you're speaking perfectly unless you check with a native? Only when you're nearing fluency can you start to understand.
Japanese is a syllable-timed language whereas English is a stress-timed language. That makes a big difference when it comes to the clarity of vowel sounds. In English in unimportant syllables, the vowel sounds get relaxed and tend towards being prounounced as a Schwa. In Japanese, syllables are expected to take more or less the same time each, and as a result there's no relaxation of the pronunciation of the vowel sounds.
So, for example, when an American says "Toyota" they'll tend to say "tuh-YO-duh" because the natural emphasis in English is on the second syllable, which means the unstressed syllables get relaxed and become more like the schwa sound. Also, the "t" sound shifts to a "d" sound because it's easier not to cut off the vocalization to hit that final "t", and since it's unstressed it doesn't matter so much. In Japanese it's "TO-Yo-Ta'" The first syllable is slightly stressed and every vowel sound is clear, and the final "t" is important. In fact, the name used to be "Toyoda" named after the founding family's name, and they intentionally switched that to a "t" sound instead.
Even among the other stress timed languages, English is especially reductive. In German, a final "en" gets folded into the word; "haben" becomes "ham". But in almost all other cases, unstressed vowels retain their pronunciation.
Motor as two distinct o-sounds and doesn't become moter/motur. Or the word "specialised" could have the "e" maybe but def the "ia" turn into a schwa. Meanwhile "spezialisiert" retains every vowel as they were.
a friend of mine which immigrated to my country 15 years ago speaks 6 languages and she's really really good with languages, yet she still doesn't sound like she grew up here. i think mastering a language so that native speakers can't ever tell you're not a native speaker is very hard or almost impossible. maybe it's not the same for all languages but german is one of those languages where i think it's extremely hard.
If you haven't heard a spoken sound in your first few years of life (I've even seen people claim months), it's very hard to learn to tell the difference well. You can learn to pronounce them perfectly at any age, but a lot of the time subtly different words will be hard to distinguish if you didn't grow up with hearing them.
Argentinians (and possibly other Spanish speakers) struggle with e.g. "peach" vs "pitch", and worry about mispronouncing "beach".
Some Asians famously struggle with R vs L, which seems baffling to a speaker of western languages, but if you actually look at the frequencies, they're nearly identical sounds. We've just been trained from infancy to hone in on the difference to the point that it's hard to comprehend them sounding similar to other people.
Absolutely once you get to the age of ten your ears are tuned to the language(s) you've already learned and you'll never hear the same as a native speaker of a different language. If you weren't raised in French you cannot hear the differences between é è and ê
English speakers can absolutely hear and pronounce the difference between "é" and "è". It's the difference between "red" and "raid" or "let" and "late".
As for "ê", it doesn't have a pronunciation of its own. In "être" it's pronounced the same as "è". In "vêtu" it's pronounced the same as "é".
No, neither are diphthongs. I guess the two examples I chose can be pronounced as diphthongs.
"é" the "acute" accent is pronounced like day, fiancé / fiancée. English has a tendency to make those into diphthongs, especially if you're speaking slowly. But if you're speaking quickly and it's between consonants like say "mandate" you don't really hear the second vowel sound in that supposed diphthong. But, it's just the /e/ vowel sound in IPA. In any case, it's a sound that English speakers make and can hear.
"è" the "grave" accent is pronounced like pet, jet, etc. It's /ɛ/ in IPA.
Eeehhh. Native speaker here. I can hear the difference, doesn't mean I can pronounce it without it feeling alien. In my southwestern accent, a distinct "ê" doesn't really exist. We tend to ignore length and/or closed vowels.
For example, "les" /le/ (pl. the) and "laid" /lɛ/ (ugly) are both pronounced [le], "fête" /fɛt/ (party) and "faîte" /fɛ:t/ (roof ridge) are both [fɛt]. Another exemple is "ô" and "o" being both merged into a very open [ɔ], "paume" (palm) and "pomme" (apple) sound exactly the same.
A better distinction is between parlerai and parlerais. The first one ends in /e/ the second one in /ɛ/. It's important to distinguish them because one is the future tense (I will do something) and one is the conditional future (I would do something).
I learned French in Canada, but learned mostly from teachers speaking in a France-French accent, so I've heard both Quebec-style and French-style pronunciations.
To my ear, both French and English pronounce the month of May the same way: "may", "mai". But apparently some French speakers say /mɛ/. But, what about, "élève"? Surely you don't say the two "e" sounds in that one the same way, right?
I think, being "raised" in Québec-French, you have picked up a lot of pronunciations and vocabulary that are unknown in European French, to the point that I'm pretty sure it is one of the few varieties that could be truly considered a dialect.
I've heard some québécois speak "standard" French... they sound distinctly québécois ;)
I did ponder that, It was like 1pm on a Saturday, Hours were posted and should have been open, maybe a late lunch or a bathroom break, he could at least have said anything in French, I spoke enough to get by,
When I was in Paris a few years ago, it was such an inversion of the rest of my experience in Europe. Anywhere else, english was the language where me and anyone would be best able to communicate. Many times in Paris, my wretched French was the most effective way to communicate and I am genuinely sorry to everyone involved in that.
Yo one time in Calais I was ordering lunch on three hours of sleep and my family had to eat a sandwich with three random meats (one of which a hamburger patty) and chips all stuffed into it. It was still good, but the guy looked at me like I had grown a second head.
I had a couple of interactions like this while in Italy recently. I'd not even opened my mouth and the person responds in English. I specifically selected clothes that don't have any text on them, but I strongly suspect it's because I'm white as fuck and look as Midwestern American as one can.
I didn't have any trouble though, most of the Italians I spoke with seemed happy that I've been trying to learn their language and were happy to talk in a mix of Italian and English to meet me where my Italian level was. It was interesting comparing how in the touristy areas of Italy many folks spoke such perfect English they'd lost most accent (or perhaps were themselves transplants) but once I got out of the touristy areas folks were willing to work with my limited Italian
Maybe the accent gave it away even if the French is perfect. I'm not a fluent French speaker but I learned it in school. And even among various French speakers I hear, I can tell the difference in accent.
This is silly. We always order politely in bakeries. At least one of bonjour or svp is mandatory, along with a smile.
If you just say "deux croissants" with a perfect french accent (makes it clear you're not a random tourist trying their best), you'd get a bad glare in return, and not unlikely to have the people around you in line asking you if you were raised by troglodytes in a cave.
Damn, Paris has changed a lot. In my days you could talk in basically any language, living or dead, to a Parisian and they would understand every single word. And they'd still only answer in French.
Tbh, I tend to do that sometimes. The number of languages I can somewhat understand outnumbers the number of languages I can attempt to speak.
Especially when it comes to reading: it's a lot easier to see a bunch of cognates and understand the jist of the sentence than it is to come up with those words and conjugate, order, and pronounce them correctly.
On multiple occasions, I've tried to use my limited knowledge to order food or something in another language, only to have the person on the other side look at me confused until I restate myself in English.
I like to think of it like Star Wars where everyone just speaks and responds in their own language.
That's actually a legit technique to improve your understanding in a language. They speak theirs, you speak yours. It does depend on both people having a good understanding of each other's languages though.
Kind of the opposite for me but ONLY with ordering food in Spanish - I speak awful Spanish, can read it better than speaking or listening, but food - all my life, foods here are labeled in English and Spanish, and often I order so confidently that the person at the counter thinks I only speak Spanish. In absolutely no other situation would anyone mistake me for fluent. It helps that Spanish is so phonetic, and that in the US there are people from so many different places there isn't one accent.
Pls wash your hands after going to the toilet when you eat in a public place.
Yeah but in Paris it was sure done on purpose 😁!
Yeah, that was what I was thinking. There's no way a French person spoke in English of their own volition
Now it has become a way for people to blow their own trumpet.
I always found it pretty easy - just start speaking french with an English accent and they'll start speaking English just to make you stop.
They probably thought you weren't European, and switched to patronising you.
I'm French and I bet that it's the rythm. I can hear this foreigner with a perfect accent but with a way too perfect rythm with the same tonality: "Bon-jour-deux-croi-ssants-s'il-vous-plait"
A French would sing it. Bonjour ! : High pitched, the "bon-" louder than the "-jour", quick, dynamic.
A pause...
"Deux croissants" medium pitch, without any pause before: "S'il vous plaît". Sometimes said very fast, since it's something you say everyday ("Silouplai"), and with a low pitch since it's the end of the sentence.
A simpler explanation is that people tend not to be able to hear their own accents.
Someone who wasn't brought up speaking French will probably never have an "absolutely perfect" accent. They may think that they sound exactly like everyone around them, but to someone brought up speaking French, they don't.
There are a lot of British actors who do American accents for various parts. These are native English speakers who grew up listening to American accents on TV shows and in movies. They work with dialogue coaches, and can rehearse their lines until they think they can deliver them perfectly in American-style English. Any slips in their accent can be fixed in ADR before the film is released. Yet, many people, including me, are able to spot a few quirks in their speaking and often identify these people as not American.
For French in particular, it has the "u" sound that also exists in German, but doesn't really exist in English. Many people who weren't brought up with that sound can't even really hear it, or can't hear it as different from the "oo" sound that they associate with the letter "u". As a result, words like "ouverture" don't have two distinct "oo / u" sounds for them. So, they might think they're speaking flawlessly and that nobody can notice, but it's really obvious for anybody who was brought up hearing and speaking French.
My wife gets absolutely irate when I tell her she still has an accent, and that she also code switches her accents depending on who she is talking to.
Everybody has an accent. But, do you mean that you can still tell that English isn't her first language or something?
A friend of mine is a champion unconscious code switcher. I lived in Australia for a bit and I don't think my accent drifted much. It was enough of a problem that when I went to restaurants and asked for water they'd look at me confused, so I had to learn to say "whoa-tah". This friend came to visit me in Australia and within a week he was using Australian terms and drifting into an Australian accent, even when talking to me, and it was completely unconscious.
Reminds me of Hugh Laurie, the director House praised him for having the perfect American accent, not knowing he was British.
Everyone cites Hugh Laurie as the best UK-born imitator of the American accent, and I completely agree, but I also think it's fucking hilarious that now a lot of UK actors trying to do an American accent also end up imitating Hugh Laurie's gravelly voice.
The Fauxmerican Accent is now Grumpy Doctor Voice, 11/10 comedy
Same as every american sketch comic trying to do a German accent, does a Brüno imitation (Sasha Baron Cohen's character).
Brüno's accent is really good, being a mixture of many characteristics, one of them German, another being typical gay speech patterns.
So now everyone who thinks they're doing a German accent, does a gay German Brüno voice. Not quite right.
amusingly, Laurie complained that he had, in fact, lost his British accent after so many years of working on House and had to work with a dialog coach to get it back.
The "director House"?
Why would someone praise someone they thought was American for having the perfect American accent?
Yeah, that story makes no sense.
If I recall, he was chastising another audition, as in "look at that guy there, that's a perfect American accent, that's what I want"
And you wonder why people think you are uptight? /s
As someone living in France for a while now, that's exactly what I picked up from immersion, never noticed that before.
“Bonjour ! Euhhh…. Deux croissants s’il-vous-plaît et euhh…. ce sera tout”
Literally this, just add an insane amount of euhh everywhere and they'll think you're one of them.
Please do "I’m sorry, but I don’t speak French" now, please, thanks, please. :)
You say it with the pitch and rythm of "Je ne regrette rien" from Edith Piaf.
Thank you. I will try not to burst into song next time I get this springs up :P
<<Pardon, je suits stupide.>>
No shit this bailed me out in France. 😄
JE SORROUX, JE NON SPEAKOUX FRENCHOUX
WE WE CROISSANT. OMELETTE DU FROMAGE.
Yeah that's just gonna piss off any French person because we have no idea how that became so popular.
Dexter's Laboratory must be the reason, I can't accept any other explanation.
Yeah, but it's a cultural niche that's not known at all over on this side, and it became a meme, while being wrong.
So basically the same tempo as HEllooo, two croissants please. Taking as much time saying "s'il vous plait" as "please".
Basically talking like a normal person haha.
You describe it and I can hear my aunt (in law) saying it that way. I believe it.
Unless they are Breton
That would be more like "bo------r, (nods vaguely toward the croissants)" the "s'il vous plaît" is implied, but definitely there somewhere. The "merci" will be a slight nod backwards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzCEZ6KTIS8
The only French I know is the lyrics to a bunch of songs from Clair Obscure and I guarantee, I am butchering the absolute fuck outta it. Except for "dim dim dam dada dim dim da dada dim da lialom." I nail that shit. 😤
The music in that game was phenomenal. It gives me chills.
Only reason I really played it all the way through since I wasn't too keen on the combat, even with the more active parrys and dodges and what not. That and the story, but I kinda hated the ending/explination of what was going on when I finally got there.
I get it. It sort of fell into a trope that I generally dislike in media, but I guess I was hooked on the story because I ate it up.
My only French is from the Talking Heads song "Psycho Killer"
Not even Joe Cocker with "N'oublier jamais"?
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa
GOD DAMN YOU
The music in that game isn’t French btw
Out of the 120+ pieces of music in the game, only a small handful are not in French. 🤨
Saw this very thing in an article today. It was said it was the "American lean". Apparently we lean on things when chilling and that's very American.
We're tired, or invading, sometimes it's hard to tell.
Not even necessarily on things, just like lean to one side while standing.
The American motherland has a magnetic pull on them, drawing them in.
That's true. Part of it was taking about how we rarely stand squarely on both feet.
Contrapposto is best pposto
TIL I am American.
I'm sorry for your loss
I'm Indian and I do it. Do the French not?
Whenever I try to speak French, the reply is always the same...
Isn't that the name of their national lunch?
You're thinking of Croque Monsieur. Monsieur Clown is the name of a famous cabaret in Paris.
When I was in Italy I felt like lieutenant Aldo Rains. Italy was the only place I actually struggled because English was far less common, and when I was in France for a day I had a near fluent linguist with me. I can speak a little German but never had to.
Speaking French like a native is so hard. They basically smush every word together into one long sound. I think the French also may not just say “two croissants please, you need to stick a “je prendre” in front or something. I know people who speak fluent French who still can’t speak to the locals in certain places because they can’t understand you unless you get the accent just right.
Yeah, i'd instinctively say "je vais vous prendre" in front of the phrase. We have a lot of weird and technically useless or wrong phrase structures like that in everyday language, so speaking grammatically perfect french is basically sus from the start.
NOOO HAAANK!!! DON’T SAY THAT, HAAAANNNK!!!! HAAAAAANNNKKKK
Bonjour, je vous prendrais deux croissants s'il vous plait
With about half the letters not pronounced, the "je vous" becoming "j'vou", and a pause with a smile between bonjour and the rest.
This is my struggle learning Mandarin as well. For individual words or short phrases, my pronunciation is pretty good, but for long sentences, my cadence is shit enough that people have trouble following unless I intentionally speak like an idiot. Like, my immediate Chinese speaking family understands, because they are acquainted with my accent, but random people on the street look at me like I'm an idiot.
It's the same in any language, the people that were born learning it spoken will always have an instinct that those who didn't learn until school won't have. That said, if you live there for a decade you would pick it up to.
I was just in Bordeaux. Not a single issue with my weak French and I’d almost always get a reply in French. I promise I am nowhere near fluent, maybe A2 level.
But in Paris, nearly every reply was in English and even if I replied back in French I’d get that look “please stop butchering my language” before they’d reply in English. It’s a running joke now, but I really question if it’s just parisons being assholes or maybe they just want to practice.
Ps. Never had this issue with Italian. My accent is almost Roman too and I’m again, not fluent.
Ah you discovered the secret. Even among the French, the Parisians have a certain reputation.
I spent way to many years traveling to France for business and spending several weeks there at a time. I don't speak French of course as I studied a bit of Spanish. When there as a foreigner you generally get either pleasant and wonderful people or snobbish assholes.
Parisians lean more towards assholes though I met many wonderful people there. It's more of a disdainful bored attitude without much bite. They know tourism is necessary for their jobs but dealing with tourism is a pain the ass. This interaction pretty much sums it up.
When you are outside of Paris the reactions get more extreme. I got some of the best and worst reactions when I was in smaller cities like Nantes or Lyon.
Yeah we have French tourists in Quebec and the Paris ones are the worst.
I think it helps speaking the language in France, they can to be more nationalistic than Americans.
True, but so do the Bordeaulais
Source: wife is parisien, but her family are al Bordeaulais
Never been to Bordeaux so didn't know about the reputation. As a foreigner I always had the impression in France that the more you go south the nicer they are (my own lived experience, due to circumstances I live in the Occitanie).
Massive generalisation, but for the Bordeaulais nothing can match Bordeaux.
I'd just keep speaking French to fuck with them. Two can play at that game. I can't speak French, though.
I had a good friend from France who informed me that Parisians are just arseholes lmao
As an American I'd just be happy you're trying. The fact that you try to speak a native language IMO shows respect, even if it isn't that good. You care enough to try.
I haven’t had issues in Paris, but it might help that I often apologize for my French in advance. I’m Canadian and clearly have learned a different accent, but most people I encountered were quite eager to help me practice.
From my experience in Spain, if you don't speak Spanish and they don't speak English they will still try to help you. In the store they may just show you how much you have to pay on the screen. In other places they will quickly open google translate and use that.
In France they just stare at you and make 0 effort to help. Best they can do is just repeat it in French again.
I was taught the French language by a person born and raised in France. Every English speaker comments on my impeccable French accent. Every person from the nation looks at me with disgust when I try to reproduce their tongue.
You didn't smell like cigarettes and have a contempt for humanity
Wow the only time I'd be considered not enough of a midwestern hick to fit in to Europe
Should've used a quebecois accent
I’ve done it, with a québécois accent, and the fucker still answered me in English. And she was supper polite too. I asked to confirm that I could park my car in the street next to the hotel and she said “I don’t know, I don’t have a car.”
This killed me. I can literally see her face.
Did you say "parker mon char" because that'd sound like English to us ;)
Salut chum! Tabernak, doix crossaints si vous plait.
That'll probably get you shot in France
French guy here, It's always the accent. You think you don't have one, but you do, and when it's not the accent it's a confusion about grammar or the gender of a word.
The French was probably too perfect. Shoulda been:
“Je prends uhhhh deeeeux…deux croissants”. 90% of the French people I know can barely get two words out without a “uhh” or “beuh”.
Nobody talks without interferences such as "euh", "erm", "like", etc, because in real life people don't read lines like actors, they talk as they think. In your example, the person is obviously hesitating about what to order.
For sure, but it’s the rate at which the French use them which always blows me away. And I know I shouldn’t have to say this, and I know it will be ignored anyway, but yes obviously this isn’t every single French person.
I remember a specifically bad example from a person who was, if I remember correctly, introducing their website where they would speak in French and you could listen for practice. Great, sounds good. Except! I couldn’t follow them because they couldn’t pass three words, maximum, without a “uhh”, “beuhh”, or “eeeuhhh”. It was an extreme example, but I think about it all the time.
It all reeks of trying way too hard to hard to convince everyone how laid back they are but they’re some of the most stressed out people I know. I have to wonder if it’s the fact that I live in Montréal so we get a fair number of Parisien.nes here.
Oh, well, parisians are an entirely separate, degenerate species so we'll at least agree on that.
But yeah, it's always the accent. I'll die on that hill. We all have accents and it's normal.
Didn't order coffee
Taiwanese born. I have lived in the US for 20+ years. I speak the local Taiwanese Hokka dialect. Married a Taiwanese woman.
I walked into a local breakfast shop and the owner, without looking up, said "What do you want to order"?
How the fuck?!?!
So I moved back to Taiwan after the pandemic and I too can pick them out. It's honestly the way Americans carry themselves. It's hard to explain.
It must be a paris thing, I went to Lyon and obviously hit up a bakery near my friend's place. I did pointing & grunting and extremely basic french.
I did not enjoy the random fish danish I ended up eating since I fucking hate fish.
Merci beaucoup.
Did the sweatpants say juicy or juteuse across the butt?
Maybe the smile
Is not showing a will to live part of becoming fluent in French?
It's more a question about using or abusing a smile:
https://www.ohlalafrenchcourse.com/en/blog/article/why-aren-t-the-french-nice
I know that in some (many) cultures, the American "smile" can be unnerving
I've heard it described similarly. In much of the US, it's pretty normal to smile or nod at someone you're passing as an acknowledgement. But in cultures that aren't accustomed to that, I've heard it feels like if someone walked up to your car at a red light and knocked on your window just to say hi.
The directness one cracks me up. Is that where the word 'frank' comes from? Also, ime, they're pretty direct when no one asked.
Hell it's unnerving to my American ass, lots of people very blatantly weaponize smiles here
Isn't it the same with any language?
In English, if you get the word order wrong, or you say "how", when it should be "what", or you speak a bit too clearly, like, you say "Good morning", instead of "g'morning".
I expect there are plenty of nuances in every language that can tip off a native speaker, that they don't think about until it happens.
And, does the French person respond with perfect English, or do they have a bit of an accent?
The French are very cool people, who know how to throw a revolution, and that is what matters at the moment. Respect.
Ehhhhh...
Given how dominant English has been on the world stage for decades, there's been a few times in my life where I'm listening to someone speak English and I didn't realize that they weren't American/AngloCanadian. (Dear Canadians, I am sorry, but like, dude our accents right on each others borders are near indistinguishable)
A guy I know complained they kept talking English to him, although he was native. I told him to ditch the raincoat and shave the stubble. I mean, the guy dressed like a stereotype.
The only one who can actually say you have a perfect accent is a native speaker.
This seems like self-diagnosed.
This has come up before. Considering OOP grew up in France, she may in fact be qualified to diagnose her proficiency in the language.
One thing I learned while living in Japan and teaching English is that people who speak foreign languages might hear things differently from you.
The most striking example was that my students often couldn't even hear the difference between "she" and "sea" unless I was pointing it out in isolation. The difference is obvious to English speakers, but subtle to Japanese speakers.
And yes, there are examples the other way, but they're harder to explain here. Often, it's the difference between vowel sounds. Japanese are more strict, but an English speaker might not distinguish between an 'i' and an 'e' sound at speed. And have a bigger tendency to slur their pronunciation in this case.
But anyway, it wouldn't surprise me if there were similar things in French and English.
So how can you know if you're speaking perfectly unless you check with a native? Only when you're nearing fluency can you start to understand.
Japanese is a syllable-timed language whereas English is a stress-timed language. That makes a big difference when it comes to the clarity of vowel sounds. In English in unimportant syllables, the vowel sounds get relaxed and tend towards being prounounced as a Schwa. In Japanese, syllables are expected to take more or less the same time each, and as a result there's no relaxation of the pronunciation of the vowel sounds.
So, for example, when an American says "Toyota" they'll tend to say "tuh-YO-duh" because the natural emphasis in English is on the second syllable, which means the unstressed syllables get relaxed and become more like the schwa sound. Also, the "t" sound shifts to a "d" sound because it's easier not to cut off the vocalization to hit that final "t", and since it's unstressed it doesn't matter so much. In Japanese it's "TO-Yo-Ta'" The first syllable is slightly stressed and every vowel sound is clear, and the final "t" is important. In fact, the name used to be "Toyoda" named after the founding family's name, and they intentionally switched that to a "t" sound instead.
I'm native german and it's To-Yo-Ta too.
Even among the other stress timed languages, English is especially reductive. In German, a final "en" gets folded into the word; "haben" becomes "ham". But in almost all other cases, unstressed vowels retain their pronunciation.
Motor as two distinct o-sounds and doesn't become moter/motur. Or the word "specialised" could have the "e" maybe but def the "ia" turn into a schwa. Meanwhile "spezialisiert" retains every vowel as they were.
a friend of mine which immigrated to my country 15 years ago speaks 6 languages and she's really really good with languages, yet she still doesn't sound like she grew up here. i think mastering a language so that native speakers can't ever tell you're not a native speaker is very hard or almost impossible. maybe it's not the same for all languages but german is one of those languages where i think it's extremely hard.
If you haven't heard a spoken sound in your first few years of life (I've even seen people claim months), it's very hard to learn to tell the difference well. You can learn to pronounce them perfectly at any age, but a lot of the time subtly different words will be hard to distinguish if you didn't grow up with hearing them.
Argentinians (and possibly other Spanish speakers) struggle with e.g. "peach" vs "pitch", and worry about mispronouncing "beach".
Some Asians famously struggle with R vs L, which seems baffling to a speaker of western languages, but if you actually look at the frequencies, they're nearly identical sounds. We've just been trained from infancy to hone in on the difference to the point that it's hard to comprehend them sounding similar to other people.
Absolutely once you get to the age of ten your ears are tuned to the language(s) you've already learned and you'll never hear the same as a native speaker of a different language. If you weren't raised in French you cannot hear the differences between é è and ê
English speakers can absolutely hear and pronounce the difference between "é" and "è". It's the difference between "red" and "raid" or "let" and "late".
As for "ê", it doesn't have a pronunciation of its own. In "être" it's pronounced the same as "è". In "vêtu" it's pronounced the same as "é".
so è is a dipthong??
No, neither are diphthongs. I guess the two examples I chose can be pronounced as diphthongs.
"é" the "acute" accent is pronounced like day, fiancé / fiancée. English has a tendency to make those into diphthongs, especially if you're speaking slowly. But if you're speaking quickly and it's between consonants like say "mandate" you don't really hear the second vowel sound in that supposed diphthong. But, it's just the /e/ vowel sound in IPA. In any case, it's a sound that English speakers make and can hear.
"è" the "grave" accent is pronounced like pet, jet, etc. It's /ɛ/ in IPA.
You mean like British pronunciation i guess?
Nope.
Idk man im here in the midwest and day is always a dipthong (two vowels written after all) and if you do cut it off it's the same e sound as pet/jet
Eeehhh. Native speaker here. I can hear the difference, doesn't mean I can pronounce it without it feeling alien. In my southwestern accent, a distinct "ê" doesn't really exist. We tend to ignore length and/or closed vowels.
For example, "les" /le/ (pl. the) and "laid" /lɛ/ (ugly) are both pronounced [le], "fête" /fɛt/ (party) and "faîte" /fɛ:t/ (roof ridge) are both [fɛt]. Another exemple is "ô" and "o" being both merged into a very open [ɔ], "paume" (palm) and "pomme" (apple) sound exactly the same.
That's a bad example because "les" can be pronounced either as /lɛ/ or /le/.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/les#Pronunciation_7
A better distinction is between parlerai and parlerais. The first one ends in /e/ the second one in /ɛ/. It's important to distinguish them because one is the future tense (I will do something) and one is the conditional future (I would do something).
I learned French in Canada, but learned mostly from teachers speaking in a France-French accent, so I've heard both Quebec-style and French-style pronunciations.
To my ear, both French and English pronounce the month of May the same way: "may", "mai". But apparently some French speakers say /mɛ/. But, what about, "élève"? Surely you don't say the two "e" sounds in that one the same way, right?
Exactly, those are two very very different sounds to me. May is meh-ee. Mai is just meh.
Good trolling.
I think, being "raised" in Québec-French, you have picked up a lot of pronunciations and vocabulary that are unknown in European French, to the point that I'm pretty sure it is one of the few varieties that could be truly considered a dialect.
I've heard some québécois speak "standard" French... they sound distinctly québécois ;)
You can keep speaking French after this point. Practice makes perfect
I walked up to a change office to transfer a travelers check to cash.
me: Bonjour!
he stopped me right there
change guy: "I do not speak english"
me: nods, shrugs, hands him the check
change guy: ignores the check, pulls down the lock shutter.
That's what you get for showing up right as they were closing.
I did ponder that, It was like 1pm on a Saturday, Hours were posted and should have been open, maybe a late lunch or a bathroom break, he could at least have said anything in French, I spoke enough to get by,
When I was in Paris a few years ago, it was such an inversion of the rest of my experience in Europe. Anywhere else, english was the language where me and anyone would be best able to communicate. Many times in Paris, my wretched French was the most effective way to communicate and I am genuinely sorry to everyone involved in that.
Yo one time in Calais I was ordering lunch on three hours of sleep and my family had to eat a sandwich with three random meats (one of which a hamburger patty) and chips all stuffed into it. It was still good, but the guy looked at me like I had grown a second head.
I had a couple of interactions like this while in Italy recently. I'd not even opened my mouth and the person responds in English. I specifically selected clothes that don't have any text on them, but I strongly suspect it's because I'm white as fuck and look as Midwestern American as one can.
I didn't have any trouble though, most of the Italians I spoke with seemed happy that I've been trying to learn their language and were happy to talk in a mix of Italian and English to meet me where my Italian level was. It was interesting comparing how in the touristy areas of Italy many folks spoke such perfect English they'd lost most accent (or perhaps were themselves transplants) but once I got out of the touristy areas folks were willing to work with my limited Italian
Too perfect? American body language?
Maybe the accent gave it away even if the French is perfect. I'm not a fluent French speaker but I learned it in school. And even among various French speakers I hear, I can tell the difference in accent.
They do this in argentina if you speak Spanish and you have darker skin. And the best part their English is more broken than my Spanish.
I would just leave that bakery.
That bakery probably hopes that too.
The clothes, what else 🤣
No french person would be that polite is why. Unless they're a 4yo out with their mother.
Deux croissants
This is silly. We always order politely in bakeries. At least one of bonjour or svp is mandatory, along with a smile.
If you just say "deux croissants" with a perfect french accent (makes it clear you're not a random tourist trying their best), you'd get a bad glare in return, and not unlikely to have the people around you in line asking you if you were raised by troglodytes in a cave.
I love that that's shortened to svp! Not sure why but it tickles me.
Svp is far too long to say, siouplé is more likely.
The French are very keen on following proper etiquette, I have no clue what the parent comment is about lol.