Some commenters tell they had bad experiences in France. In my opinion, it's a case of confirmation bias and lack of understanding of cultural differences. For many reasons, you can't expect the same types of interactions with a waiter in Paris and one in NYC or Tokyo. I think people traveling to foreign countries should be open-minded and understand that things may work a little differently than in their home country.
The French aren't arrogant assholes overprotective of their language! that's just plain stereotype. Yes, they don't speak English as well as Swedes for instance, but not worse than let say Italians. Besides, there are tons of English words making their way in the French language.
Also, French people are often shy of speaking English. Sadly, we tend to make fun of each other, and those that haven't had the opportunity to practice outside school are often embarrassed to speak English.
I can imagine when tourists are clogging up everything people's tempers get short (I know mine do and I live near a major tourist friendly city). Anybody who wasn't overtly friendly was at least reasonably professional and I can't recall any specifically negative interaction with any French person during my stay. Language was sometimes a barrier, but nearly everybody we interacted with was patient and kind with our terrible abuse of our few French words.
I remember one evening trying to find a certain restaurant, my wife stopped a lady out on her evening exercise/walk and asked for directions. This lovely Parisian woman not only offered directions, but made a better restaurant recommendation, walked us the dozen or so blocks over to it and made arrangements with the staff to let us dine there even without proper reservations.
Every place has some bad things as well, things that can be constructively criticized. I'm an American and it's pretty obvious we screw up all kinds of things and those things are worthy of comment or criticism, France is no different in that respect.
France is beautiful, the people are great and I came away very impressed with the country and the people. I also learned a lot and came away with new perspectives on many things I had taken for granted before. French citizens have a tremendous amount to be proud of.
By the way, if they form an opinion on France by how they are treated by parisiens I can understand they don't appreciate the experience.
We're much friendlier in province ;-)
In my opinion, it's just a way of reenforcing this dichotomy between Paris and "province" (and this word is also part of that scheme).
I haven't met American tourists like that, and I haven't met French people that are arrogant asshole overprotective of their language. Somewhere, there probably are some specimen of both categories, but, as always, anecdote is not evidence, etc.
Disclaimer: I'm french.
I think it's more pride than shyness mostly because of history and the rivalry with England. It's unconscious too.
My French never improved while over there, because they'd never give me an opportunity to use it - I'd open my mouth once and it would become immediately clear to them that their English surpassed my French!
Many European languages had a local equivalent for "computer" long before electronic computers were around, and French is certainly not the only one that kept it.
In my time travelling in France (Paris, Nice and surrounding areas), I made every attempt to say the little things in French. "Bonjour" , "Le menu pour Anglais" or "L'Addition s'il vous plait", "Parlez vous anglais?" etc. The idea was to start any question or conversation in french and then switch to English.
Never did I have a problem over my 2 weeks with anyone. Everyone appreciated the effort to speak the language and was super polite and warm.
Greek also: υπολογιστής ('ypologistis', literally "computer").
Greek universities teach computer science courses in Greek so a lot of the terminology is translated over. When I speak to fellow Greeks who have studied CS in Greek, there's always a bit of mental gear shifting needed before we can be sure we're on the same page.
A few examples: μεταγλωττιστής (compiler; lit. someone doing voice-overs of foreign language speech)
λειτουργικό (σύστημα) (operating system; lit. functional system)
πολυπλέκτης (multiplexer; lit. multi-knitter. Note that "plex" is possibly from the Greek for 'knitting', 'pleximo')
σφάλμα κατάτμησης (lit. segmentation fault)
περιηγητής (web browser; lit. explorer or sightseer)
μητρική (motherboard; lit. maternal (card))
And my personal favourite:
αντικειμενοστραφής προγραμματισμός (object oriented programming, literally, in the sense of "oriented" used to denote physically orienting one's body towards a given direction; in other words "programming that is facing objects")
As an American who spent a semester in a high school in France, I remember being shocked hearing our French teacher use "le timing et le planning" discussing our strategy for how to write an in-class essay. This was an ordinary French class for French speakers made up of upper-middle class 11th graders in a stuffy Catholic school.
English loan words (the term itself is valid in French!) are all over the place. "OK" is pervasive. Other examples include "stop", "week-end", "parking", . There are even strange examples where English words are used in ways that make no sense in English. "Footing" means "jogging". "String" means "thong". "Pull" (as in "pullover") means "sweater". "Chewing" means gum. "Baskets" means "sneakers". My favorite though, is "talkie-walkie" where the "l"s are both pronounced.
If you received a blank stare from the supermarket guy, he probably just did not understand what you were saying.
Well épissage is not a new word just like splicing was not a new word.
Épisser is joining two ropes together by weaving their strands. That's sailor language, not some new word invented to spite the English.
This was especially odd because a lot of the Welsh terms for computing subjects were invented and/or standardised after we took the classes, and different colleges were using different terms for the same concepts.
Needless to say, nobody did the exams in Welsh.
(The only Welsh most of us learned was just enough to fake our way into Clwb Ifor Bach, the welsh-speakers' bar/nightclub!)
Many European languages have native words for computer. In Swedish it's "dator" (from "datum"), in Finnish "tietokone" (literally "knowledge machine").
The English word "computer" is not a new word, but an old job title reassigned to a machine. It makes sense that other languages might choose a different etymology for an information processing engine.
Turkey has an official government body which regulates the Turkish language and naturalizes foreign loan words. It used to be much more active but people generally still listen to it, why copy the sounds of a foreign word when you can copy the meaning and end up with a word that's much easier to say and remember?
They recently tried to rebrand selfie as özçekim, "self-picture", but I think it's a little too late for that one.
Marketers (in France and many other countries) have realized that the American legacy of progress and technology is still cool and edgy, and helps sell pretty much anything.
It honestly irritates me, as 95% of those intruder words are not only often misused in their context, but have perfect etymologically correct translations in French.
Un steak is spelled the same but pronounced "steck". The Hangover movie was literally called "Bad Trip" in France, instead of "La gueule de bois". "Shopping" is the go-to word to describe purchasing goods, even though "achat" is a perfectly valid word.
I could go on and on: un smartphone, la freebox (router), un smoking (a tuxedo), un string (a thong), wi-fi (this one is worldwide), chewing gum, businessman, boycott, startup, warning...
I speak Tamil. Tamilians invent new words constantly for new concepts and as an example the word for computer is கணினி (ka-ni-ni).
Norwegian: datamaskin. Until the mid 80's it was widely debated what name to use, with datamaskin, data, komputer og dator (from Swedish) as common alternatives.
Icelandic apparently uses "tölva" - basically "prophetess of numbers" (from "tala" and "völva").
Swedish: dator (can be precisely dated to 1968). You can also use "datamaskin" in Swedish as well, but it is dated.
Chinese did out of necessity, because the meaning-based character system fundamentally doesn't work well with foreign sounds.
I must've looked totally bewildered; I remember just repeating the phrase "deux baguettes, svp." every time the guy said anything.
Fortunately a kind and patient lady in the queue behind me explained that he was telling me they had none left!
I fled the shop as quickly as I could with a "merci beaucoup" - as if I was kidding anybody by that point that I spoke French!
The thing is, there are a lot of very educated French people who, when they speak English, have an extremely accentuated French accent. Typically scientists and politicians. It's like they don't make any effort whatsoever or think that the French accent is some kind of honorific mark they should cultivate.
Me, I've always thought the French accent is the worst ever and I try my best to hide it because it makes me feel retarded.
Most people don't realize that a language's accent is a physical thing. Your throat, nose, tongue behave differently when speaking different languages. If you're French, you can't speak English while keeping the same physical arrangement of your mouth and throat than when you speak French. So if you want to speak a language with a native accent, you have to experiment with all those parameters, and find what your voice sounds like in that language. For instance, my voice is a bit deeper in English than it is in French; this is particularly noticeable with my female friends who are speak both English and French natively - their voices tend to be very noticeably higher in French.
I've been learning Japanese, and it seems that I get best pronunciation results when my throat is in an even lower, more relaxed position than English. I intend to pick up mandarin at some point and am very much looking forward to experimenting with that, as I have no experience with strongly tonal languages.
Kids get this intuitively, but adults have a much harder time with it- it has to be taught consciously. Which is why most French people, even after living in an English speaking country for many years, retain a horrible French accent. We really ought to be teaching kids from the maternelle, much like many of our European neighbors do.
That being said, one thing I just have never been able to do are regional accents in languages I already speak. I cannot for the life of me speak with a northern French accent (my family's from the south, although I grew up in Lyon so have a mostly neutral accent), or a British accent.
I work for a company that moved from Paris to California, so we have a large number of native French speakers who still work with us; it's an interesting dynamic.
Nowadays it's all down to the communication and it's why I learn languages at the first place, being able to communicate and having fun learning from each other.
Unfortunately is not always the case in France, where we expect people to speak French as it should be, hopefully with more people travelling and having experiences abroad we will be more open when foreigners try to speak French.
To native English-speaking ears it does sound kind of fancy. Kind of snobby too, though.
It impresses Americans, who unconciously assume anything European is more sophisticated. Go to a high-end restaurant in the U.S. and I'll bet your maitre d' has a European accent. Or just look at the top luxury brands; why is a Mercedes somehow more sophisticated than a Lexus? French wine more sophisticated than Californian?
But I'll take the flattery. :)
My favorite language story is from when I was studying in eastern France (Strasbourg). I went across the border to the train station in Kehl, Germany, as I reasoned that train tickets inside Germany (I was on my way to Berlin) would be vastly cheaper than trying to buy the same ticket with an origin in Strasbourg.
Anyway, I know a little bit of German, and suddenly I understood why foreign language classes always start you off with directions and tickets and timetables and so on. So I was all set with my basic train vocabulary. We went back and forth and conducted our business. I gave him my American passport at the end, he seamlessly transitioned to some pleasantry in English as we concluded, and I walked away with my train ticket.
Well, as I walked away, I was pondering his lack of surprise that I was American (which should not have been surprising; my crappy German is clearly not a Frenchman's crappy German), and I replayed the conversation in my head. As I got to the "smoking or non-smoking" part, I realized I could not recall the German word (rauchen, for those keeping score at home). Eventually it came to me, and I realized that he had actually said "smoking oder non" (oder being German for "or").. Well, of course, English with a German accent sounds like German to an English speaker...
And I suddenly realized that we had probably conducted virtually all of the transaction in English, and I had no clue. He probably switched to German-accented English as soon as I did a poor job of asking for a 2nd class ticket to Berlin arriving at this time on that date, and I didn't even realize it.
One time when I was about 16 or 17 I was sent to do an installation at a dairy farm; specifically in the small trailer near the barns where a couple of Mexican migrant workers lived (the farm owner being nice enough to get them a TV subscription, I guess). In this area of the country there aren't a whole lot of Spanish speakers, so I'm guessing that the guys who were hanging out in the trailer just assumed the goofy looking white kid would have no clue what they were saying if they spoke in Spanish.
Little did they know that I studied Spanish in school for the better part of a decade (and actually paid attention/practiced), so I could understand most of what they were saying, and it was not good. It was a lot of complaining about the farm owner (who did not speak Spanish) and about how this "trash was not an excuse for better pay and working conditions". They definitely sounded bitter about their situation.
So when the time came to activate the satellite receiver I had to use their telephone to call the provider to turn it on, for fun I asked, "Puedo usar el telephono?" I have never seen anyone get more quiet and solemn this quickly. Neither of them said another word the rest of the time I was there, presumably in fear of me ratting them out (of course I didn't).
Here in Canada we have a french region, and if you walk into a mechanic's shop and say: “Hi! Does anybody speak english here? Can you fix my car?” They will help you, but if you make an attempt like: “Bon Jur. Can you fixé le car for moi?” They will be a lot more happy to accommodate you in English because you tried to bridge the gap. Maybe it's similar!
Have you considered the fact that they might have been foreign tourists like you? A French hiker would not greet you in English unless he clearly heard you speak in it on the way in, and even then. (am French).
Duolingo French elicits speech, but I fear that it is set so permissive as to hardly be helpful (I haven't dared to test feeding it nonsense or clearly incorrect pronunciations yet). There's a Czech-learning app I use that uses speech recognition to test the user's pronunciation, but the implementation is bad: it is fairly strict, and the speech recognition simply tries to interpret the speech (rather than gauging correctness), so it frequently misinterprets the user's utterance as another statement entirely. Which is frustrating and unhelpful.
I've found the friendliest people in France are in the South. Along the French Riviera the economy is highly dependent upon tourists and they want the repeat business.
Many years ago I visited a restaurant near the train station in Nice. The proprietor seated me at a table with someone else. I was confused until I realized he seated me with a regular who spoke English. I visited a week later and he did the same thing but with another regular.
A dozen years later I relayed the story to my parents who were going to visit the area. My mother who did speak fluent French had a long conversation with the proprietor. After paying their bill he gave them a wine pitcher with the restaurants name and said give this to your son. Together we've probably sent two dozen friends to that restaurant.
We visited Domme, Arles, and Eze, and the people were really great, particularly in Domme.
The other thing I noticed about the South is that it was easier to carry on a conversation in French, in part because the people spoke a lot less (if any) English, which puts your mind into the mode of speaking only French. In Paris we'd be speaking French one minute, English the next.
BTW, what's the name of the restaurant in Nice?
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g187234-d20819...
I'm at the point where I'd have a hard time following dialogue in a TV show (although, to be fair, that's always hard for foreigners), but am rarely identified as american by native french-speakers; they usually guess German or something similar (more plausible to know French well, but still with the harder-edged anglo accent; I'm clearly not an Italian or Spaniard... well, okay, I AM Italian, but do not speak Italian).
Anyway, what I mean to say is my background with the language is complicated, and my french is far from perfect. Typically I managed in the 80-100% range depending on words.
Anybody know the goal of the project?
tough trough though through thought thorough
Or, as commonly found on the internet: "English is weird, but it can be understood through tough thorough thought though..."
Oh dear, I gave myself semantic satiation just by writing this out.
As a Canadian I'm a bit surprised though as all the words it was able to detect I got 100% scores - I know a lot of the Quebecois french pronunciations we learn in Canada are very different than French from France so it'd be interesting to hear how that is taken into account.
I really hope they keep going on this project as mastering accents is one of the largest gaps right now in online language learning and market leaders either lack the feature all together (like Duolingo) or do a rubbish job of it and charge a fortune (like Rosetta Stone).
The Quebecois programming was inevitably subtitled in (real) French, which was an endless source of humor for me.
On the other hand, while Quebec French has its regional expressions (as do most US, UK and French regions), it's fascinating how the language and accent has changed in 30-40 years only.
This archive video from 1963 church-era is hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HjSfZWI-ZA -- Radio-Canada interviewing a bunch of people at the municipal pool asking them about short shorts. Lots of different accents.
She is not impressed ;)
Reading through the comments, before loading the page itself, I got really interested. Finally I clicked on the page just to find out that it is for Apple devices only. Quelle discrimination in the age of HTML5! If I only had a button to down-vote!
Having "perfect" accent is pointless. When learning a new language you should aim for learning grammar, understanding basic pronunciation, but not "speaking with native accent". That's pointless, unless you're a spy[1] (Look the answer to "Q: Is it possible to acquire a language to a "native" level?").
