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British Writer and Broadcaster Jeremy Paxman was recently very critical of the French Language. His criticism of the language made the British papers, although personally I have never had a problem with the French or their launguage. I have always found the French to be pleasant and polite, and was surprised by Paxman't article in the Financial Times.
My French professor explained this exact question a while ago. He said while a lot of tourists find the French people rude, the French people often find those tourists rude as well. For example, he lives in old town Nice and many times a month he runs into foreign tourists asking him "hi, do you know where is XXX". And to him, a traditional Frenchman in his 50s, it is quite impolite. And if not in the right mood that day, he may refuse to answer.
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I am not French but I live in a French-speaking area. It happens to be right on the border with "Anglo-Canada".
I admit that sometimes if someone is obviously being a dick I will pretend that I don't speak English. It doesn't happen very often and 98% of the time I am gracious and help people who speak English.
A little trick to help people have better experiences: when in a French-speaking place, the appropriate response when someone addresses you in French with a nice "bonjour", for example, is not "what's that???"...
Maybe the casual Americans think it is acceptable to ask a total stranger "hi, where is XXX" on the street of Los Angeles, but for the French people, especially the old generation, that's disrespectful. It is not about you not speaking French, but about how the question was asked. In French, the polite way to say is "excuse me for bothering you, but could you tell me how to get to XXX". The phrase "excusez-moi de vous deranger" words like magic and everyone would stop to help you.
French value a Bonjour/Bonsour before requesting or saying anything..
I didn't know this was the protocol. (They don't teach that in school. They should.) I always prefaced everything with an "Excusez moi, madame/monsieur". That seemed to work ok. This thread is stirring up a desire to dust off my French (very dusty, at this point) and get some lessons.
I didn't know this was the protocol. (They don't teach that in school. They should.) I always prefaced everything with an "Excusez moi, madame/monsieur". That seemed to work ok. This thread is stirring up a desire to dust off my French (very dusty, at this point) and get some lessons.
Bonjour is what most people use but Excusez-moi works too. It's an acknowledgement of the person as opposed to just blurting out what you want right off the bat.
Sometimes it happens that I am in a rush and just blurt out what I want, and the person will respond with a pause, and then a firm but smiling "bonjour". Which is kind of a polite way of pointing out that I've committed a social impair.
Where I live we aren't as sticky about these formalities as people are in France, but they're still there and you run into them from time to time.
Bonjour is what most people use but Excusez-moi works too. It's an acknowledgement of the person as opposed to just blurting out what you want right off the bat.
Sometimes it happens that I am in a rush and just blurt out what I want, and the person will respond with a pause, and then a firm but smiling "bonjour". Which is kind of a polite way of pointing out that I've committed a social impair.
Where I live we aren't as sticky about these formalities as people are in France, but they're still there and you run into them from time to time.
Well, it's not just in France, right? It's fairly standard in the US, to say, 'Excuse me", before you ask directions of a stranger, or whatever, isn't it? One doesn't just bark one's questions or requests at people, except maybe passing in the street, to ask someone the time.
Well, it's not just in France, right? It's fairly standard in the US, to say, 'Excuse me", before you ask directions of a stranger, or whatever, isn't it? One doesn't just bark one's questions or requests at people, except maybe passing in the street, to ask someone the time.
Oh, it's definitely a "best practice" in most any culture, but some cultures are more sticklers than others about such things.
British Writer and Broadcaster Jeremy Paxman was recently very critical of the French Language. His criticism of the language made the British papers, although personally I have never had a problem with the French or their launguage. I have always found the French to be pleasant and polite, and was surprised by Paxman't article in the Financial Times.
I refuse to speak the French language, the only French words that i use are a la, bonjour, bon appetit, boulevard, bureau, bouquet, cafe, croissant, chef, deja vu, entree, entrepreneur, merci, parkour, madame, mousse, omelette and voyeur.
Not keeping being tolerant to the intolerant, already did that enough in my life and almost each time it costed me something.
so, the French are still condescending and arrogant. Yeah, right.
I don't think he speaks for most people in Britain and to be honest I was surprised by the article he wrote.
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