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Trying to decide what to do with French? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5197 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 17 of 26 18 August 2014 at 11:18am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Since I'm known here by now for writing about negative experiences with the French, I feel it's my duty to weigh in :).
I'll start by saying that Cavesa's descriptions of experiences are accurate and I've had many similar ones myself. I've also generally found the French to be extremely difficult to socialise and make friends with compared to people from many other European countries, and I stopped learning French largely for that reason: nobody to use it with and a culture that seems very closed. However, I've had a few discussions about this, and they made me realise that most of these experiences have been with a particular type of French person, the type who I happen to meet the most in my life, and generalising these experiences to all of the French is unfair and inaccurate. I've mostly met French people at social events like language meetups, Couchsurfing meetings, through mutual friends, and at a big music festival in France that I've attended several times. In all of these situations, it's overwhelmingly people from a certain demographic: age from around 20 to 30, University student or graduate, middle class, keen on travel, and with at least some English knowledge. The experiences I've had with older people, for example, have generally been positive. Despite the stereotypes, I've found the French to generally be very polite and helpful. People in shops, restaurants, railway stations, and on the street in Paris have been kind and happy to help me, sometimes without me even asking. The customer service isn't the artificially-friendly Anglophone type, but I felt it was much better than in other places in mainland Europe such as Italy. And in most of these situations, they were very willing to speak French with me and didn't switch to English. The language standard for social situations is very high, as Cavesa says, but for "customer" situations it's lower and if you can express yourself without struggling too much they're mostly fine. And all my experiences are in France and with the French. I've heard somewhat mixed things about Quebec but the general consensus seems to be that, perhaps because of the political situation with the language and the pride, they tend to have a good attitude towards French learners. There have been some interesting discussions here about Montreal's linguistic situation that you might want to dig out if you're interested. Anyway, back to the original question, I agree that practice is what's needed. French is an extremely popular language to learn (or to try to learn at least!), which can be a double-edged sword: there is no shortage of events and opportunities for learners to practice, like meetups, but often that practice is with other learners who also speak imperfectly which can be a bit limiting. It's better than nothing, and I managed to reach a fairly high level in French mostly practising at these sort of meetups. I've also found self-talk exercises to be an effective way of activating conversational skills that doesn't require finding a person. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4697 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 18 of 26 18 August 2014 at 11:22am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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It is not about accusations. It's merely a dry sense of humour you clearly can't
appreciate ;) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5522 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 19 of 26 18 August 2014 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I'm with eyðimörk here: I've spoken to many French speakers, in all sorts of circumstances, and they've happily put up with all sorts of horrible and broken French, even back when I was A2. But I think I understand with anglophone / francophone interactions sometimes go off the rails: 1. Many French students try to practice their French with customer service people in Paris. This often ends badly, because Parisian customer service is a lot like Manhattan customer service—there are plenty of nice people, sure, but also a lot of total jerks. I remember stopping by an empty bagel shop near Wall Street and looking at the choices for all of about 10 seconds before the owner snarled, "Ya gonna buy sometin, or what?" And deserved or not, Parisian waiters have a similar reputation with the rest of the French-speaking world, as this hilarious comic explains. Imagine what the world would think of Americans if every foreign tourist came to lower Manhattan and tried to strike up long conversations with busy customer service people, and you'll get the idea. 
2. When interacting with French speakers, students often miss a couple of important social cues. For example, they walk into tiny shops without saying "Bonjour," or they expect waitstaff to play that "fake American friendliness" / "the customer is always right" game. Say "Bonjour" in small shops, and treat customer service people like social equals who are there to do a job, and you'll get off on the right foot more often. Here's an example from Benny Lewis:
And when you combine the occasional Parisian rudeness with differing social expectations, things can really go off the rails. 3. People underestimate how proud many French speakers are of their English. Seriously, English is a very high-status language in France, and plenty of people need to know it for professional reasons, or just because they're young and they grew up on a global Internet. Occasionally, if I speak French to one of these people, they react as if I said, "Hey, you look like a country bumpkin who sucks at English, so I'll just go ahead and use French." There's a great VDM anecdote about this:
Of course, this is even harder in Montreal, because you may be talking to a francophone with native or near-native English, or to an anglophone who sounds like a local French speaker but who would really prefer to use English with fellow native speakers. And since people often need to choose languages a dozen times a day, there's a whole fascinating etiquette. But this also means that walking around Montreal and insisting on "winning" every language negotiation is actually pretty rude. You can absolutely find people who will indulge you, but you have to be sensible and polite about it. And you need to keep in mind that many francophones in Montreal are extremely proud of their bilingual status, and they would find it very rude to force an anglophone to continue in French. So yeah, you will meet jerks, and they can sometimes be thick on the ground in Paris. But if avoid people like the stereotypical waiter in the cartoon above, and if you watch out for differing social norms, the French can be very welcoming, and they will often put up with awful French. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4999 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 20 of 26 18 August 2014 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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The people I've met were from various regions of France. And of various ages, even though people of my age are probably the worst, that is true. It may be caused (partially) by the fact that they believe they are awesome at English and much better than any mere foreign mortal may become at French. Yes, emk is right about their pride (often pride with little reason, truth be told) And the Suiss were just the same from my experience even though I cannot speak about the Belgians, Canadians or others.
I think the way to communicate in French with the french is this (and it really works): 1.get away from the most touristy places. Even a few streets away from the most touristy corridor in Paris will make a difference. Small towns are even better. That's the way to practice your speaking skills in situations like shopping or ordering in a restaurant. Staff at the tourist cafés and monuments is very likely to use English with you. 2.don't try too much to practice real conversation with the service staff. Yes, some will be chatty if you are being friendly. But many are just eager to see your back and get to the next customer or a coffee/cigarette/whatever. As was already said, they are not artificially nice. They don't think they need to entertain you as a part of their job. 3.appear very confident. If you look shy and unsure, they will try to help and show off their English, even when the situation is inappropriate and their English is a pain to the ears. 4.speak with other age groups than 20-30, which is actually quite hard if you happen ot be part of that age group, just like me. Of course I am much more likely to meet other students than seniors. I don't have that much to talk about with people significantly older, I even hate interacting with certain kinds of seniors. 5.just refuse to switch to English when you know the problem is their attitude, not your skills. Be a little bit selfish, unless something important depends on the switch to English. If they don't feel comfortable talking with you just because you don't follow their idea of how a foreigner should act, you are better off finding someone else because the attitude will show in other ways as well. 6.Do not look too much like a tourist so that they don't judge you before you open you mouth, or rather don't even be with such obvious tourists :-D. For exemple, people are much more likely to use English with me, rather than their language whichever it is at the moment, when I am accompanied by my father (whom I love very much despite following critics of his style ;-) ) in holiday cloths, with an ugly hat (somehow, most hats look horrible on my father) and a huge camera, who obviously doesn't understand them. They react to the subcoscious feeling that the father of a family is very likely to be the most skilled one so we all must have language skills even inferior than his by the logic. You may not agree with me but it applies to a large amount of observations. Really, it doesn't happen by far as much when I am with other people (friends, boyfriends) who may not speak the language or any foreign language but look normally. I am not trying to tell you "copy a french fashion style and try foolishly to look like a native at all costs. I am telling you to look like a normal person (a funny term, I know, I mean someone who is not on a holiday), wearing cloths appropriate for the place and situation and not wearing any huge "hey! I am a typical stupid mass tourist!" sign. 7.Emk or someone else (if someone else, sorry for my bad memory) once gave an excellent advice on using items to help you get recognized as the foreigner who knows the language. Carrying with you the book you are reading in the language, obviously utilizing the french version of an information leaflet and so on. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Arnaud25 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 3832 days ago 129 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Russian | Message 21 of 26 18 August 2014 at 6:52pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
It's very easy to understand why servers in touristic cafés and restaurants behave like that: These guys work 60 or 70 hours per week but are paid on a 35 or 40 hours base. They have to earn the remaining of their salary with the little sums the customers leave when they pay: the "pourboire". The more people they serve, the higher the probability to earn a pourboire. So they don't have time to loose to play the language partner with tourists. Trying to practise your french in big touristic areas is indeed the worst idea you can have. Try to find more calm and less touristic areas if your goal is to practise your french: in the majority of the cases, you'll be welcome. Another point: I don't think frenchies are particularly proud of their English (at least, I'm not). I think that the majority of french natives simply don't know that french is difficult to learn. French is an easy, elegant and logic language. Why on earth, tourists and foreigners persist to massacre it is a complete mystery :o) : in that case, we try to switch to English, so that the situation is easier for both sides. Edited by Arnaud25 on 18 August 2014 at 7:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4999 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 22 of 26 18 August 2014 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I don't blame the servers at all, I would never try to waste their time by trying to speak about weather or politics or whatever with them, especially when they are obviously busy. That is a too selfish thing to do. But I am seriously offended when people anywhere switch to English with me even though my French is obviously more than significantly better than their English and the switch can improve nothing in the simple situation (quite the contrary). I find it disrespectful. I am the customer, there is nothing insufficient with my skills in the situation, so I am to choose the language. I hate the prejudices.
From what I've noticed, it is quite the opposite: they believe it is impossible to learn French. Therefore they automatically switch to make the situation "easier". Not the servers and such people, I don't care that much about those (even though it is an awesome feeling of victory when they don't switch and they are just usually rude in French :-D ). I mean people of my age who just make me feel like all those years, efforts, money and social struggles (yes, even that) are being flushed in the toilet. They treat me as if I was an idiot. Really, French has made my life so much richer, it has been very useful and pleasant and I plan to get out of it a lot during my whole life. But due to the french people, I am really not going to tell everyone "Forget about Spanish or Italian. French is the obvious choice and the best and most enjoyable romance language to learn". It is not. The answer to the question "what is the best romance language to learn, the most important one, the one that will bring you the most?" is no longer as simple as a century or two ago. And the French natives aren't helping it despite the efforts and money their representative organisations pump into the language learning and PR industry in order to keep the interest of foreigners which adds to the economical ties. I am not saying all of them are like that. No, not by far! But more than in other countries I have tried. Much more. The newest exemple was the French girl among the group of Spanish and various people during my exchange stay in Spain last month. Really, she was a really nice girl overall but there were some classical situations and I felt once more that my efforts and accomplishments mean nothing just because of prejudices. Edited by Cavesa on 18 August 2014 at 8:00pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5226 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 23 of 26 18 August 2014 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I've had a mixed experience with the French. I work for a French company and I practice French with people who are Hungarian, German, and Portuguese, but the French people will ALWAYS switch to English. The only exception is a fellow from France who said he would only speak to me in French after I told him I was learning, and he never has spoken another word to me in English.
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| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5197 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 24 of 26 19 August 2014 at 12:08pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Yeah, that's a big part of the frustration for me; the people who I said I have the most problems with happen to be the people most like me, whom I have most in common with and would most like to meet. I've met a few French people in their forties for example who are nice and are happy to speak French with me, but let's face it, we don't exactly have much in common. Again I fully agree with Cavesa's rant and I've had the same experiences myself ;) I think it's partly because French is such a popular language to learn: they deal with a lot of people butchering it while foreigners who speak it well seem quite rare. Then again, us native English speakers generally don't have condescending attitudes towards anyone who speaks imperfect English (it happens but it's not exactly the norm!) so there must also be a cultural element. I also have similar experiences with Italians and Spanish from time to time, but again it's not really the norm. I'll also reiterate my point that almost all of those problems have been in social situations, not service ones. While I agree about not using service staff for language practice, I have had a few good conversations with them. Not during busy times of course! 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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