It’s a common complaint from expats here (want to learn, but locals won’t let then practice).
Weird, the common stereotype is that Pierre will only speak to you in French, and if you try to do it, no matter having a Parisian accent or speaking like a member of L’Académie Française, they will pretend to not understand you.
Germany is differently wrong. Maybe the younger generation does that. But holy fuck it’s hard to speak English with mid-older generations. My broken ass german works better
Correction “PLEASE DON’T but also FUCK YOU FOR TRYING AND HURTING MON EARS”
STAY IN YO LANE ! Savage
I only like it if they are good at it
Depends on which one. If someone talks to me in fluent Walloon, I’ll ask them to teach me 😭
haha je suis une baguette
We are nice to you if you just keep your mouth shut.
If someone from outside Ireland spoke Irish to me I would probably be in the “why bother” range.
“It’s LA baguette, not LE baguette! Oh la la!”
Netherlands is wrong. The right one is “(looks at you like you are a total weirdo and answers in English)”.
Or sometimes “Sorry i don’t speak Dutch”.
Tbf when I was in Austria and Germany, I specifically asked people to speak German to me and only switch when I can’t speak German any further
Yeah, don’t bother learning. You move 10km and already half the words have changed due to accents
Literally every single time I have spoken french I’ve been told to shut up.
My favourite is when 2 6’5 black lads in Belgium very forwardly tried to sell me weed. I told them my name and that I was tired(thus wanted to leave). They looked at each other, laughed, looked at me and just said “hahaha…speak English.”
Ireland when you try to speak Irish
Ok, I’ll stick to German, Pierre.
I’m also firmly in the please don’t camp and I imagine a lot of other greeks are too. Hearing people fail to pronounce the flattest vowels, struggle with “th”, emphasizing the R as if they’re trying to speak russian (it’s just a trill in greek) and generally butchering the language as much as possible has me like
My French is ..not good, but I’ve never once had anyone try to discourage me from speaking.
Sometimes they speak good enough English or Spanish that they prefer it, but I think a lot of people saying this are basically saying they know “Où sont les toilettes?” And then thinking they speak French
France will react this way even when you are also a native french speaker but with a slightly different accent/dialect
It’s definitely false for Poland.
Even Finns don’t speak Finnish anymore, so why bother, let’s just be in silence. Nods do fine.
It’s 100% accurate for Denmark at least
Common Southern Europe W
Omg there’s an actual short film about a Chinese person learning Irish to go to Ireland that we had to watch in school:
Hate to defend Pepe Le Pew but in my experience the French love it when you try to speak French. I was half expecting condescending corrections to my grammar, ie ‘its not Le its La’ but no one gave a shit. All friendly.
France really needs to decide if they want French to be the world language or if they want people to stop speaking French.
Hahaha… indeed “please don’t”. The problem is that foreign languages are a serious matter for the French. They are first and foremost educated in the historical, cultural and literary background of the language itself, not so much the practicality of it, like the Dutch for instance.
A language is not simply considered as a “tool”, the French don’t have a pragmatic mercantile state of mind. The intellectual relationship is quite strong. German is a bit similar in that regard.
OI PIERRE JER VOODRAY UNO BIERRE COMPRENDAY SILVER PLATE!!!
Here it would be more like “Wtf is this person trying to do? I’ll just speak english with this person.”
(Our language is difficult)
PLEASE DON’T, but also fuck you if you do not know how to say “Bonjour”, and “Merci” (at least if you visit Paris).
Which is indeed contradictory, but eh, what can you do… We’re the French!
Poland loves it when I try speaking polish, so maybe blue?
Sincerely, it’s not don’t because we don’t want it, it’s more that we know our language is hard enough for us to wonder how we ended up learning it
Nowhere near true for some of those. Virtually no one over 40-50 in germany speaks English, some of the younger people too barely know few words.
Can we change this stereotype for germany please?
I tried that with Pedro and said „Tu novia mella chupa, hijo puta!“ but it didn’t work 🙁
I feel like France is totally wrong actually, it’s exactly the opposite, they *demand* you speak French…..
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Portugal is 100% pink/red.
It’s a common complaint from expats here (want to learn, but locals won’t let then practice).
Weird, the common stereotype is that Pierre will only speak to you in French, and if you try to do it, no matter having a Parisian accent or speaking like a member of L’Académie Française, they will pretend to not understand you.
Germany is differently wrong. Maybe the younger generation does that. But holy fuck it’s hard to speak English with mid-older generations. My broken ass german works better
Correction “PLEASE DON’T but also FUCK YOU FOR TRYING AND HURTING MON EARS”
STAY IN YO LANE ! Savage
I only like it if they are good at it
Depends on which one. If someone talks to me in fluent Walloon, I’ll ask them to teach me 😭
haha je suis une baguette
We are nice to you if you just keep your mouth shut.
If someone from outside Ireland spoke Irish to me I would probably be in the “why bother” range.
“It’s LA baguette, not LE baguette! Oh la la!”
Netherlands is wrong. The right one is “(looks at you like you are a total weirdo and answers in English)”.
Or sometimes “Sorry i don’t speak Dutch”.
Tbf when I was in Austria and Germany, I specifically asked people to speak German to me and only switch when I can’t speak German any further
Yeah, don’t bother learning. You move 10km and already half the words have changed due to accents
Literally every single time I have spoken french I’ve been told to shut up.
My favourite is when 2 6’5 black lads in Belgium very forwardly tried to sell me weed. I told them my name and that I was tired(thus wanted to leave). They looked at each other, laughed, looked at me and just said “hahaha…speak English.”
Ireland when you try to speak Irish
Ok, I’ll stick to German, Pierre.
I’m also firmly in the please don’t camp and I imagine a lot of other greeks are too. Hearing people fail to pronounce the flattest vowels, struggle with “th”, emphasizing the R as if they’re trying to speak russian (it’s just a trill in greek) and generally butchering the language as much as possible has me like
My French is ..not good, but I’ve never once had anyone try to discourage me from speaking.
Sometimes they speak good enough English or Spanish that they prefer it, but I think a lot of people saying this are basically saying they know “Où sont les toilettes?” And then thinking they speak French
France will react this way even when you are also a native french speaker but with a slightly different accent/dialect
It’s definitely false for Poland.
Even Finns don’t speak Finnish anymore, so why bother, let’s just be in silence. Nods do fine.
It’s 100% accurate for Denmark at least
Common Southern Europe W
Omg there’s an actual short film about a Chinese person learning Irish to go to Ireland that we had to watch in school:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JqYtG9BNhfM
Hate to defend Pepe Le Pew but in my experience the French love it when you try to speak French. I was half expecting condescending corrections to my grammar, ie ‘its not Le its La’ but no one gave a shit. All friendly.
France really needs to decide if they want French to be the world language or if they want people to stop speaking French.
Hahaha… indeed “please don’t”. The problem is that foreign languages are a serious matter for the French. They are first and foremost educated in the historical, cultural and literary background of the language itself, not so much the practicality of it, like the Dutch for instance.
A language is not simply considered as a “tool”, the French don’t have a pragmatic mercantile state of mind. The intellectual relationship is quite strong. German is a bit similar in that regard.
OI PIERRE JER VOODRAY UNO BIERRE COMPRENDAY SILVER PLATE!!!
Here it would be more like “Wtf is this person trying to do? I’ll just speak english with this person.”
(Our language is difficult)
PLEASE DON’T, but also fuck you if you do not know how to say “Bonjour”, and “Merci” (at least if you visit Paris).
Which is indeed contradictory, but eh, what can you do… We’re the French!
Poland loves it when I try speaking polish, so maybe blue?
Sincerely, it’s not don’t because we don’t want it, it’s more that we know our language is hard enough for us to wonder how we ended up learning it
Nowhere near true for some of those. Virtually no one over 40-50 in germany speaks English, some of the younger people too barely know few words.
Can we change this stereotype for germany please?
I tried that with Pedro and said „Tu novia mella chupa, hijo puta!“ but it didn’t work 🙁
I feel like France is totally wrong actually, it’s exactly the opposite, they *demand* you speak French…..
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