When I went to France after taking French in high school I tried speaking French to various people and they usually responded to me in English. That’s certainly one way to say “your French is shit.”
When I went to France I remembered enough high school French to ask for directions, but didn’t remember enough to understand the reply. Luckily everyone spoke English anyway.
People that have lived in France for years and speak perfect French told me that when they try to order something in French the waiters just look at at them with contempt and respond in English. It’s not you, it’s them.
perfect French
I’m French-Canadian. My native language is French, I spoke French at home growing up and the entirety of my education was in French.
When I’ve visited Paris, I had people switching to English despite me speaking exclusively in French to them.
It’s so weird because I NEVER have this issue in France. I grew up in Ottawa, went to French immersion in public school (therefore far from native speaker level), haven’t even lived in Canada for over 15 years now but the last two times I visited France they were just happy to me in French. There was just one time a baker offered to take my order in English and I asked if I could practice my French and he gladly obliged.
I dunno. Are they maybe way more lenient when dealing with Asians?
I mean, I’m sure they have an accent, but in America you’d be considered racist for disparaging someone over that.
Maybe that’s the cultural disconnect.
Wut?
I have never heard of that happening like ever, with the exception being tourist places in Paris, where there are 99% of non natives because if you’re not a tourist you stay out of those places (paris is littered with fantastic restaurants).
From a Swede in France.
French people are so bad at speaking english that those who can manage want to show it off at every opportunity.
But in Montréal, it’s more a matter of an inferiority complex from french speakers. And the habit to be forced to speak english with those who don’t want to learn french.Bro I made so much effort to learn this foreign language, of course I am going to use it whenever I have the occasion!
I do this also with other language I know.
I tried to buy cigarettes. “Winston, s’il vous plait,” while pointing at them. Lady started screaming for her colleague, “anglais!” Then I had to ask for them in English.
No need to bother with French.
Its like there’s a nation actively trying to kill its own language.
Lingua Franca indeed.
I had a similar problem when I lived in Japan, but it manifested in sort of the opposite manner. My Japanese was shit, but my work (as an English teacher) required that I answer the phone using a long Japanese greeting.
Eventually, I could do that greeting in my sleep with very little accent. And I have a name that could be mistaken for a Japanese name.
Inevitably, I’d finish the greeting and they’d respond with a torrent of full speed Japanese that I couldn’t understand at all.
I considered doing the greeting poorly, but instead, I just said “Hello” in English after finishing the greeting and people usually got the idea.
Mine was in my native language, not Japanese, but I also had a job that mandated a long greeting. I also had cause to repeat it sufficiently frequently that I could have done so in my sleep. In fact …
Once I was at home, in bed, asleep. I had a dream that my work phone was ringing. Of course, I wasn’t fully awake (or really at all) and my work phone was at work, not near my bed. In my half awake state, I picked up the nearest thing I could find - my personal cell phone - and recited the long spiel. Only after several minutes of slowly blinking myself awake did I realize my cell phone wasn’t connected to anyone and, also, I wasn’t at work.
The only character I had engaged was my dog, who was staring at me in apparent confusion. Probably that was just because I had gone from dead asleep to jerking upright grabbing my cell phone, but I like to think that in his head he was thinking I was a dumbass for thinking I was at work.
Sorry, off topic but your comment about the Japanese phone getting reminded me of when I worked at an English school too.
My coworker, who is 100% Japanese, was just off her game that day and instead of “お電話ありがとうございます〇〇です” she greeted a random caller with “おめでとうございます〇〇です” lol
It was really cute. She of course committed sudoku in shame soon after.
My pronunciation is pretty good. Comprehension not so much. And when I try this, I usually get hit woth the fastest French ever, as if I was a native speaker.
That’s how it was in NL too.
We’d say hello / good morning in Dutch and they’d clock my accent and switch to better English than I could muster.
My gf studied Dutch for years, came over to NL, spoke to my parents in Dutch, all good.
Then we ordered things in a café. She kept speaking Dutch, the waitress understood, but kept replying in English with a heavy accent. Then switched to Dutch when speaking to me.
I’ve always heard those stories and couldn’t imagine anyone being so rude but yeah.
Oh they weren’t being rude to me.
I had it explained as “15 million Dutch people speak mostly Dutch, but we all speak French / English / German cuz they can’t stop fighting wars here”
Dur mais réel.
Same thing happened to me when I went to southern Mexico. I tried using the 3.5 years of Spanish I took and they barely even tried to humor me. At least the housekeepers were pretty chill and would indulge my not amazing Spanish lol
I went to Paris once, and despite everything I had heard my whole life, if you start off with a Bonjour and end with a Merci, in between, the locals are almost all perfectly happy to speak English with you.
I’m sure I say these things with a thick American accent so they all know not to continue too much further in French.
“I’d much rather stumble around in English than witness whatever the fuck you’re about to do to my mother tongue” - the French
But yes, a simple “Parlez vous anglais?” puts most conversations firmly in friendly territory. It’s entitlement that puts most people off.
Yeah most people are self conscious about their accent/vocabulary so if you roll in speaking English it kinda feels like you’re going “hey I expect you to bend over backwards to try to speak my language while I’m visiting your country” which is of course even worse if they’re working at the time. Opening with any attempt to speak French shows that you’re willing to accommodate them and the person will immediately be more relaxed at the idea of exposing just how bad their English is.
That’s a Paris thing
Go even a meter outside the city and people will pretty much ignore you when you don’t talk french
Source: the bunch of French people I know
Say something to prove you’ve never been to france without saying you’ve never been to france.
Definitely been there multiple times.
Plus I know people who live there their whole life
Really, alors vous pouvez sur et certain me dire que la majorité des français hors de Paris sont ceux qui traitent les étrangers qui ne parlent pas le français comme les Parisiens étaient bien connu partout en france pour traiter les étrangers pour des décennies? Cool good to know you know someone therefor confidently incorrect, I can tell you this by having lived there and having family there both in Paris and its suburbs and other places within the country. But please tell me more about france from your perspective.
Seems like you’re both describing lived experiences. France is a big place. Some of it is pretty easy to get by with apologetic English, some bits they really don’t speak the language and you’re gonna have to find an app or something.
To graduate highschool in france you need to have taken and passed at least 6 years of one secondary language and 4 of a third, most take English for one of those languages and culturally the place most known for the snobbish behaviour historically is Paris, from supressing other languages in France such as Catalan, Basque, Occitan, Breton, Normand, or Frankish, which have begun to disappear completely over the last 200-300 years in favor of the modern French of Paris. Paris culture has a long history of thinking it is the best culture in France and above others in Europe, the term langue franc or lingua franca comes from Parisian French being the primary international language, calling everything from Haitian, Occitan, Normand, and other similar languages as a Patoi a french, a term meaning a derivative of the French language when. Occitan and Frankish are much older languages than French and in the case of Frankish is a language that evolved into French.
Now with that bit of history and culture out of the way, which shows the suppression of other internal cultures if you want to call it that and erasure of their languages from public use and the elevation of French, which came with the centralization of political and economic power in France in Paris, it lead to a culture within Paris that started with the capital of the monarchy permanently setting up their bureaucratic institutions there then the revolutions starting there, leading to a major cultural centralization there and a sense of superiority compared to the rest of france which endures to this day, be it someone from Lille, Marseille, Toulouse, Dinon, Lyon, or elsewhere the Parisian culture sees those major cities as secondary in cultural additions to prance and Paris as the jewel in the crown. This sort of cultural snobbery led to other regions of France, while maybe less able to speak English in the past than Paris, having a less snobbish attitude than Paris, as well as a more friendly attitude to foreigners as a whole (look up the 1961 Paris Massacre for more context)
I went to the many places in small villages, think about 200 people there, and was welcomed with open arms. My French was bad but with trying to talk with hands and feet in English and French did a lot. They learned English and I learned French.
…
Viva la France
Viva las vegas
Vive la france
I worked for a year in the entertainment department on Queen Mary 2. On one voyage there was one French family who were very pleasant. So I attempted to be a Good Employee greeted them at the door of the theatre one evening with a cheery “Bon soir!”, as per my GCSE French.
The following seconds were exceptionally awkward, as I had no idea what they replied with.
I learned a lesson that day.
Try leading with “Hello-Bongjoor”, they’ll understand.
I’m not familiar with the “jig is up” saying. Someone mind explaining it?
It means something to the effect of “I’ve been caught in a lie and can’t keep up the act anymore”
A “jig” is afast lively dance, usually somewhat comical in appearance.
Because jigs were often performed as comic interludes or sketches at the end of plays, the word “jig” started to mean a a piece of entertainment or a “performance.”
Eventually, slang-users in Elizabethan England started using “jig” to mean a clever trick or a “con.” If you were “playing a jig” on someone, you were fooling them.
“Up” means that the “time for the performance is up” or concluded. The most common way we use “up” to mean finished is in relation to time. When a clock runs out, the time is “up.”
Imagine a cup being filled with water. When it reaches the brim (the top), it is full; it can’t take anymore. In the same way, when a situation or a “jig” (a trick) reaches its limit of time or tolerance, it is “up” at the brim.
In English, we often add “up” to verbs to show that an action is finished 100%. This is known as a “completive particle” in the study of language.
The meaning behind the idiom is that “jig” is an old term for a trick, so you’re no longer fooling the person.
I thought it was “jig” like the dance, so the metaphorical dance is over
Seems it’s one of those definitions that only survives in a idiom:
The extended sense “piece of sport, trick” (1590s), survives mainly in the phrase the jig is up (attested by 1777 as the jig is over).
Huh, you’re right. I checked the OED online (it’s a subscription thing through my library, here’s the link the OED “cite” button gives, let’s see if it’s paywalled: Oxford English Dictionary, “jig (n.1), sense 5,” December 2025, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1036112357.)
edit: well, I’m not a fan of that. Here’s what it says, minus the examples
A piece of sport, a joke; a jesting matter, a trifle; a sportive trick or cheat. the jig is up (or the jig is over) = ‘the game is up’, it is all over. Now dialect or slang.
No dice, paywalled
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that’s a shame. I’ve edited the text into my comment above.
It actually does originate from that! But “jig” meaning “trick” is slang.
Cat’s out of the bag
Thanks for asking, it have been quite confusing. Like hello, hello, what can I get you, ouch busted … 😁
A swede in France.
I only know enough French to start bar fights in Montreal, which gets awkward because the folks involved are generally better at bar fights than I am.
Regardless, I’m convinced there is nothing in this world more satisfying than a hearty “TabarNAK” at just the right moment. Fuck’s a great word, but there’s just something about those extra two syllables and the emphasis at the end that fills me with joy.
I’m french and I fucking love the sacres. It is my personal opinion that my countrymen mock québécois and its accents because they’re jealous of the funny expressions and the way they can seamlessly slip some English words in any sentence with an impeccable accent.
I’m convinced there is nothing in this world more satisfying than a hearty “TabarNAK” at just the right moment
CaaAAAAaalice
Idk, I also really like when they chain them all together. Tabarnak de calice d’ostie de saint ciboire
<3
I personally rank it slightly below Tabarnak, but it’s still an S-tier cuss. It does have the hissing sound going for it if you emphasize the end, which I quite like.
i’ve worked as a cashier in quebec, and i promise you if you don’t speak french, don’t pretend, you’ll only make things more awkward for everyone lol. personally, if someone speaks to me in french, even with a big accent, i reply in french, tho i know that not everyone does
ask if we speak english, more often than not (especially in montreal) the answer will be yes, and if not we’ll get someone who does. (at least that’s how it was where i worked, maybe other places who are less used to have english-speaking customers would react differently)
when you go in with the plan of saying “one coffee please” and you know how to say it and you think you know how to pay for it, and then you get a question you don’t understand after “hello”, that is something i can relate to
i guess it’s probably different in canada, where english is a majority language, so you can basically assume everyone speaks it, but when i was driving through germany, i first tried using my rusty german, and if/when i reached my limits, i asked if they spoke english
and also it’s a challenge for oneself, i wouldn’t want to take that away from people, although i can see how it can be frustrating when a long queue halts for some time due to communication issues
Great fishing in Keebec.
I loves fishing in Kwee-bec!
I still can’t quite accept that the French for “what” is literally “what is it that”
What is quoi. For “what is that?” we say “C’est quoi?”, which translates to “This is what?”.
Muchos merci, freund
Probablement qu’il parle de “Qu’est-ce que c’est que ça?” Ou “Quessé ça” en français amélioré
Le Jig est dessus. Mon français est parlant surtout. J’ai difficilement ecriter le Français parse que je apprendant actuellement. Alors, nous utilisons “Quesse ça” rarement en mon region. Desole mon ecrivant est merde.
That’s just WTF en francais, non?
“WTF is this shit” but without being vulgar.
There are shorter ways but that’s the more formal version, you can also use “que” pretty much any time you could use “qu’est-ce que”.
But that sentence literally translates to “What is it that I can offer you?” That’s just normal English albeit a bit verbose.
When I went to Montreal, I’m not exaggerating when I say that every single service worker I interacted with opened with “Bonjour, hello!” You would only have to fuck that up once if you didn’t realize what was happening there.
ahn kwassan!
great censoring on the name, impossible to tell who posted this
written french is a lot easier to understand than spoken french, we need IRL real time subtitles for these people…
Je ne pas parle francaise.
Mon franchaise tres mal.
Par-lay-z vouze frankaise?
Non?
That’s okay, we forgive you.
Isn’t French in Quebec very different from everywhere else that speaks French?
Some words have a different meaning, they use a lot of English words, and have a unique accent. We Frenchmen can understand québécois with minimal difficulty.
Thank you. I have heard differently before, but never from a first hand source.
The easiest way to compare is Irish/Scottish relative to global English. Or better yet, a thick American southern accent compared to a British accent.
The idioms, the accent etc all have their particularity. Typically quebecers can understand French from France but the opposite is a little more difficult.
All that being said, just like all languages there’s localised variations around quebec. And a trained hear can usually tell the difference between someone from Gatineau, Montréal, quebec, Gaspésie or Lac St-Jean.
Interestingly, Québécois French is less likely to use loanwords like “le weekend”, preferring instead to use terms like “fin de semaine” (literally “end of the week”). In terms of vocab used, a French person is still likely to understand a Québécois French speaker (and vice versa). I can’t speak for how much impact accent has on intelligibility though
Source: English person who did 8 years of French in high school, who also has a French Canadian friend
I lived with a French Canadian while living in France. They like to get so high and mighty about speaking “purer” French with “less loanwords”, but I would say they use just as many if not more.
One example was a day we started taking about cars. I hear him use words like “wheel” and “bumper” (literally just the English words with a French accent) and I’m like “bro do they really not use the French words for those in Canada?”
French people and French-Canadians both use anglicisms, just in different ways.
For example, if we take the sentence “I parked my car in the parking lot for the weekend”, someone from France might say:
J’ai stationné ma voiture dans le parking pendant le weekend
whereas someone from Canada could say
J’ai parké mon char dans le stationnement pour la fin de semaine
Both have influence from English, but in different places. English loanwords in Canada tend to originate from the beginning of the 20th century (a reason why many car-related terms in Canadian French are anglicisms, such as “bumper”) and in France loanwords tend to be a more recent phenomenon.
8 years of French in high school, huh?
I suppose it wasn’t all in high school. It was between the ages of 10 and 18, which would mean that it was from Year 5 to Year 13. In my country, secondary school is from year 7 to year 13; I said “in high school” because that’s when the majority of it took place
I wasn’t sure if you were trying to make a joke about the quality of your ability to communicate in French lol
They do like the words un hamburger/hotdog. They have their own slang, want to test your mingled(mangled) language skills? Try talking to an Acadian, a mixture of french and english in the same sentence, so much fun. Accent has a HUGE effect, rural folk(not living in the cities like MTL, Quebec city, and a few others) can have such a thick accent I can’t understand 2/3 of their words
Some pronunciations are very different for sure. For example, France French says montagne (mountain) sort of like mohn-tahn-yeh, and in Montreal it’s mohn-taine.
For an English speaker with no french knowledge, it’s not gonna make much difference.
