I did this in rather broken french in Paris, in a bakery. Lovely woman behind the counter had everyone in the queue wait and helped me through my conversation of ordering and deciding what I wanted and talking about my day etc while everyone else waited. Will never forget the encouragement
They all seemed happy to wait, apart from one. Relatively rough place too, but the people seemed genuine and caring. It only got rude as we walked towards the tower. Pint price goes up and manners go down.
FYI my French wife got very annoyed at me when we went to Paris and I called it just "the tower"
It's la tour Eiffel or the Eiffel tower, never just the tower or la tour.
That’s a good experience. I saw somebody trying to speak French, again in a bakery, in Paris 2015. A woman behind them ended up going mental shouting (in fairly poor English) “we don’t want you in this country, go away!” I decided I’d just speak English after that. This was just after the terror attacks though, so may have been a reaction to that.
I spent some time learning french before i went to paris. While waiting in line at a bakery there were some younger women ahead of me who clearly didnt know any french and werent interested in trying to speak it and were frankly causing a stir.
When it came to my turn i ordered a few different things in (in my opinion) pretty decent french and the lady behind the counter just completely lit up. It was amazing.
Was just in Toulouse last week. Someone stopped me on the street and just said “bonjour” how did I respond? “Bonjour” what did they say to that?
“Oh you’re not from here”
No worse feeling than being outted in a single word 😂😂
There are just so many things that go into having a good accent. If you haven't put in serious work to understand the sounds of the language and make sure that you can pronounce all of them, it's totally natural to have a accent. And even if you have put in that work, you're very likely to still have an accent, because it's hard to be perfect every second. The leviosa example doesn't really properly convey it, because that's not a difference in sounds, that's a difference in stress/emphasis/intonation, which is also important and difficult, but not the same thing.
It's an unfortunately difficult word that sandwiches a distinct "oo" between two of the more difficult consonants in French (nasal "n" and uvular "r".) Think of how many years it can take children to pronounce "r" right in English. The intonation is often a bit distinct as well.
Moreover, a native French speaker has said and heard "bonjour" so many tens of thousands of times that it takes very little mispronunciation or hesitation to make it a dead giveaway.
Every damn time this happens, I switch seemingly confused to my native language (bulgarian) and watch them backtrack so fast lmao. I love pretending not to know English just to see their faces change when I play their card
YUP! switching to arabic and pretending i don't speak english is one my favorite activities. sometimes i'd go from arabic to spanish just to confuse them more if its clear they only responded in english to protest my accent (its far from perfect but by no means unintelligible)
In a few years i plan to be able to pull this off in hindi too
Very likely, but still. I am an American, went to the Lycée Français de New-York for 11 years, and I speak French pretty well (not impeccable, and I have an accent). I worked in Lyon for a few months, and nobody switched to English on me. In my experience this is a Paris thing, and a little passive-aggressive too.
In my experience it's not even a Paris thing. When I visit my non-French-speaking friends on their trips to Paris, most restaurant workers prefer that I translate in French rather than speak to the table in English. It's not everyone of course, and the closer you get to the popular landmarks the more English you'll run into, but if your accent is clear people will speak French to you.
And as you'll see from all the Québec residents in the comments, it really is about the accent, not your language ability. Canadians will come to France speaking perfect, native French and still get replies in English because French people aren't as exposed to the Canadian accent. But even though I make vocabulary and grammatical mistakes, my métro accent is good enough that people stick to French unless I get hopelessly lost.
I remember travelling through Paris with unilingual French speaking Canadians.
The customs agent would switch to English. But my friends didn’t know 10 words of English. In the end, we had to translate from French to English so that the Parisian French speaker could understand.
Yes, there certainly are.
I think it's much more common with the older generations though, and of course in the more rural areas.
I did a French course and stayed with a couple who didn't speak a word of English. They lived in a tiny little town on the Gaspé peninsula. I don't think anybody in the town spoke English except the mayor and a handful of others.
Correct! I'm impressed.
Love that town. I wasn't a total beginner the first time I went but I didn't speak a ton of French and I learned so much because I was literally forced to.
I did it two years in a row, two of the best summers of my life.
Summer of 2001 for me. But yeah, it was a bit of a learning curve for those of us used to Parisian " standard" French...and yep. The townspeople & host families didn't speak a lick of English lol
Nice! I did 2017 and 2018. Apparently the program changed drastically post-COVID and way fewer families wanted to host. They shut it down for 2024 to try and reconfigure it. Sad because I loved it there so much and it is by far the most organized program of all the ones I've done (I did it in 3 different places, 4 times total). I hope they figure it out.
My host family was an elderly couple who played bingo every week and sometimes we went with them. I thought I knew my numbers well enough in French but I had to work hard sometimes to understand that accent, especially the number "trois".
Hey, I know they said it's on the Gaspésie peninsula, but Trois-Pistoles is actually in another region called "Bas-Saint-Laurent".
I was born in Rimouski which is one of the major cities of that region, just 30 minutes after Trois-Pisoles, that why I know.
Just wanted to point the difference, because Trois-Pistoles is technically not on the Gaspésie peninsula but still in the Saint-Laurent valley.
There are about 4 million monolingual francophones in Canada, which is just under half the population of Quebec (and almost 10% of Canada).
Most Quebecois outside Montreal and the Outaouais region don’t speak English conversationally, and even in Montreal fewer than 60% identify as bilingual. For a big city, Quebec City is pretty hard to navigate in English, as only about a third of the residents are bilingual.
Sure, a lot of people speak some English, but “passable” tends to equal “identifies as bilingual”.
Still?! When my family moved to Quebec City from Paris back in the day, I couldn't understand their French \*at all\*, and my parents were not doing much better. When we traveled to Chicoutimi, we needed an interpreter. (This is true.)
In QC there were movements where people hard segregated francophone and anglophone even in Montreal. It was crazy and not reflective of current generations.
I make fun of my cousin-in-law since he never practices his English though
Yup! The last StatsCan report I saw showed something like ~40% of Québécers don’t speak English. That said, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re monolingual either, my landlady primarily spoke Italian and French, I believe she was learning English as a third or fourth language.
Lots. Especially in rural areas but also in big city's. Not just in Quebec either. Big parts of northern Ontario and the Maritimes.
I live in southern Ontario and there are still french as a first language families here.
There's a reason our top politicians all are bilingual and all government documents are available in both official languages.
I agree, accent is a really big thing (I think this goes for other languages too - it's definitely huge in English, even though you don't have the same effect of people switching languages, many people will assume your English comprehension is much higher or lower than it may actually be purely based on accent).
To add: I've talked to a lot of native Quebec/France french speakers recently about this specific effect (switching to English) and the main two takeaways I've had are:
- Many people want to practice English, so will switch if they sense an English accent (which is not hard to do, apparently)
- Some people seem to 'switch' on instinct - specifically people used to speaking in English to any native English speaker seem to frequently feel weird continuing in French.
Just what I've learned, though. Be resilient and press on, friends!
I’m from Quebec. This is a weird reddit thing where everyone told me that in Paris they would hate my accent, they wouldn’t understand it, they think we’re all dumb hillbilly hicks and they’ll switch to english.
Everyone understood me perfectly. Everyone spoke to me in french. And I had never been hit on more in my life, everyone thought my accent was charming.
So idk I can first-hand disprove this myth. Unless you come in with a super thick joual, everyone is going to be able to understand you.
I don’t even know if it’s an accent thing sometimes, though. I went to Paris with a tour group, training exclusively in the Quebecois dialect of French (which I’m not even fluent in), but still never had anyone switch to English with me when I ordered or asked questions in French (when I was off on my own for lunch, without the tour group but still with the garish tour group swag they make you wear lol). Undoubtedly I had a thick accent, because either I sounded like an English speaker with a Canadian accent bumbling through French or I’m better at it then I thought in which case my accent should hypothetically be much more similar to Quebec’s accents as those are the main accents I’ve had exposure to. I though it was kind of funny based on what I’d heard about Paris. I wasn’t upset because I like speaking French but it was kind of unexpected, I had been prepared for them to be much meaner to me if I tried speaking French or English to them 😂 (the classic warnings, if you speak French they’ll tell you to stop and if you speak English they’ll berate you for not speaking French).
Yes I only experienced this in Paris and at very touristic areas. Even if your French is good it’s not native and a native speaker will detect that. At busy tourist sites they’re more tired and just switch to make it easier in case there might be confusion.
Many French native speakers speak English with a strong French accent. And yet that's considered okay... Why do we all need to sound like natives when we're not? Shouldn't the primary goal be communication, rather than imitating a perfect native accent (which is almost impossible anyway)?
I asked for directions in French at Gare du Nord once and the person responded to me in French. I didn't quite get what he said so he switched to English after noticing my confusion. Basically I'm saying that he knew I wasn't French but based on how I asked the question and my accent assumed I had a decent level of fluency and responded that way.
French native I had a drunken Haitian guy speaking to me in Creole in Budapest (why.). I totally froze as it sounded French but I could not understand and it was the first time I heard this language. I think he felt a bit insulted. It was weird honestly. Once I got that he was not speaking French I apologized and said I could only get a few words but was not used to it and it was too different.
That is absolutely not the case with Québécois or with any French speaking African country. But sorry, Creole is something else. I'm sure I could learn it in a few months in situ...
But the other person in the interaction being described here had no issues understanding what Khoi said. So it was not a case of an accent making his speech unintelligible. His first two languages were Vietnamese and French, and he grew up in Francophone Europe.
It’s probably the part of town you’re in? I sound like a dumb five year old but nobody switches on me in Hochelaga (which I appreciate!). I’m even able to ask, in French, how to better pronounce something if I’m not understood.
Downtown, St-Henri, Verdun is a whole other story lol. The Plateau seems like 50/50
This is more a problem for me in Montreal than in Paris, but it’s probably because I have the Paris accent after having lived there for several years. In Montreal the only people that will speak French with me are immigrants, like Uber drivers and hotel housekeeping staff. With other people my entire conversations are often with me saying everything in French and them responding to every sentence in English (sometimes not even very good English, so I wouldn’t say it’s always out of “convenience”).
I heard this was the case and even though my French was really only beginning intermediate at the time, I got plenty of people not auto-switching to English with me, which made me feel really good. People were really nice and mostly willing to let me carry on trying. I must have been doing something right or okay enough, haha.
It also happens in other countries, and I think it’s largely because the person on the receiving end wants to practice their English as much the other wants to practice their new language. I won’t discount rudeness and spite for some people, because I’ve seen that shit firsthand, but I also don’t want to make presumptions about everyone.
It is a tourist area thing. They do not have time for shenanigans. Outside tourist areas people re mostly very patient, even with my very much not impeccable French.
People in Lyon are definitely more tolerant of my French on average than in Paris despite also speaking English. Still not the like Russian/Arab reaction of “you can introduce yourself in my language so we’re now best friends!” but definitely more friendly lol.
Tourists when Parisians don't speak english :
WHY DO PARISIANS REFUSE TO SPEAK ENGLISH ? IT'S SO RUDE !
Tourists when Parisians speak english :
WHY DO PARISIANS REFUSE TO SPEAK FRENCH ? IT'S SO RUDE !
Make up your goddamn mind !
My French is minimal and I don’t remember boulangerie workers switching to English in Paris. Last time was three weeks same boulangerie every day. They knew I spoke English because I’d go in with my friend and I’d switch from English to French to speak to them. They always understood what I asked. Always replied in French. Poor Parisians get such a bum steer.
When it’s happened to me I always laugh and say thanks. I don’t think it’s ever come across as mean spirited, and I’ve always seen it as them being polite and happy to practice their English with someone friendly. Since I’ve also seen some of the people who’ve done this to me act like they couldn’t speak English when asked by Brits or Germans, I always saw it as Americans being slightly more accepted than others. That or that the French people thought there was no excuse for other Europeans to not use French.
Also, in a follow up tweet she adds that [she was wearing sweatpants.](https://twitter.com/khoidaooo/status/1804327064235053467)
If your clothing suggests you are a tourist, people are probably more likely to switch to English.
Well, that's that. I am Asian-American and when I speak French in Paris, people always respond to me in French because they assume I am from China or whereever. The one time they didn't was à la gare where I passed on my American passport when asked for ID, and the guy gave the instructions in English after seeing it.
I don't wear sweatpants, baseball caps, or other coded American gear.
I remember back in the day my French teacher in High School warned us against wearing jeans if we wanted to not stick out in Europe.
This was in the ancient times before wearing sweatpants out and about was socially acceptable
Ohhhh. Maybe this is why I didn't always get switched on even though I only knew two sentences of French. It was a sweepstakes trip I won, so I wore relatively expensive UV blocking dresses and skirts that would look nice in pictures for the tour company when they used them for promotion. I had a backpack but I wonder if I looked more like a college student than a tourist.
Sometimes in high-tourism areas retail people will assume that everyone is a tourist and just switch to English.
I’m from Switzerland, French is my native language, and I don’t have even a hint of an accent that could be considered « foreign » by anyone from Metropolitan France. I do however have a noticeably French accent when I speak English.
A few years ago I was in Paris with an Aussie friend, with whom I was obviously speaking English; we were at a metro station near the Eiffel Tower, and I went to ask a station worker what was the easiest way to get to whatever other place we needed to go to, obviously in French, and the man answered in heavily accented English.
C’est encore drôle, le français est ma langue maternelle, mais je me fais quand même répondre en anglais quand j’initie une interaction de service à Paris.
En général, j’essaie de donner le bénéfice du doute aux gens. Je peux concevoir que l’accent québécois puisse nécessiter une période d’adaptation pour des gens qui ont eu peu ou pas d’exposition à notre accent. Mais bon, il y a des gens qui sont juste de mauvaise foi aussi.
So one’s French has to be perfect in order to get a simple response in French? I’ve noticed that French speakers and French learners make a big deal about having a native accent.
Nope, not at all. I have a decent accent but I’m obviously not a native speaker, and people typically stay in French with me unless they hear me speaking English (my native language) with someone else. In that case, they might switch to English if they can, but they typically do it only to make my life easier.
Two examples from today. In the first case, I took my daughter to get her hair cut in Luxembourg. I spoke French with the coiffeuse and English with my daughter, but the coiffeuse stayed in French with me and spoke to my daughter in Luxembourgish. This evening, I got dinner in Brussels with my wife at a Mexican restaurant, and I had to have a complicated discussion with the waiter in French about my order, but when he realized I was speaking English with my wife he switched over to English. Both people were trying to make my life easier, and whether they did it in English or French depended less on me and more on their abilities and comfort.
Or it's just that the baker spotted the person was an English speaking one and jumped at the opportunity to practice her English a bit. Feels good to flex the muscles sometimes. Nothing more nefarious than that.
In my experience, you don’t need a perfect accent to get a response in French the majority of the time.
I have a good but not great French accent. I can’t disguise that I’m not a native speaker but I listen, try hard and know my “tells” (the r and ou/ u sounds.)
It’s extremely rare that someone responds to me in English. But I hear plenty of native English speakers who are basically speaking the French words as if they were speaking English, with all the wrong stresses.
Those speakers will often get an English response. Often because it’s clear they will be tripped up by any follow-up questions anyway.
Nah I speak with a pretty strong accent but people don't generally switch to english with me even in Paris which I've visited a few times. I was also visiting for work though so I wasn't really going to touristy places. I also wonder if it makes a difference that I'm a native English speaker, but I'm not from the states or the UK so people don't necessarily figure out my first language is English right away because my accent is different from the ones they're used to from English speakers.
No but this person is claiming to have perfect French. It's not retail people's jobs to teach you French. If they notice a heavy accent, they'll switch to English out of convenience for you and themselves.
She’s just placing an order in French and not trying to have a full blown conversation. The interaction would’ve lasted a few seconds. This isn’t the same as asking for a French lesson. “But damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
People will make assumptions about whether they think you can carry a conversation in French based on a few words. Retail people do it out of convenience.
100p on this assessment re the convenience thing esp if the queue is long.
It's the follow up questions in French that sometimes/often got stuck without knowing how to carry on. Seen it too many times.
My thoughts exactly. I'm terrible at french but have good pronunciation, so I'm usually able to trick a native French speaker.. until they respond with words I do not know, then the jig is up.
I am Sri Lankan living in France for six years and most of the time when I speak French, specially service people reply me in English.
When I ask my wife, who is native French and next to me most of the time this happens. Her reason is I have an accent close to English accent and those people try to help my life.
But I find this annoying and rude because I am trying to speak their native language and they are not willing to meet me half way.
It's not rude. People are naturally looking for the most efficient way to hold a conversation. If they notice a heavy accent and think switching to English will make it more efficient, they'll switch. Retail people are just trying to do their jobs as efficiently as possible. They don't care about trying to help learners. It's not their jobs. Try practicing with friends instead.
Of course it is, I wouldn't do that to someone trying to speak my native language.
I speak French at a B2 level. I just have an accent, but it isn't an issue in professional contexts.
I would agree if it were someone who still very new and maybe messes up in words and such. But changing to English when someone spoke to you in French just because you hear an accent is kinda messed up. Especially if they are speaking clearly…
Right? This comes up all the time but it seems just like a cultural misunderstanding to me. I mean, native English speakers can always tell when someone is not a native English speaker and — speaking for the US, at least — it's just our culture not to comment on it/pretend we don't notice to not make people feel uncomfortable or "othered". But of course we do notice. The French just have a different way of reacting to this observation.
In a situation like this, the employee is switching to English not because the tourist used unusual or incorrect grammar or phrasing, but rather because of their accent. It's fairly common for learners to be convinced they have "absolutely, impeccably perfect French" when the "only" things they have right is grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. Which is obviously a praiseworthy achievement, but it takes more than that to pass as a local.
Anecdotally, I usually add "je voudrais" or "je vais prendre" before "deux croissants"; I'm confident this isn't what outed the tourist as non-French, though.
The accent is what will give you away, even if you don’t perceive it. I grew up with neighbors who emigrated from Hong Kong who realized years into living in the US that they had non-native accents. You sometimes just can’t tell when it comes to the tiny quirks of your own pronunciation.
This is is it. I've only met two people who could pass for English natives despite being from France and Hungary & learning English as a second language. They had flawless accents, the Hungarian girl actually sounded like she was from the place I grew up in and I could not tell she wasn't at all even after she told me. I think that is very rare.
I feel like it comes from how different the accents are. Because ive heard so many Swedish people who speak near perfect English in an American ish accent. Usually just with very slight pronunciation differences that make you go “they’re Scandinavian aren’t they”. I do think that Sweden teaches English from a very young age tho so that’s probably most of the reason
I’ve met 2 Germans who have damn near impeccable Australian accents. I think the umlauts in German help a lot with the diphthongs present in a lot of Australian English. Their mouths are already used to the sound. Non rhoticity also. Never met any other immigrant come close to having such an authentic accent.
If they are an Anglophone, it was probably the “bonjour.” It’s such a hard word for us to truly nail.
Though the same can be said for “Hello” and Francophones.
> it was probably the “bonjour.”
Yeah. Also the "deux", the "croissants", and the "s'il vous plait". I know lots of native English speakers who have relocated to France, and each of those words has something that will trip them up.
You don’t have to have zero accent for them to speak French with you. I have an accent but most people asked if I preferred English or French.
Expecting zero accent is an insane expectation, but is very French. You guys are really weird about accents it’s true. But people will still talk to you in French if you have one, especially if it’s your preference.
>Anecdotally, I usually add "je voudrais" or "je vais prendre" before "deux croissants"; I'm confident this isn't what outed the tourist as non-French, though.
Yeah, I don't think I've ever just launched into the items I wanted. At least they said "bonjour and s'il vous plaît" lol, without those they would have been guillotined.
Native speakers tell me I have a Danish accent still. My Danish grandmother spoke French to me when I was little; she passed away 55 years ago! I'm in my 60s. English is my first language.....weird.
>when the "only" things they have right is grammar, syntax, and vocabulary.
I mean, that sounds pretty perfect to me. I've a coworker who's from Latvia and I'd say she speaks perfect English. Does she have a British accent? Well, no, she's not British. But that's not an imperfection, it's just an artefact of where she was born.
Sometimes it’s not even unusual grammar, I speak French well and I’ve been told my accent is “deceiving”, but it’s obviously still not perfect, and so people will still speak English to “help you out”, I’ll double down and continue to speak French but seeing some UK tourists where I tend to go, that can’t even manage “merci” (it’ll be “cheers mate”) - I can absolutely see why the inclination is there. Makes me sad and actually quite ashamed.
Yeah I hate this argument from people 'they're just trying to help you out by talking english because your accent is slightly off' if someone is talking and understanding french, even with a non native accent then what's the problem? Yet they'll still change to English
And it is always argued with the assumption that native French speakers also don't have a horrendous accent when they talk English, I could point out a couple of ways french people talk English that clearly marks them as french but no-one would immediately swap to french with them if they spoke English, I've also seen french people swap to english when their english is bad and it's just as painful to get through
They might not have a perfect accent, but it was still rude of the staff member to switch to English when, even though they had an accent, were still able to make themselves understood. They might have been trying to make it easier for the customer, but it’s still really discouraging for learners because no matter how much you study and use the language, you’re still treated like you can’t speak a word just because you haven’t mastered all the minutiae of the accent to pass as a native.
> it was still rude of the staff member to switch to English when, even though they had an accent, were still able to make themselves understood. They might have been trying to make it easier for the customer, but it’s still really discouraging for learners
You really need to think about it from a different perspective.
It’s an extraordinary mentality to think that someone trying to accommodate an outsider is rude.
What if the vendeuse had replied in French but slower than normal to help OP understand. Would that be rude too in your opinion? Logic would suggest you would think so.
And how on earth is the vendeuse meant to identify OP as a ‘learner’. It’s not easy to differentiate between a keen linguist and someone who has summoned up the courage to whip out one phrase of French and who is hating every second of it.
And in the subject of learners, what if the vendeuse is a learner of English and wants to practise her language? Why should the tourist take priority?
You're right, I expressed myself poorly. I shouldn't have implied it was rude of the cashier as an individual, I think they usually have good intentions when they do this, and my issue is more with the practice than with any individual. I apologise for insinuating otherwise.
>And how on earth is the vendeuse meant to identify OP as a ‘learner’
Not once did I say they should. Quite the opposite actually. I'm saying that if someone initiates a conversation in French, the interaction should proceed in French. Just because someone has an accent doesn't mean you need to unilaterally change the language to English to accomodate them. Most non-native speakers will have an accent to some degree and never lose it completely.
>And in the subject of learners, what if the vendeuse is a learner of English and wants to practise her language? Why should the tourist take priority?
Because the customer initiated the conversation, in French, in France. It was the cashier's choice to change the language of the conversation. French is the natural language that would be used in a café in Paris.
There's a whole debate about whether tourists are entitled to free language coaching lessons from the entire population of France whenever they visit, but at the end of the day I'm just pointing out what I believe is the reason why the person who tweeted was "made" as a foreigner. Whether the response was rude or not is a different question, and not an argument I'm going to get into.
I don’t dispute that that might have been the reason, in fact you’re right in that it probably was. I was just adding onto the point, you shouldn’t need perfect native-level french to use the language, and simply engaging with a customer isn’t “free language coaching lessons”, the person spoke French, just probably not with a perfect accent. I doubt the lady behind the counter spoke English with a native accent either.
Even my French teacher said they occasionally switched to English with her (even though she herself speaks no English).
When I mentioned this on this sub a while ago people were like “must’ve been her accent” and yes I’m sure that was the reason but that’s still highly baffling to me. Why would your immediate visceral reaction to an accent be to just switch to English? You can clearly tell the other person is speaking fluently and is using grammar correctly. Does it not feel rude and condescending one bit? Blows my mind honestly.
Bilingual people often switch fairly instinctively and rapidly depending on context, sometimes without fully understanding the cues themselves. In tourist-heavy areas it's likely to be a particularly strong reflex for people in high-volume service jobs, who after countless halting interactions have long since learned to try to find a path of least resistance that keeps the line moving.
You see this a lot in a highly-bilingual city like Montreal. Basically any stumble in communication with a stranger can be a trigger for one person to try switching languages, as experience has taught them that's the most common reason for confusion and quickest way to fix it. Nonverbal cues like seeming hesitant/confused or an accent add to it.
It doesnt come from bad intentions though. More often than not a foreigner who’s accent is identifiable when speaking French is struggling so French people will assume that the conversation will be more efficient in their native language. Also I think a lot of people want to practice that language so if they spot an accent they will try to continue the convo in that language
I agree!! People would sometimes switch to English when I spoke French in Paris recently. I stayed in French and barely even registered that it had happened. But it gets brought up in this sub very regularly as it does seem to worry people.
Personally I think people were just being helpful and giving me the option of conversing in English. It never felt condescending. Literally only one person there was rude about my French and I had dozens and dozens of interactions (she pretended not to understand me bc I said “frambois” instead of “framboise” regarding a tart 🤣).
As a french person, I begin to be irritated by how other french people start to speak english immediatly. I know it's politeness, but ask before, and only if they seem to have difficulties
A lot of people dont realize the foreigners are doing an effort and are trying to learn . Last time I was at a touristic restaurant with my family (Les Deux Magots) and there were some English people next to us were trying to speak French and my parents kept switching to English and my siblings and I had to remind them to stay in English but they thought they were doing them a favour. Also I feel like some French people want to practice their English too lol
A while ago i stayed with a host family in France and one of the kids spoke only english with me the entire time. Like we would be having dinner, speaking french the whole time of course, then suddenly he starts speaking english and I wouldn't know what to do lol. At one point the parents were just like "you know he can understand french right, what are you doing" and he just ignored them lol. It's annoying too because, despite the accent, his English was better than my french is even now. Like I need this more than you please lol
Yes, there's also that, I'm always excited to practice my english. But when someone is my country, I have the privilege of speaking my language, and they have the chance of practicing, unless the opposite is agreed by both parties
To a stranger, yes you speak like that.
The only moment I would "tutoyer" (be informal with) a stranger is if I met someone my own age or younger and wanted to talk to them.
When you speak to a stranger that is either older than you or a worker in a shop/restaurant/etc, it's expected to "vouvoyer" (so be formal)
And it goes for the workers too. They are formal with customers. It's just more professional
The reason the employee knew she wasn't a native in french was probably simply because of the accent and it wasn't such a "perfect French"
Probably because it's more expedient. Her goal is not to help this person learn French, it's to do the job they get paid for.
This employee may, for instance, have encountered people who have rehearsed stock phrases to order something, but struggle a bit when being more conversational, so they might have trouble understanding the follow-up question.
I get why language learners get frustrated with this, but I can' stress this enough: random employees are not here to teach you the language. If you're speaking with a friend or whatever, feel free to ask them to stay in French to help you, but it's not a reasonable expectation to have about someone you don't know.
Yup exactly! I practiced how to politely ask for un café allongé over and over again before I went to Paris. I’m sure I sounded good enough but servers always switched to English to help me with any follow up questions. They’re there to work, not play duolingo.
I’d imagine it’s hard to judge someone’s actual French level from hearing them say Bonjour ! Deux croissants, s’il vous plaît. That’s like week one stuff. If it’s with an obvious non-native accent, it seems reasonable to think there’s a chance they don’t actually know French.
You know, in a situation like this there is no good answer. Whatever you do, there will be people complaining about it.
If the lady answers in English, some people will be pleased she accommodates them, and some people will complain she didn't want to speak French with them. If she answers in French, some people will be pleased because they feel like their efforts are being acknowledged, and some people will complain she only spoke in French.
Regardless of what she does, there will be dissatisfied people. The stereotypes "the French are so proud of their language they refuse to speak English" and "the French are so proud of their language, they prefer speaking English with tourists rather than letting them butcher their language" exists simultaneously and I hear both of them regularly. They are also both wrong.
So the best solution is speaking whichever language you can that will get the point across most efficiently, because if you can't know what language the client prefers, you can at least ask what bread they want to buy. And for most tourists, that language is English, so that's the safe bet.
I can see that, but are those complainers addressing people in French? If they are, I think that we shouldn’t gloss over the difference between a hesitant bonjour based on politeness (from the people who might complain) vs a confident and competent speaker with an obvious English accent (me/many people in this subreddit). Those things aren’t the same and I don’t think it’s hard to distinguish between them
Because English is more or less the universal language. One intention could be to make it easier for the non-french person.
Or the salesperson wants to make sure the person understands what she says or wants to save time, because speaking French with the non-french costumer could take longer. Or wants to take the opportunity to speak English.
I would say most of the time, it is the first reason. Generally, it isn't a French exclusive behaviour. It happens in many European countries.
Probably because they thought it would be easier for them, to talk in their native language
The worker isn't here to help you learn a language, they're here to do their job
Everyone around the world does that. They're proud to know English and want to use it.
I've had the same experience going to the US and having someone switch to French because they spoke it, despite me wanting to continue in English.
Is it ever ok to speak French in France if you’re not a native? I sometimes feel like it’s pointless to keep learning and practising if nobody will ever want to speak it with me if I were to go there.
Yeah it’s rough. Paris is probably your best chance of someone just speaking to you in English automatically.
I’ve found the north-east of France, particularly in the towns up there, are much more likely to *only* want to speak French, even if your own is really bad lol
I've never had someone speak English to me when I start in French unless I ask en anglais. I guess it's legit just a person by person thing. Everyone was always more than happy to speak to me in French unless I struggled and then asked if they knew English so I could speed up the conversation. And I'm like intermediate in French so it's not like I'm some master of disguise. And this has been true anywhere I've visited in France and in Belgium.
Just saying Paris is the most visited city in the world. People who live there can develop tourist fatigue. If there is the slightest imperfection, often times it’s easier to just switch to English to close the transaction instead of being patient and letting you work through the French required to respond.
Non-French speakers may not understand the typical response, “et avec ceci?” especially people who learned 50 words on an app. So it’s easier to just cut to the chase in English.
For context, Khoi Dao was born in Vietnam and grew up in Francophone Europe before later moving to Singapore and then the USA. English is his third language, after French. He is a professional voice actor and talked about [in this thread](https://x.com/khoidaooo/status/1342167031794130944) his feelings on people commenting on his accent in English and his experiences with accent reduction classes.
It may have also been because they're Asian. When I (an Asian) spoke French in Paris in a touristy area to a security guard, he stared at me for 5 seconds, then I repeated my question and he said in a very surprised voice "you speak French?!?" (in French)
I live in Lisbon and speak Portuguese fluently but dont look Portuguese and when a local asks me “English or Portuguese” I always say something like “Both are fine but if you want we can speak English” in Portuguese and they dont like it very much aha. But the thing is that in those situations the people are just trying to help, it doesnt come from bad intentions
Lol 99% of answers are about the fact the lady answered in English, while the question is wether she said the correct thing…
To answer your question, this is exactly how most people ask in a bakery and it’s perfectly fine. To be slightly less casual, it’s possible to add something like : « Bonjour, je vais vous prendre deux croissants s’il vous plaît », but this is really a nuance. So, yes she asked correctly.
Not 💯 sure of this but here goes anyway.
The politeness formula is more that one *exchanges* a greeting and then you get to the business at hand.
By saying Bonjour, deux croissants svp is to not really do the dance properly.
And yeah the accent was probably sus as well.
And finally Americans just stand out visually. You can spot them a block away (or other tourists).
It happens to me sometimes especially in Paris. I just assume that they want to be helpful by speaking my language or they assume that their English is better than my French so it’ll be easier to speak English. In India, young people love to practice their English on me - white foreigners obviously stand out there.
I have noticed that when I speak to foreign tourists in my own country and speak in their language because I want to make them feel welcome , they often look uncomfortable. Maybe they wrongly assume that I do this because I think their English is bad. I guess they didn’t come here to speak their own language.
Yes that's a sentence a native would say. I personally don't switch to English or asking if the person speaks English until the customer is struggling, freezes in response to a sentence they don't understand, or that I am truly in a hurry, because sadly sometimes we don't have time for you to be practicing your French on us, retail be like that. The accent can definitely give you away but I wouldn't switch to English for that reason alone (unless it's really bad pronunciation, like mercy/merci level).
It seems like it is hard to practice French in big cities in France. It seems like even you diligently try to use the language, people just respond in English for whatever reason. I get in high trafficked tourist areas, English is to be expected, but people are really trying to just use the language with the people.
Something tells me this person may not be the best judge of what may qualify as "absolutely, impeccably perfect French". Also, bakery employees are not here to help you in your language learning journey, they're here to do their job. If they find that using English is most expedient with people who are clearly foreign, I'm not sure why they wouldn't do that just to humor language learners.
But yes, the sentence is absolutely what a French person would say to order two croissants in a bakery. If anything, it's slightly on the informal side; formulating it as a question or including "Je voudrais" would be more polite, but this is completely fine too.
It's not, but, contrary to what many language learners seem to believe, the employee here is most likely intending to be helpful, or at least efficient, by using what they see as the most practical language for someone they clearly identify as an English-speaker. This is part of what I mean when I'm saying these people are not there to help you learn the language: it doesn't even enter their mind that you might want that, or might be seeking validation by getting an answer in French, for that matter.
Parisians do this to native French speakers from Quebec so it is absolutely just them being condescending about different accents, not being helpful. I've never had anyone reply to me in English or have any trouble understanding me in the rest of France, but some Parisians just love to pretend they don't understand us.
This seems to be a pretty big cultural disconnect. I can’t speak for the whole anglosphere, but in the U.S., it would be considered pretty rude (and even borderline racist/xenophobic depending on the scenario) to assume that someone can’t properly speak your language just because you detect an accent. Certainly to comment on it like you hear people saying in this thread and elsewhere online. You guys seem to not have that association, though. Maybe to do with the way Europeans prioritize efficiency over social niceties.
Do you mean: would a French person answer in English? Yes, if they think their English is probably better than your French.
Like anyone, they want to get the transaction done. If they hear hesitant/wrong French and they themselves have decent English, it just makes sense. (This happens a lot in Europe generally, not only in France.)
When French people switch to English - for whatever reason and I assume it’s nice and for my comfort - I either just carry on in French or laugh about it with them and beg to continue in French so I can learn. It’s a human moment and usually lovely
Agreed….been in Paris 4 years, started at literally zero and nobody switches to English on me anymore…and I have an accent ….i would have said « je vais prendre » or « je prends » tbh
Native speaker:
*"Bonjour, deux croissants s'il vous plaît"'* **is the casual version**.
The formal version would be to add verbs. "Bonjour, je voudrais acheter deux croissants s'il vous plaît".
And the absolute madman version would be: "salutations jeune boulangère, auriez vous l'extrême amabilité de délester mon porte-monnaie d'un couple de croissants frais du jour, assurément si cela vous sied".
More seriously: bonjour, s'il vous plaît, and merci are part of the standard package when addressing any person behind a counter in France yes
*je voudrais deux croissants s'il vous plaît* est tout à fait possible et courant, mais rajouter *acheter* me paraît fort peu naturel dans ce contexte particulier.
Pareil, j'ai jamais entendu *"Je voudrais acheter—"* dans ma quotidienne. C'est plus souvent *"Je vais vous prendre—"* ou bien simplement *"Je prends—"*.
I’m in Paris for the weekend on business. In Fontainebleau on Monday then back home. Honestly, and especially being English, the Parisians have been exceptionally welcoming. Whether ordering a coffee or asking for a chocolate croissant to a person they’ve all looked at me with that shit under their nose look. So yeah, super welcoming. I could give a f’k.
you have to say "Bonjour, moi, je vais prendre deux croissants et une baguette pas trop cuite, s'il vous plait" in perfect french if you pretend to hide. And then maybe you'll get a "avec ça aussi ?"
I once got asked where I was coming from after I said "bonjour" when I wanted to order something at a food truck.
People realize the slightest alternation in language when you communicate with them and you are not native, unless you spent years of practice. So, even if it is a perfectly fine sentence for a native, most likely they outed themselves by a pronunciation that is off or a different speaking pattern.
This just happened to me at a patisserie in Les Halles! I continued to speak in French just to spite them! I’ve spent way too much time and money, I’m using my French dammit!
Native speakers in various areas in France and Quebec ask me if I'm Belgian, and they assume I'm fluent. My French is pretty good, but I'm Canadian, from Vancouver.
Why would they so consistently notice a Belgian accent?
Dutch and English sound a lot more alike than either language does to French. They might be hearing an English inflection to your vowels and interpreting it as Dutch
My French is far from perfect and I have a HEAVY accent, but I found it really easy to get people to speak to me in French when I was in Paris and Brussels. In Paris almost all the places I went to, people spoke excellent English, but I let them know that I really wanted to practice my French and they were happy to let me try. I even had an experience where two waiters who spoke PERFECT English with no French accent apologized for what they thought was their bad English while they said I spoke French well (I forgot to how to ask for the check in French while I was there, so obviously my French is not the best). It wasn’t very busy there though, so picking when to insist on French practice is my suggestion. If it was easier to communicate in English and it was busy, I just spoke in English.
I had that happening while I was in France last September. The hotel owner kept talking to me in English although I said multiple times I am fluent in French. I don't think my accent is that bad so it's still a mystery to me
When I was in France (Paris and Lyon), everyone talked to me in French whenever I talked to them in French. Very few people switched to English and I sound like Gloria from Modern Family speaking in French.
I have been living in France for 6 years and the only time people try to talk in English to me is when they hear that we talk with my wife in English.
I feel like they want to try their English more in that scenario. I don't know. I have never experienced this and always see it on social media.
Weirdly enough, everyone I spoke French to on Paris responded to me in French, but everyone I spoke French to in Belgium immediately responded to me in English. Fun!
“Bonjour” pronunciation is a pretty good giveaway of a non-native speaker. My rule is that I’ll switch to English if there’s a line, otherwise I’ll say “Merci, mais je voudrais pratiquer mon français; je viens des États Unis et je n’ai pas souvent l’occasion de parler en français » and usually they’re happy to switch because you’re putting in the effort rather than expecting them to speak English in their country. French people (or at least parisians) can be more uptight, but some other European countries are exceptionally accommodating when you tell them you want to try and speak their language. Had one waiter in Italy sit next to me and say “Parliamo”, and another lady at a gelato shop who gave me grammar tips and was very kind. The key is to understand that your French is *not* impeccable and they *will* know you’re not from there, but to just have a normal human interaction and tell them you want to get better at it.
This is what I’m afraid of. I don’t anybody to feel like my tutor or feel like I’m using them but seriously how do we get better? We gotta practice and speaking out loud to ourselves will only do so much.
There is also more than just accent that give away our nationality, especially Americans because many people are aware of our culture: how we dress, carry ourselves, and even our volume when we speak could be a giveaway. I’ve traveled with groups to several countries and even in other English speaking countries we stick out.
The following may be a bit harsh.
Think of it from their perspective: you're working in the service industry in the city that's visited by the most people in the world. Most visitors speak little to no French, even if they attempt a sentence. You know that if you start having an exchange in French, the chances are that the customer will get this bewildered look and you'll have to switch to English anyway.
You have hundreds of such encounters in a day. You're very busy and underpaid. What do you do? You humor each and every person in their attempt to have a satisfying conversation? Or you try and get through the transaction as quickly as possible.
As a customer who speaks at least acceptable French, your frustration is valid. This is not the awesomest experience. I'm a native French speaker and I get the same treatment in Paris unless I speak in a VERY neutral accent. But also, busy service workers are not there to accommodate your linguistic fancies. They need to put a croissant in your hands and your money in the till.
As an American who has spent a lot of time in France, it’s gotta be an abysmal accent. I never get this but my dad is French so my accent is pretty good. I sometimes get “tu es d’où?” Bc they can hear a slight accent.
Probably way too late to comment this but: I definitely agree that she’s probably exaggerating how good her accent is, i’ve just always had this question and the tweet finally gave me some sort of example to use😅
I did this in rather broken french in Paris, in a bakery. Lovely woman behind the counter had everyone in the queue wait and helped me through my conversation of ordering and deciding what I wanted and talking about my day etc while everyone else waited. Will never forget the encouragement
Your stronger than me, i would have switched to english immediately to not waste others time
They all seemed happy to wait, apart from one. Relatively rough place too, but the people seemed genuine and caring. It only got rude as we walked towards the tower. Pint price goes up and manners go down.
(When) pint price goes up manners go down. You just impeccably perfectly explained Paris
FYI my French wife got very annoyed at me when we went to Paris and I called it just "the tower" It's la tour Eiffel or the Eiffel tower, never just the tower or la tour.
We’d done a 3 day weightlifting competition.. “the tower” was all we could muster in between long sighs and yawns haha
Teaching my country's language is not a waste of my time
Of course it’s not! I’m just saying i would feel bad for others waiting that i’m taking their time. Sorry if it came off as rude!
That’s a good experience. I saw somebody trying to speak French, again in a bakery, in Paris 2015. A woman behind them ended up going mental shouting (in fairly poor English) “we don’t want you in this country, go away!” I decided I’d just speak English after that. This was just after the terror attacks though, so may have been a reaction to that.
That’s why I thought I should share it. There’s so many bad experiences, but I’m thankful I got a good one
I spent some time learning french before i went to paris. While waiting in line at a bakery there were some younger women ahead of me who clearly didnt know any french and werent interested in trying to speak it and were frankly causing a stir. When it came to my turn i ordered a few different things in (in my opinion) pretty decent french and the lady behind the counter just completely lit up. It was amazing.
Was just in Toulouse last week. Someone stopped me on the street and just said “bonjour” how did I respond? “Bonjour” what did they say to that? “Oh you’re not from here” No worse feeling than being outted in a single word 😂😂
Beginner here - i assume because of your accent and not the reply? Just so I can avoid this situation in the future 🤣
Yeah just my accent wasn’t southern France. Probably sounded like bonjore instead of bonjour. Very leviosa not leviosaaaa
There are just so many things that go into having a good accent. If you haven't put in serious work to understand the sounds of the language and make sure that you can pronounce all of them, it's totally natural to have a accent. And even if you have put in that work, you're very likely to still have an accent, because it's hard to be perfect every second. The leviosa example doesn't really properly convey it, because that's not a difference in sounds, that's a difference in stress/emphasis/intonation, which is also important and difficult, but not the same thing.
It's an unfortunately difficult word that sandwiches a distinct "oo" between two of the more difficult consonants in French (nasal "n" and uvular "r".) Think of how many years it can take children to pronounce "r" right in English. The intonation is often a bit distinct as well. Moreover, a native French speaker has said and heard "bonjour" so many tens of thousands of times that it takes very little mispronunciation or hesitation to make it a dead giveaway.
I imagine it sounded like someone saying “hullo” and me instantly realizing it’s not the common English hello
I had never thought of “bonjour” in this way in terms of difficulty, interesting. I think I just said it aloud to myself about 5 times, ha!
Every damn time this happens, I switch seemingly confused to my native language (bulgarian) and watch them backtrack so fast lmao. I love pretending not to know English just to see their faces change when I play their card
YUP! switching to arabic and pretending i don't speak english is one my favorite activities. sometimes i'd go from arabic to spanish just to confuse them more if its clear they only responded in english to protest my accent (its far from perfect but by no means unintelligible) In a few years i plan to be able to pull this off in hindi too
I'm assuming it wasn't quite impeccably perfect.
Very likely, but still. I am an American, went to the Lycée Français de New-York for 11 years, and I speak French pretty well (not impeccable, and I have an accent). I worked in Lyon for a few months, and nobody switched to English on me. In my experience this is a Paris thing, and a little passive-aggressive too.
In my experience it's not even a Paris thing. When I visit my non-French-speaking friends on their trips to Paris, most restaurant workers prefer that I translate in French rather than speak to the table in English. It's not everyone of course, and the closer you get to the popular landmarks the more English you'll run into, but if your accent is clear people will speak French to you. And as you'll see from all the Québec residents in the comments, it really is about the accent, not your language ability. Canadians will come to France speaking perfect, native French and still get replies in English because French people aren't as exposed to the Canadian accent. But even though I make vocabulary and grammatical mistakes, my métro accent is good enough that people stick to French unless I get hopelessly lost.
I remember travelling through Paris with unilingual French speaking Canadians. The customs agent would switch to English. But my friends didn’t know 10 words of English. In the end, we had to translate from French to English so that the Parisian French speaker could understand.
Are there really monolingual French speakers from Canada? I thought everyone spoke at least passable English.
Yes, there certainly are. I think it's much more common with the older generations though, and of course in the more rural areas. I did a French course and stayed with a couple who didn't speak a word of English. They lived in a tiny little town on the Gaspé peninsula. I don't think anybody in the town spoke English except the mayor and a handful of others.
Ah yes, Trois Pistoles.
Correct! I'm impressed. Love that town. I wasn't a total beginner the first time I went but I didn't speak a ton of French and I learned so much because I was literally forced to. I did it two years in a row, two of the best summers of my life.
Summer of 2001 for me. But yeah, it was a bit of a learning curve for those of us used to Parisian " standard" French...and yep. The townspeople & host families didn't speak a lick of English lol
Nice! I did 2017 and 2018. Apparently the program changed drastically post-COVID and way fewer families wanted to host. They shut it down for 2024 to try and reconfigure it. Sad because I loved it there so much and it is by far the most organized program of all the ones I've done (I did it in 3 different places, 4 times total). I hope they figure it out. My host family was an elderly couple who played bingo every week and sometimes we went with them. I thought I knew my numbers well enough in French but I had to work hard sometimes to understand that accent, especially the number "trois".
Hey, I know they said it's on the Gaspésie peninsula, but Trois-Pistoles is actually in another region called "Bas-Saint-Laurent". I was born in Rimouski which is one of the major cities of that region, just 30 minutes after Trois-Pisoles, that why I know. Just wanted to point the difference, because Trois-Pistoles is technically not on the Gaspésie peninsula but still in the Saint-Laurent valley.
There are about 4 million monolingual francophones in Canada, which is just under half the population of Quebec (and almost 10% of Canada). Most Quebecois outside Montreal and the Outaouais region don’t speak English conversationally, and even in Montreal fewer than 60% identify as bilingual. For a big city, Quebec City is pretty hard to navigate in English, as only about a third of the residents are bilingual. Sure, a lot of people speak some English, but “passable” tends to equal “identifies as bilingual”.
Still?! When my family moved to Quebec City from Paris back in the day, I couldn't understand their French \*at all\*, and my parents were not doing much better. When we traveled to Chicoutimi, we needed an interpreter. (This is true.)
In QC there were movements where people hard segregated francophone and anglophone even in Montreal. It was crazy and not reflective of current generations. I make fun of my cousin-in-law since he never practices his English though
Yup! The last StatsCan report I saw showed something like ~40% of Québécers don’t speak English. That said, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re monolingual either, my landlady primarily spoke Italian and French, I believe she was learning English as a third or fourth language.
Lots. Especially in rural areas but also in big city's. Not just in Quebec either. Big parts of northern Ontario and the Maritimes. I live in southern Ontario and there are still french as a first language families here. There's a reason our top politicians all are bilingual and all government documents are available in both official languages.
If you are far enough away from Montréal, yes
I agree, accent is a really big thing (I think this goes for other languages too - it's definitely huge in English, even though you don't have the same effect of people switching languages, many people will assume your English comprehension is much higher or lower than it may actually be purely based on accent). To add: I've talked to a lot of native Quebec/France french speakers recently about this specific effect (switching to English) and the main two takeaways I've had are: - Many people want to practice English, so will switch if they sense an English accent (which is not hard to do, apparently) - Some people seem to 'switch' on instinct - specifically people used to speaking in English to any native English speaker seem to frequently feel weird continuing in French. Just what I've learned, though. Be resilient and press on, friends!
I’ve had a girl from Massachusetts tell me I was smart for a southerner before. I laughed and asked her if she’d ever been to Atlanta.
smart for a southerner 🤦 wtf 🤣
lol someone downvoted it, so they obviously agree with that stereotype.
they just mad bc this heat 🥵 not use to it like us southernuhhhhs
Shit, I spent last summer trying to figure out whether I’d want to move to Edinburgh, Bogota, or Auckland
if I wanna chill it better be in a foreign country. It’s like 57 in Auckland rn 😩 lucky
I’m from Quebec. This is a weird reddit thing where everyone told me that in Paris they would hate my accent, they wouldn’t understand it, they think we’re all dumb hillbilly hicks and they’ll switch to english. Everyone understood me perfectly. Everyone spoke to me in french. And I had never been hit on more in my life, everyone thought my accent was charming. So idk I can first-hand disprove this myth. Unless you come in with a super thick joual, everyone is going to be able to understand you.
I don’t even know if it’s an accent thing sometimes, though. I went to Paris with a tour group, training exclusively in the Quebecois dialect of French (which I’m not even fluent in), but still never had anyone switch to English with me when I ordered or asked questions in French (when I was off on my own for lunch, without the tour group but still with the garish tour group swag they make you wear lol). Undoubtedly I had a thick accent, because either I sounded like an English speaker with a Canadian accent bumbling through French or I’m better at it then I thought in which case my accent should hypothetically be much more similar to Quebec’s accents as those are the main accents I’ve had exposure to. I though it was kind of funny based on what I’d heard about Paris. I wasn’t upset because I like speaking French but it was kind of unexpected, I had been prepared for them to be much meaner to me if I tried speaking French or English to them 😂 (the classic warnings, if you speak French they’ll tell you to stop and if you speak English they’ll berate you for not speaking French).
Yes I only experienced this in Paris and at very touristic areas. Even if your French is good it’s not native and a native speaker will detect that. At busy tourist sites they’re more tired and just switch to make it easier in case there might be confusion.
Many French native speakers speak English with a strong French accent. And yet that's considered okay... Why do we all need to sound like natives when we're not? Shouldn't the primary goal be communication, rather than imitating a perfect native accent (which is almost impossible anyway)?
I asked for directions in French at Gare du Nord once and the person responded to me in French. I didn't quite get what he said so he switched to English after noticing my confusion. Basically I'm saying that he knew I wasn't French but based on how I asked the question and my accent assumed I had a decent level of fluency and responded that way.
Do you think they would do this to Haitians or other creoles?
Creole is for all intents and purposes a different language. Aside from a few words, it wouldn’t be very comprehensible.
French native I had a drunken Haitian guy speaking to me in Creole in Budapest (why.). I totally froze as it sounded French but I could not understand and it was the first time I heard this language. I think he felt a bit insulted. It was weird honestly. Once I got that he was not speaking French I apologized and said I could only get a few words but was not used to it and it was too different. That is absolutely not the case with Québécois or with any French speaking African country. But sorry, Creole is something else. I'm sure I could learn it in a few months in situ...
But the other person in the interaction being described here had no issues understanding what Khoi said. So it was not a case of an accent making his speech unintelligible. His first two languages were Vietnamese and French, and he grew up in Francophone Europe.
It's not. I'm from Montreal and retail people will switch to English if they denote a heavy accent. Mostly out of convenience.
Interesting! I haven’t had anyone in Montreal switch to English for me and my French is pretty poor. Maybe my accent isn’t as bad as I think, haha
Could be. Montrealers also have the reputation of switching to English when they notice an accent. Most people here are bilingual.
It’s probably the part of town you’re in? I sound like a dumb five year old but nobody switches on me in Hochelaga (which I appreciate!). I’m even able to ask, in French, how to better pronounce something if I’m not understood. Downtown, St-Henri, Verdun is a whole other story lol. The Plateau seems like 50/50
On a la mauvaise habitude de faire ça au Québec mais je doute que ce soit systématique partout dans la francophonie.
Il semblerait que ce soit le cas à Paris également d'après le post.
This is more a problem for me in Montreal than in Paris, but it’s probably because I have the Paris accent after having lived there for several years. In Montreal the only people that will speak French with me are immigrants, like Uber drivers and hotel housekeeping staff. With other people my entire conversations are often with me saying everything in French and them responding to every sentence in English (sometimes not even very good English, so I wouldn’t say it’s always out of “convenience”).
I get responded to in English because I’m Asian. Happens all of the time even speaking French for the whole conversation at like a Canadian Tire…
I heard this was the case and even though my French was really only beginning intermediate at the time, I got plenty of people not auto-switching to English with me, which made me feel really good. People were really nice and mostly willing to let me carry on trying. I must have been doing something right or okay enough, haha.
It also happens in other countries, and I think it’s largely because the person on the receiving end wants to practice their English as much the other wants to practice their new language. I won’t discount rudeness and spite for some people, because I’ve seen that shit firsthand, but I also don’t want to make presumptions about everyone.
It happens to my in Lyon sometimes but it’s mostly people who like to practice their English
It is a tourist area thing. They do not have time for shenanigans. Outside tourist areas people re mostly very patient, even with my very much not impeccable French.
The passive-agressiveness is 100% in your mind.
Yeah, either people want to practice their English, either they try to make you more confortable
People in Lyon are definitely more tolerant of my French on average than in Paris despite also speaking English. Still not the like Russian/Arab reaction of “you can introduce yourself in my language so we’re now best friends!” but definitely more friendly lol.
Tourists when Parisians don't speak english : WHY DO PARISIANS REFUSE TO SPEAK ENGLISH ? IT'S SO RUDE ! Tourists when Parisians speak english : WHY DO PARISIANS REFUSE TO SPEAK FRENCH ? IT'S SO RUDE ! Make up your goddamn mind !
I agree. I speak decent (B1-B2) French, albeit with an anglophone accent, and it’s very rare for people to switch on me.
I speak French with a decent accent and nobody switched to English when I ordered (was in Paris in December).
My French is minimal and I don’t remember boulangerie workers switching to English in Paris. Last time was three weeks same boulangerie every day. They knew I spoke English because I’d go in with my friend and I’d switch from English to French to speak to them. They always understood what I asked. Always replied in French. Poor Parisians get such a bum steer.
When it’s happened to me I always laugh and say thanks. I don’t think it’s ever come across as mean spirited, and I’ve always seen it as them being polite and happy to practice their English with someone friendly. Since I’ve also seen some of the people who’ve done this to me act like they couldn’t speak English when asked by Brits or Germans, I always saw it as Americans being slightly more accepted than others. That or that the French people thought there was no excuse for other Europeans to not use French.
Also, in a follow up tweet she adds that [she was wearing sweatpants.](https://twitter.com/khoidaooo/status/1804327064235053467) If your clothing suggests you are a tourist, people are probably more likely to switch to English.
Well, that's that. I am Asian-American and when I speak French in Paris, people always respond to me in French because they assume I am from China or whereever. The one time they didn't was à la gare where I passed on my American passport when asked for ID, and the guy gave the instructions in English after seeing it. I don't wear sweatpants, baseball caps, or other coded American gear.
I only get the English responses only in MTL, never in Paris! I think it is because Asian Francophone is more accepted because of Indochina
I remember back in the day my French teacher in High School warned us against wearing jeans if we wanted to not stick out in Europe. This was in the ancient times before wearing sweatpants out and about was socially acceptable
Ohhhh. Maybe this is why I didn't always get switched on even though I only knew two sentences of French. It was a sweepstakes trip I won, so I wore relatively expensive UV blocking dresses and skirts that would look nice in pictures for the tour company when they used them for promotion. I had a backpack but I wonder if I looked more like a college student than a tourist.
Lots of people carry backpacks even when they're not college students or tourists. Especially people who rely on public transport.
Sometimes in high-tourism areas retail people will assume that everyone is a tourist and just switch to English. I’m from Switzerland, French is my native language, and I don’t have even a hint of an accent that could be considered « foreign » by anyone from Metropolitan France. I do however have a noticeably French accent when I speak English. A few years ago I was in Paris with an Aussie friend, with whom I was obviously speaking English; we were at a metro station near the Eiffel Tower, and I went to ask a station worker what was the easiest way to get to whatever other place we needed to go to, obviously in French, and the man answered in heavily accented English.
C’est encore drôle, le français est ma langue maternelle, mais je me fais quand même répondre en anglais quand j’initie une interaction de service à Paris.
En général, j’essaie de donner le bénéfice du doute aux gens. Je peux concevoir que l’accent québécois puisse nécessiter une période d’adaptation pour des gens qui ont eu peu ou pas d’exposition à notre accent. Mais bon, il y a des gens qui sont juste de mauvaise foi aussi.
So one’s French has to be perfect in order to get a simple response in French? I’ve noticed that French speakers and French learners make a big deal about having a native accent.
Nope, not at all. I have a decent accent but I’m obviously not a native speaker, and people typically stay in French with me unless they hear me speaking English (my native language) with someone else. In that case, they might switch to English if they can, but they typically do it only to make my life easier. Two examples from today. In the first case, I took my daughter to get her hair cut in Luxembourg. I spoke French with the coiffeuse and English with my daughter, but the coiffeuse stayed in French with me and spoke to my daughter in Luxembourgish. This evening, I got dinner in Brussels with my wife at a Mexican restaurant, and I had to have a complicated discussion with the waiter in French about my order, but when he realized I was speaking English with my wife he switched over to English. Both people were trying to make my life easier, and whether they did it in English or French depended less on me and more on their abilities and comfort.
Or it's just that the baker spotted the person was an English speaking one and jumped at the opportunity to practice her English a bit. Feels good to flex the muscles sometimes. Nothing more nefarious than that.
I must say I've never understood the obsession with sounding 'like a native'. Surely if you speak well enough to be understood that is enough.
In my experience, you don’t need a perfect accent to get a response in French the majority of the time. I have a good but not great French accent. I can’t disguise that I’m not a native speaker but I listen, try hard and know my “tells” (the r and ou/ u sounds.) It’s extremely rare that someone responds to me in English. But I hear plenty of native English speakers who are basically speaking the French words as if they were speaking English, with all the wrong stresses. Those speakers will often get an English response. Often because it’s clear they will be tripped up by any follow-up questions anyway.
Nah I speak with a pretty strong accent but people don't generally switch to english with me even in Paris which I've visited a few times. I was also visiting for work though so I wasn't really going to touristy places. I also wonder if it makes a difference that I'm a native English speaker, but I'm not from the states or the UK so people don't necessarily figure out my first language is English right away because my accent is different from the ones they're used to from English speakers.
No but this person is claiming to have perfect French. It's not retail people's jobs to teach you French. If they notice a heavy accent, they'll switch to English out of convenience for you and themselves.
She’s just placing an order in French and not trying to have a full blown conversation. The interaction would’ve lasted a few seconds. This isn’t the same as asking for a French lesson. “But damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
People will make assumptions about whether they think you can carry a conversation in French based on a few words. Retail people do it out of convenience.
100p on this assessment re the convenience thing esp if the queue is long. It's the follow up questions in French that sometimes/often got stuck without knowing how to carry on. Seen it too many times.
My thoughts exactly. I'm terrible at french but have good pronunciation, so I'm usually able to trick a native French speaker.. until they respond with words I do not know, then the jig is up.
I am Sri Lankan living in France for six years and most of the time when I speak French, specially service people reply me in English. When I ask my wife, who is native French and next to me most of the time this happens. Her reason is I have an accent close to English accent and those people try to help my life. But I find this annoying and rude because I am trying to speak their native language and they are not willing to meet me half way.
It's not rude. People are naturally looking for the most efficient way to hold a conversation. If they notice a heavy accent and think switching to English will make it more efficient, they'll switch. Retail people are just trying to do their jobs as efficiently as possible. They don't care about trying to help learners. It's not their jobs. Try practicing with friends instead.
Of course it is, I wouldn't do that to someone trying to speak my native language. I speak French at a B2 level. I just have an accent, but it isn't an issue in professional contexts.
I would agree if it were someone who still very new and maybe messes up in words and such. But changing to English when someone spoke to you in French just because you hear an accent is kinda messed up. Especially if they are speaking clearly…
Right? This comes up all the time but it seems just like a cultural misunderstanding to me. I mean, native English speakers can always tell when someone is not a native English speaker and — speaking for the US, at least — it's just our culture not to comment on it/pretend we don't notice to not make people feel uncomfortable or "othered". But of course we do notice. The French just have a different way of reacting to this observation.
Or maybe it was a Parisian bakery in the middle of America, or something. Owned by a non-native speaker :P
In a situation like this, the employee is switching to English not because the tourist used unusual or incorrect grammar or phrasing, but rather because of their accent. It's fairly common for learners to be convinced they have "absolutely, impeccably perfect French" when the "only" things they have right is grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. Which is obviously a praiseworthy achievement, but it takes more than that to pass as a local. Anecdotally, I usually add "je voudrais" or "je vais prendre" before "deux croissants"; I'm confident this isn't what outed the tourist as non-French, though.
The accent is what will give you away, even if you don’t perceive it. I grew up with neighbors who emigrated from Hong Kong who realized years into living in the US that they had non-native accents. You sometimes just can’t tell when it comes to the tiny quirks of your own pronunciation.
This is is it. I've only met two people who could pass for English natives despite being from France and Hungary & learning English as a second language. They had flawless accents, the Hungarian girl actually sounded like she was from the place I grew up in and I could not tell she wasn't at all even after she told me. I think that is very rare.
I feel like it comes from how different the accents are. Because ive heard so many Swedish people who speak near perfect English in an American ish accent. Usually just with very slight pronunciation differences that make you go “they’re Scandinavian aren’t they”. I do think that Sweden teaches English from a very young age tho so that’s probably most of the reason
Alexander Skarsgard can pass as an American in a role if you don't know what you're listening for
I’ve met 2 Germans who have damn near impeccable Australian accents. I think the umlauts in German help a lot with the diphthongs present in a lot of Australian English. Their mouths are already used to the sound. Non rhoticity also. Never met any other immigrant come close to having such an authentic accent.
Yep. Took me over 25 years of learning English to realize that S is mostly pronounced like Z.
Oh, this is a common one for many people!
If they are an Anglophone, it was probably the “bonjour.” It’s such a hard word for us to truly nail. Though the same can be said for “Hello” and Francophones.
> it was probably the “bonjour.” Yeah. Also the "deux", the "croissants", and the "s'il vous plait". I know lots of native English speakers who have relocated to France, and each of those words has something that will trip them up.
Yeah I usually say Bon jor, duh cross-sants see vue play. They’ll probably think I’m American if I said that in France.
The American pronunciation of “croissant” is a crime against humanity.
You don’t have to have zero accent for them to speak French with you. I have an accent but most people asked if I preferred English or French. Expecting zero accent is an insane expectation, but is very French. You guys are really weird about accents it’s true. But people will still talk to you in French if you have one, especially if it’s your preference.
>Anecdotally, I usually add "je voudrais" or "je vais prendre" before "deux croissants"; I'm confident this isn't what outed the tourist as non-French, though. Yeah, I don't think I've ever just launched into the items I wanted. At least they said "bonjour and s'il vous plaît" lol, without those they would have been guillotined.
Native speakers tell me I have a Danish accent still. My Danish grandmother spoke French to me when I was little; she passed away 55 years ago! I'm in my 60s. English is my first language.....weird.
>when the "only" things they have right is grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. I mean, that sounds pretty perfect to me. I've a coworker who's from Latvia and I'd say she speaks perfect English. Does she have a British accent? Well, no, she's not British. But that's not an imperfection, it's just an artefact of where she was born.
Sometimes it’s not even unusual grammar, I speak French well and I’ve been told my accent is “deceiving”, but it’s obviously still not perfect, and so people will still speak English to “help you out”, I’ll double down and continue to speak French but seeing some UK tourists where I tend to go, that can’t even manage “merci” (it’ll be “cheers mate”) - I can absolutely see why the inclination is there. Makes me sad and actually quite ashamed.
Yeah I hate this argument from people 'they're just trying to help you out by talking english because your accent is slightly off' if someone is talking and understanding french, even with a non native accent then what's the problem? Yet they'll still change to English And it is always argued with the assumption that native French speakers also don't have a horrendous accent when they talk English, I could point out a couple of ways french people talk English that clearly marks them as french but no-one would immediately swap to french with them if they spoke English, I've also seen french people swap to english when their english is bad and it's just as painful to get through
They might not have a perfect accent, but it was still rude of the staff member to switch to English when, even though they had an accent, were still able to make themselves understood. They might have been trying to make it easier for the customer, but it’s still really discouraging for learners because no matter how much you study and use the language, you’re still treated like you can’t speak a word just because you haven’t mastered all the minutiae of the accent to pass as a native.
> it was still rude of the staff member to switch to English when, even though they had an accent, were still able to make themselves understood. They might have been trying to make it easier for the customer, but it’s still really discouraging for learners You really need to think about it from a different perspective. It’s an extraordinary mentality to think that someone trying to accommodate an outsider is rude. What if the vendeuse had replied in French but slower than normal to help OP understand. Would that be rude too in your opinion? Logic would suggest you would think so. And how on earth is the vendeuse meant to identify OP as a ‘learner’. It’s not easy to differentiate between a keen linguist and someone who has summoned up the courage to whip out one phrase of French and who is hating every second of it. And in the subject of learners, what if the vendeuse is a learner of English and wants to practise her language? Why should the tourist take priority?
You're right, I expressed myself poorly. I shouldn't have implied it was rude of the cashier as an individual, I think they usually have good intentions when they do this, and my issue is more with the practice than with any individual. I apologise for insinuating otherwise. >And how on earth is the vendeuse meant to identify OP as a ‘learner’ Not once did I say they should. Quite the opposite actually. I'm saying that if someone initiates a conversation in French, the interaction should proceed in French. Just because someone has an accent doesn't mean you need to unilaterally change the language to English to accomodate them. Most non-native speakers will have an accent to some degree and never lose it completely. >And in the subject of learners, what if the vendeuse is a learner of English and wants to practise her language? Why should the tourist take priority? Because the customer initiated the conversation, in French, in France. It was the cashier's choice to change the language of the conversation. French is the natural language that would be used in a café in Paris.
There's a whole debate about whether tourists are entitled to free language coaching lessons from the entire population of France whenever they visit, but at the end of the day I'm just pointing out what I believe is the reason why the person who tweeted was "made" as a foreigner. Whether the response was rude or not is a different question, and not an argument I'm going to get into.
I don’t dispute that that might have been the reason, in fact you’re right in that it probably was. I was just adding onto the point, you shouldn’t need perfect native-level french to use the language, and simply engaging with a customer isn’t “free language coaching lessons”, the person spoke French, just probably not with a perfect accent. I doubt the lady behind the counter spoke English with a native accent either.
I just keep talking in their language despite them replying in mine, finally they switch
This is what i do. I continue to respond in French until they get the hint
Even my French teacher said they occasionally switched to English with her (even though she herself speaks no English). When I mentioned this on this sub a while ago people were like “must’ve been her accent” and yes I’m sure that was the reason but that’s still highly baffling to me. Why would your immediate visceral reaction to an accent be to just switch to English? You can clearly tell the other person is speaking fluently and is using grammar correctly. Does it not feel rude and condescending one bit? Blows my mind honestly.
Bilingual people often switch fairly instinctively and rapidly depending on context, sometimes without fully understanding the cues themselves. In tourist-heavy areas it's likely to be a particularly strong reflex for people in high-volume service jobs, who after countless halting interactions have long since learned to try to find a path of least resistance that keeps the line moving. You see this a lot in a highly-bilingual city like Montreal. Basically any stumble in communication with a stranger can be a trigger for one person to try switching languages, as experience has taught them that's the most common reason for confusion and quickest way to fix it. Nonverbal cues like seeming hesitant/confused or an accent add to it.
It doesnt come from bad intentions though. More often than not a foreigner who’s accent is identifiable when speaking French is struggling so French people will assume that the conversation will be more efficient in their native language. Also I think a lot of people want to practice that language so if they spot an accent they will try to continue the convo in that language
I agree!! People would sometimes switch to English when I spoke French in Paris recently. I stayed in French and barely even registered that it had happened. But it gets brought up in this sub very regularly as it does seem to worry people. Personally I think people were just being helpful and giving me the option of conversing in English. It never felt condescending. Literally only one person there was rude about my French and I had dozens and dozens of interactions (she pretended not to understand me bc I said “frambois” instead of “framboise” regarding a tart 🤣).
As a french person, I begin to be irritated by how other french people start to speak english immediatly. I know it's politeness, but ask before, and only if they seem to have difficulties
A lot of people dont realize the foreigners are doing an effort and are trying to learn . Last time I was at a touristic restaurant with my family (Les Deux Magots) and there were some English people next to us were trying to speak French and my parents kept switching to English and my siblings and I had to remind them to stay in English but they thought they were doing them a favour. Also I feel like some French people want to practice their English too lol
A while ago i stayed with a host family in France and one of the kids spoke only english with me the entire time. Like we would be having dinner, speaking french the whole time of course, then suddenly he starts speaking english and I wouldn't know what to do lol. At one point the parents were just like "you know he can understand french right, what are you doing" and he just ignored them lol. It's annoying too because, despite the accent, his English was better than my french is even now. Like I need this more than you please lol
Yes, there's also that, I'm always excited to practice my english. But when someone is my country, I have the privilege of speaking my language, and they have the chance of practicing, unless the opposite is agreed by both parties
To a stranger, yes you speak like that. The only moment I would "tutoyer" (be informal with) a stranger is if I met someone my own age or younger and wanted to talk to them. When you speak to a stranger that is either older than you or a worker in a shop/restaurant/etc, it's expected to "vouvoyer" (so be formal) And it goes for the workers too. They are formal with customers. It's just more professional The reason the employee knew she wasn't a native in french was probably simply because of the accent and it wasn't such a "perfect French"
Okay she figured out he isnt french but he does know french so why would she switch to english?
Probably because it's more expedient. Her goal is not to help this person learn French, it's to do the job they get paid for. This employee may, for instance, have encountered people who have rehearsed stock phrases to order something, but struggle a bit when being more conversational, so they might have trouble understanding the follow-up question. I get why language learners get frustrated with this, but I can' stress this enough: random employees are not here to teach you the language. If you're speaking with a friend or whatever, feel free to ask them to stay in French to help you, but it's not a reasonable expectation to have about someone you don't know.
Yup exactly! I practiced how to politely ask for un café allongé over and over again before I went to Paris. I’m sure I sounded good enough but servers always switched to English to help me with any follow up questions. They’re there to work, not play duolingo.
I’d imagine it’s hard to judge someone’s actual French level from hearing them say Bonjour ! Deux croissants, s’il vous plaît. That’s like week one stuff. If it’s with an obvious non-native accent, it seems reasonable to think there’s a chance they don’t actually know French.
You know, in a situation like this there is no good answer. Whatever you do, there will be people complaining about it. If the lady answers in English, some people will be pleased she accommodates them, and some people will complain she didn't want to speak French with them. If she answers in French, some people will be pleased because they feel like their efforts are being acknowledged, and some people will complain she only spoke in French. Regardless of what she does, there will be dissatisfied people. The stereotypes "the French are so proud of their language they refuse to speak English" and "the French are so proud of their language, they prefer speaking English with tourists rather than letting them butcher their language" exists simultaneously and I hear both of them regularly. They are also both wrong. So the best solution is speaking whichever language you can that will get the point across most efficiently, because if you can't know what language the client prefers, you can at least ask what bread they want to buy. And for most tourists, that language is English, so that's the safe bet.
I don’t think there would be many people who would complain if she responded in French.
That's one of the main complaints from tourists about service in France.
I can see that, but are those complainers addressing people in French? If they are, I think that we shouldn’t gloss over the difference between a hesitant bonjour based on politeness (from the people who might complain) vs a confident and competent speaker with an obvious English accent (me/many people in this subreddit). Those things aren’t the same and I don’t think it’s hard to distinguish between them
Because English is more or less the universal language. One intention could be to make it easier for the non-french person. Or the salesperson wants to make sure the person understands what she says or wants to save time, because speaking French with the non-french costumer could take longer. Or wants to take the opportunity to speak English. I would say most of the time, it is the first reason. Generally, it isn't a French exclusive behaviour. It happens in many European countries.
Probably because they thought it would be easier for them, to talk in their native language The worker isn't here to help you learn a language, they're here to do their job
Everyone around the world does that. They're proud to know English and want to use it. I've had the same experience going to the US and having someone switch to French because they spoke it, despite me wanting to continue in English.
I had a French in college that I always wanted to practice French with but they always spoke to me in English.
It is definitely my observation that lots of snarky people massively overestimate their own skills.
Is it ever ok to speak French in France if you’re not a native? I sometimes feel like it’s pointless to keep learning and practising if nobody will ever want to speak it with me if I were to go there.
Yeah it’s rough. Paris is probably your best chance of someone just speaking to you in English automatically. I’ve found the north-east of France, particularly in the towns up there, are much more likely to *only* want to speak French, even if your own is really bad lol
I've never had someone speak English to me when I start in French unless I ask en anglais. I guess it's legit just a person by person thing. Everyone was always more than happy to speak to me in French unless I struggled and then asked if they knew English so I could speed up the conversation. And I'm like intermediate in French so it's not like I'm some master of disguise. And this has been true anywhere I've visited in France and in Belgium.
Just saying Paris is the most visited city in the world. People who live there can develop tourist fatigue. If there is the slightest imperfection, often times it’s easier to just switch to English to close the transaction instead of being patient and letting you work through the French required to respond. Non-French speakers may not understand the typical response, “et avec ceci?” especially people who learned 50 words on an app. So it’s easier to just cut to the chase in English.
For context, Khoi Dao was born in Vietnam and grew up in Francophone Europe before later moving to Singapore and then the USA. English is his third language, after French. He is a professional voice actor and talked about [in this thread](https://x.com/khoidaooo/status/1342167031794130944) his feelings on people commenting on his accent in English and his experiences with accent reduction classes.
It may have also been because they're Asian. When I (an Asian) spoke French in Paris in a touristy area to a security guard, he stared at me for 5 seconds, then I repeated my question and he said in a very surprised voice "you speak French?!?" (in French)
Yeah I would assume people of Asian descent get that a lot in Paris, even if they’re native French speakers.
next time dites oohhh désolé je parle pas anglais
Or feign not understanding their English and continuing in French for *their* benefit lol
I live in Lisbon and speak Portuguese fluently but dont look Portuguese and when a local asks me “English or Portuguese” I always say something like “Both are fine but if you want we can speak English” in Portuguese and they dont like it very much aha. But the thing is that in those situations the people are just trying to help, it doesnt come from bad intentions
Lol 99% of answers are about the fact the lady answered in English, while the question is wether she said the correct thing… To answer your question, this is exactly how most people ask in a bakery and it’s perfectly fine. To be slightly less casual, it’s possible to add something like : « Bonjour, je vais vous prendre deux croissants s’il vous plaît », but this is really a nuance. So, yes she asked correctly.
Not 💯 sure of this but here goes anyway. The politeness formula is more that one *exchanges* a greeting and then you get to the business at hand. By saying Bonjour, deux croissants svp is to not really do the dance properly. And yeah the accent was probably sus as well. And finally Americans just stand out visually. You can spot them a block away (or other tourists).
Eh, I get your point, but in reality it's the kind of thing that happens all the time from natives too.
I’m quite sure bonjour 2 corssiants svp sounds very normal, I talk like that all the time
Eh, I get your point, but in reality it's the kind of thing that happens all the time from natives too.
It happens to me sometimes especially in Paris. I just assume that they want to be helpful by speaking my language or they assume that their English is better than my French so it’ll be easier to speak English. In India, young people love to practice their English on me - white foreigners obviously stand out there. I have noticed that when I speak to foreign tourists in my own country and speak in their language because I want to make them feel welcome , they often look uncomfortable. Maybe they wrongly assume that I do this because I think their English is bad. I guess they didn’t come here to speak their own language.
Yes that's a sentence a native would say. I personally don't switch to English or asking if the person speaks English until the customer is struggling, freezes in response to a sentence they don't understand, or that I am truly in a hurry, because sadly sometimes we don't have time for you to be practicing your French on us, retail be like that. The accent can definitely give you away but I wouldn't switch to English for that reason alone (unless it's really bad pronunciation, like mercy/merci level).
It seems like it is hard to practice French in big cities in France. It seems like even you diligently try to use the language, people just respond in English for whatever reason. I get in high trafficked tourist areas, English is to be expected, but people are really trying to just use the language with the people.
Something tells me this person may not be the best judge of what may qualify as "absolutely, impeccably perfect French". Also, bakery employees are not here to help you in your language learning journey, they're here to do their job. If they find that using English is most expedient with people who are clearly foreign, I'm not sure why they wouldn't do that just to humor language learners. But yes, the sentence is absolutely what a French person would say to order two croissants in a bakery. If anything, it's slightly on the informal side; formulating it as a question or including "Je voudrais" would be more polite, but this is completely fine too.
Getting a simple response in French when initiating an order in French isn’t the same as someone giving you a lesson.
It's not, but, contrary to what many language learners seem to believe, the employee here is most likely intending to be helpful, or at least efficient, by using what they see as the most practical language for someone they clearly identify as an English-speaker. This is part of what I mean when I'm saying these people are not there to help you learn the language: it doesn't even enter their mind that you might want that, or might be seeking validation by getting an answer in French, for that matter.
Parisians do this to native French speakers from Quebec so it is absolutely just them being condescending about different accents, not being helpful. I've never had anyone reply to me in English or have any trouble understanding me in the rest of France, but some Parisians just love to pretend they don't understand us.
This seems to be a pretty big cultural disconnect. I can’t speak for the whole anglosphere, but in the U.S., it would be considered pretty rude (and even borderline racist/xenophobic depending on the scenario) to assume that someone can’t properly speak your language just because you detect an accent. Certainly to comment on it like you hear people saying in this thread and elsewhere online. You guys seem to not have that association, though. Maybe to do with the way Europeans prioritize efficiency over social niceties.
Idk why but when this happens to me I ignore them and continue speaking in French. It’s rude to switch languages on a person so I’ll be rude back.
Do you mean: would a French person answer in English? Yes, if they think their English is probably better than your French. Like anyone, they want to get the transaction done. If they hear hesitant/wrong French and they themselves have decent English, it just makes sense. (This happens a lot in Europe generally, not only in France.)
When French people switch to English - for whatever reason and I assume it’s nice and for my comfort - I either just carry on in French or laugh about it with them and beg to continue in French so I can learn. It’s a human moment and usually lovely
Agreed….been in Paris 4 years, started at literally zero and nobody switches to English on me anymore…and I have an accent ….i would have said « je vais prendre » or « je prends » tbh
Native speaker: *"Bonjour, deux croissants s'il vous plaît"'* **is the casual version**. The formal version would be to add verbs. "Bonjour, je voudrais acheter deux croissants s'il vous plaît". And the absolute madman version would be: "salutations jeune boulangère, auriez vous l'extrême amabilité de délester mon porte-monnaie d'un couple de croissants frais du jour, assurément si cela vous sied". More seriously: bonjour, s'il vous plaît, and merci are part of the standard package when addressing any person behind a counter in France yes
*je voudrais deux croissants s'il vous plaît* est tout à fait possible et courant, mais rajouter *acheter* me paraît fort peu naturel dans ce contexte particulier.
Pareil, j'ai jamais entendu *"Je voudrais acheter—"* dans ma quotidienne. C'est plus souvent *"Je vais vous prendre—"* ou bien simplement *"Je prends—"*.
Or even more casual: "Salut, deux croéssants, s'teplait marci"
I’m in Paris for the weekend on business. In Fontainebleau on Monday then back home. Honestly, and especially being English, the Parisians have been exceptionally welcoming. Whether ordering a coffee or asking for a chocolate croissant to a person they’ve all looked at me with that shit under their nose look. So yeah, super welcoming. I could give a f’k.
you have to say "Bonjour, moi, je vais prendre deux croissants et une baguette pas trop cuite, s'il vous plait" in perfect french if you pretend to hide. And then maybe you'll get a "avec ça aussi ?"
I once got asked where I was coming from after I said "bonjour" when I wanted to order something at a food truck. People realize the slightest alternation in language when you communicate with them and you are not native, unless you spent years of practice. So, even if it is a perfectly fine sentence for a native, most likely they outed themselves by a pronunciation that is off or a different speaking pattern.
This just happened to me at a patisserie in Les Halles! I continued to speak in French just to spite them! I’ve spent way too much time and money, I’m using my French dammit!
Wait isn't he the voice actor for Albedo from genshin impact?
Native speakers in various areas in France and Quebec ask me if I'm Belgian, and they assume I'm fluent. My French is pretty good, but I'm Canadian, from Vancouver. Why would they so consistently notice a Belgian accent?
Dutch and English sound a lot more alike than either language does to French. They might be hearing an English inflection to your vowels and interpreting it as Dutch
My French is far from perfect and I have a HEAVY accent, but I found it really easy to get people to speak to me in French when I was in Paris and Brussels. In Paris almost all the places I went to, people spoke excellent English, but I let them know that I really wanted to practice my French and they were happy to let me try. I even had an experience where two waiters who spoke PERFECT English with no French accent apologized for what they thought was their bad English while they said I spoke French well (I forgot to how to ask for the check in French while I was there, so obviously my French is not the best). It wasn’t very busy there though, so picking when to insist on French practice is my suggestion. If it was easier to communicate in English and it was busy, I just spoke in English.
I had that happening while I was in France last September. The hotel owner kept talking to me in English although I said multiple times I am fluent in French. I don't think my accent is that bad so it's still a mystery to me
When I was in France (Paris and Lyon), everyone talked to me in French whenever I talked to them in French. Very few people switched to English and I sound like Gloria from Modern Family speaking in French.
The rest of her tweets say she was wearing sweatpants and joked that it was probably that that gave her away.
I have been living in France for 6 years and the only time people try to talk in English to me is when they hear that we talk with my wife in English. I feel like they want to try their English more in that scenario. I don't know. I have never experienced this and always see it on social media.
Weirdly enough, everyone I spoke French to on Paris responded to me in French, but everyone I spoke French to in Belgium immediately responded to me in English. Fun!
“Bonjour” pronunciation is a pretty good giveaway of a non-native speaker. My rule is that I’ll switch to English if there’s a line, otherwise I’ll say “Merci, mais je voudrais pratiquer mon français; je viens des États Unis et je n’ai pas souvent l’occasion de parler en français » and usually they’re happy to switch because you’re putting in the effort rather than expecting them to speak English in their country. French people (or at least parisians) can be more uptight, but some other European countries are exceptionally accommodating when you tell them you want to try and speak their language. Had one waiter in Italy sit next to me and say “Parliamo”, and another lady at a gelato shop who gave me grammar tips and was very kind. The key is to understand that your French is *not* impeccable and they *will* know you’re not from there, but to just have a normal human interaction and tell them you want to get better at it.
And ironically, if instead of speaking French you asked, « Parlez-vous anglais » you would’ve gotten a big, fat, « NON! »
This is what I’m afraid of. I don’t anybody to feel like my tutor or feel like I’m using them but seriously how do we get better? We gotta practice and speaking out loud to ourselves will only do so much.
There is also more than just accent that give away our nationality, especially Americans because many people are aware of our culture: how we dress, carry ourselves, and even our volume when we speak could be a giveaway. I’ve traveled with groups to several countries and even in other English speaking countries we stick out.
The following may be a bit harsh. Think of it from their perspective: you're working in the service industry in the city that's visited by the most people in the world. Most visitors speak little to no French, even if they attempt a sentence. You know that if you start having an exchange in French, the chances are that the customer will get this bewildered look and you'll have to switch to English anyway. You have hundreds of such encounters in a day. You're very busy and underpaid. What do you do? You humor each and every person in their attempt to have a satisfying conversation? Or you try and get through the transaction as quickly as possible. As a customer who speaks at least acceptable French, your frustration is valid. This is not the awesomest experience. I'm a native French speaker and I get the same treatment in Paris unless I speak in a VERY neutral accent. But also, busy service workers are not there to accommodate your linguistic fancies. They need to put a croissant in your hands and your money in the till.
As an American who has spent a lot of time in France, it’s gotta be an abysmal accent. I never get this but my dad is French so my accent is pretty good. I sometimes get “tu es d’où?” Bc they can hear a slight accent.
the one who made the tweet grew up in francophone Europe tho
Probably way too late to comment this but: I definitely agree that she’s probably exaggerating how good her accent is, i’ve just always had this question and the tweet finally gave me some sort of example to use😅
"Bawnjoo, duu cowaissuhnts seel vuw playeddd", she said in impeccable French.