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Taiwanese born. I have lived in the US for 20+ years. I speak the local Taiwanese Hokka dialect. Married a Taiwanese woman.
I walked into a local breakfast shop and the owner, without looking up, said “What do you want to order”?
How the fuck?!?!
So I moved back to Taiwan after the pandemic and I too can pick them out. It’s honestly the way Americans carry themselves. It’s hard to explain.
French guy here, It’s always the accent. You think you don’t have one, but you do, and when it’s not the accent it’s a confusion about grammar or the gender of a word.
The French was probably too perfect. Shoulda been:
“Je prends uhhhh deeeeux…deux croissants”. 90% of the French people I know can barely get two words out without a “uhh” or “beuh”.
Did the sweatpants say juicy or juteuse across the butt?
I walked up to a change office to transfer a travelers check to cash.
me: Bonjour!
he stopped me right there
change guy: “I do not speak english”
me: nods, shrugs, hands him the check
change guy: ignores the check, pulls down the lock shutter.
That’s what you get for showing up right as they were closing.
I did ponder that, It was like 1pm on a Saturday, Hours were posted and should have been open, maybe a late lunch or a bathroom break, he could at least have said anything in French, I spoke enough to get by,
I had a couple of interactions like this while in Italy recently. I’d not even opened my mouth and the person responds in English. I specifically selected clothes that don’t have any text on them, but I strongly suspect it’s because I’m white as fuck and look as Midwestern American as one can.
I didn’t have any trouble though, most of the Italians I spoke with seemed happy that I’ve been trying to learn their language and were happy to talk in a mix of Italian and English to meet me where my Italian level was. It was interesting comparing how in the touristy areas of Italy many folks spoke such perfect English they’d lost most accent (or perhaps were themselves transplants) but once I got out of the touristy areas folks were willing to work with my limited Italian
You didn’t smell like cigarettes and have a contempt for humanity
Wow the only time I’d be considered not enough of a midwestern hick to fit in to Europe
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Maybe the accent gave it away even if the French is perfect. I’m not a fluent French speaker but I learned it in school. And even among various French speakers I hear, I can tell the difference in accent.
The clothes, what else 🤣
Too perfect? American body language?
I would just leave that bakery.
That bakery probably hopes that too.
Saw this very thing in an article today. It was said it was the “American lean”. Apparently we lean on things when chilling and that’s very American.
Not even necessarily on things, just like lean to one side while standing.
The American motherland has a magnetic pull on them, drawing them in.
That’s true. Part of it was taking about how we rarely stand squarely on both feet.
TIL I am American.
I’m sorry for your loss
Contrapposto is best pposto
We’re tired, or invading, sometimes it’s hard to tell.
I’m Indian and I do it. Do the French not?
Damn, Paris has changed a lot. In my days you could talk in basically any language, living or dead, to a Parisian and they would understand every single word. And they’d still only answer in French.
Tbh, I tend to do that sometimes. The number of languages I can somewhat understand outnumbers the number of languages I can attempt to speak.
Especially when it comes to reading: it’s a lot easier to see a bunch of cognates and understand the jist of the sentence than it is to come up with those words and conjugate, order, and pronounce them correctly.
On multiple occasions, I’ve tried to use my limited knowledge to order food or something in another language, only to have the person on the other side look at me confused until I restate myself in English.
I like to think of it like Star Wars where everyone just speaks and responds in their own language.
Yeah but in Paris it was sure done on purpose 😁!
That’s actually a legit technique to improve your understanding in a language. They speak theirs, you speak yours. It does depend on both people having a good understanding of each other’s languages though.
Kind of the opposite for me but ONLY with ordering food in Spanish - I speak awful Spanish, can read it better than speaking or listening, but food - all my life, foods here are labeled in English and Spanish, and often I order so confidently that the person at the counter thinks I only speak Spanish. In absolutely no other situation would anyone mistake me for fluent. It helps that Spanish is so phonetic, and that in the US there are people from so many different places there isn’t one accent.
Pls wash your hands after going to the toilet when you eat in a public place.
Yeah, that was what I was thinking. There’s no way a French person spoke in English of their own volition
Now it has become a way for people to blow their own trumpet.
I’m French and I bet that it’s the rythm. I can hear this foreigner with a perfect accent but with a way too perfect rythm with the same tonality: “Bon-jour-deux-croi-ssants-s’il-vous-plait”
A French would sing it. Bonjour ! : High pitched, the “bon-” louder than the “-jour”, quick, dynamic.
A pause…
“Deux croissants” medium pitch, without any pause before: “S’il vous plaît”. Sometimes said very fast, since it’s something you say everyday (“Silouplai”), and with a low pitch since it’s the end of the sentence.
A simpler explanation is that people tend not to be able to hear their own accents.
Someone who wasn’t brought up speaking French will probably never have an “absolutely perfect” accent. They may think that they sound exactly like everyone around them, but to someone brought up speaking French, they don’t.
There are a lot of British actors who do American accents for various parts. These are native English speakers who grew up listening to American accents on TV shows and in movies. They work with dialogue coaches, and can rehearse their lines until they think they can deliver them perfectly in American-style English. Any slips in their accent can be fixed in ADR before the film is released. Yet, many people, including me, are able to spot a few quirks in their speaking and often identify these people as not American.
For French in particular, it has the “u” sound that also exists in German, but doesn’t really exist in English. Many people who weren’t brought up with that sound can’t even really hear it, or can’t hear it as different from the “oo” sound that they associate with the letter “u”. As a result, words like “ouverture” don’t have two distinct “oo / u” sounds for them. So, they might think they’re speaking flawlessly and that nobody can notice, but it’s really obvious for anybody who was brought up hearing and speaking French.
My wife gets absolutely irate when I tell her she still has an accent, and that she also code switches her accents depending on who she is talking to.
Everybody has an accent. But, do you mean that you can still tell that English isn’t her first language or something?
A friend of mine is a champion unconscious code switcher. I lived in Australia for a bit and I don’t think my accent drifted much. It was enough of a problem that when I went to restaurants and asked for water they’d look at me confused, so I had to learn to say “whoa-tah”. This friend came to visit me in Australia and within a week he was using Australian terms and drifting into an Australian accent, even when talking to me, and it was completely unconscious.
Reminds me of Hugh Laurie, the director House praised him for having the perfect American accent, not knowing he was British.
Everyone cites Hugh Laurie as the best UK-born imitator of the American accent, and I completely agree, but I also think it’s fucking hilarious that now a lot of UK actors trying to do an American accent also end up imitating Hugh Laurie’s gravelly voice.
The Fauxmerican Accent is now Grumpy Doctor Voice, 11/10 comedy
amusingly, Laurie complained that he had, in fact, lost his British accent after so many years of working on House and had to work with a dialog coach to get it back.
Same as every american sketch comic trying to do a German accent, does a Brüno imitation (Sasha Baron Cohen’s character).
Brüno’s accent is really good, being a mixture of many characteristics, one of them German, another being typical gay speech patterns.
So now everyone who thinks they’re doing a German accent, does a gay German Brüno voice. Not quite right.
The “director House”?
Why would someone praise someone they thought was American for having the perfect American accent?
If I recall, he was chastising another audition, as in “look at that guy there, that’s a perfect American accent, that’s what I want”
Yeah, that story makes no sense.
“Bonjour ! Euhhh…. Deux croissants s’il-vous-plaît et euhh…. ce sera tout”
Literally this, just add an insane amount of euhh everywhere and they’ll think you’re one of them.
Unless they are Breton
That would be more like “bo------r, (nods vaguely toward the croissants)” the “s’il vous plaît” is implied, but definitely there somewhere. The “merci” will be a slight nod backwards.
You describe it and I can hear my aunt (in law) saying it that way. I believe it.
As someone living in France for a while now, that’s exactly what I picked up from immersion, never noticed that before.
And you wonder why people think you are uptight? /s
So basically the same tempo as HEllooo, two croissants please. Taking as much time saying “s’il vous plait” as “please”.
Basically talking like a normal person haha.
Please do “I’m sorry, but I don’t speak French” now, please, thanks, please. :)
<<Pardon, je suits stupide.>>
No shit this bailed me out in France. 😄
You say it with the pitch and rythm of “Je ne regrette rien” from Edith Piaf.
Thank you. I will try not to burst into song next time I get this springs up :P
JE SORROUX, JE NON SPEAKOUX FRENCHOUX
WE WE CROISSANT. OMELETTE DU FROMAGE.
Yeah that’s just gonna piss off any French person because we have no idea how that became so popular.
Dexter’s Laboratory must be the reason, I can’t accept any other explanation.
Yeah, but it’s a cultural niche that’s not known at all over on this side, and it became a meme, while being wrong.
I was just in Bordeaux. Not a single issue with my weak French and I’d almost always get a reply in French. I promise I am nowhere near fluent, maybe A2 level.
But in Paris, nearly every reply was in English and even if I replied back in French I’d get that look “please stop butchering my language” before they’d reply in English. It’s a running joke now, but I really question if it’s just parisons being assholes or maybe they just want to practice.
Ps. Never had this issue with Italian. My accent is almost Roman too and I’m again, not fluent.
I’d just keep speaking French to fuck with them. Two can play at that game. I can’t speak French, though.
I had a good friend from France who informed me that Parisians are just arseholes lmao
I haven’t had issues in Paris, but it might help that I often apologize for my French in advance. I’m Canadian and clearly have learned a different accent, but most people I encountered were quite eager to help me practice.
Ah you discovered the secret. Even among the French, the Parisians have a certain reputation.
I spent way to many years traveling to France for business and spending several weeks there at a time. I don’t speak French of course as I studied a bit of Spanish. When there as a foreigner you generally get either pleasant and wonderful people or snobbish assholes.
Parisians lean more towards assholes though I met many wonderful people there. It’s more of a disdainful bored attitude without much bite. They know tourism is necessary for their jobs but dealing with tourism is a pain the ass. This interaction pretty much sums it up.
When you are outside of Paris the reactions get more extreme. I got some of the best and worst reactions when I was in smaller cities like Nantes or Lyon.
I think it helps speaking the language in France, they can to be more nationalistic than Americans.
Yeah we have French tourists in Quebec and the Paris ones are the worst.
True, but so do the Bordeaulais
Source: wife is parisien, but her family are al Bordeaulais
Never been to Bordeaux so didn’t know about the reputation. As a foreigner I always had the impression in France that the more you go south the nicer they are (my own lived experience, due to circumstances I live in the Occitanie).
I wonder how a parisian would navigate the Seattle freeze.
As an American I’d just be happy you’re trying. The fact that you try to speak a native language IMO shows respect, even if it isn’t that good. You care enough to try.
From my experience in Spain, if you don’t speak Spanish and they don’t speak English they will still try to help you. In the store they may just show you how much you have to pay on the screen. In other places they will quickly open google translate and use that.
In France they just stare at you and make 0 effort to help. Best they can do is just repeat it in French again.
Whenever I try to speak French, the reply is always the same…
Isn’t that the name of their national lunch?
You’re thinking of Croque Monsieur. Monsieur Clown is the name of a famous cabaret in Paris.
When I was in Italy I felt like lieutenant Aldo Rains. Italy was the only place I actually struggled because English was far less common, and when I was in France for a day I had a near fluent linguist with me. I can speak a little German but never had to.
