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Lots of US tourists in Paris currently. Overheard a couple of weeks ago: Waiter: Un café? Un dessert? Elderly lady tourist: I'm sorry, in English? Waiter:
by jjgreen 4y ago
Lots of US tourists in Paris currently. Overheard a couple of weeks ago:
Waiter: Un café? Un dessert?
Elderly lady tourist: I'm sorry, in English?
Waiter: A coffee? A dessert?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- HorizonXP 4y agoI think that's heard in Paris every summer. If you work in Paris in a tourist area, English is pretty much a prerequisite, even if the Parisians don't like it.
- mytailorisrich 4y agoI think this was more of a joke on those tourists since the English is so similar to the French in that case... A bit like "the French have no word for entrepreneur" (-- George w. Bush, alledgedly)
- abruzzi 4y agoI remember when I visited Paris and Germany I tried really hard to use the rudimentary language skills I had. The French always seemed too frustrated to slow down to the speed I could manage, and the Germans were just excited to have a chance to practice their English, and chide me (in English) about our invasion of Iraq. (admittedly this was almost 20 years ago, so things might be different now.)
- tayo42 4y agoYeah now we/Americans catch shit for trump and guns when abroad lol
- dboreham 4y agoWear a maple leaf pin.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- teetertater 4y agoUgh I've heard this hack before, don't ruin Canadians' reputation too!! We deservedly get enough flack as it is lol
- Kon-Peki 4y agoPeople in Europe know all the big American cities and are well aware of the political differences. If someone asks where you are from, don't tell them you are from the US, tell them you are from NY/Chicago/LA/SF/whatever. There is a pretty decent chance that it will lead to a nice friendly conversation that you'll never get with an "I'm from the US" answer.
- jonny_eh 4y agoAt this point, if they bring up the Iraq war, you can bring up WWII.
- jfengel 4y agoEspecially since English is the tourist language for all tourists. Paris is full of Germans, Japanese, Russians, and many others. The wait staff and clerks aren't expected to speak every language, and the tourists aren't expected to speak conversational French. English is the fallback for everybody.
- cm2187 4y agoThe problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur. Apparently it is a false quote, but I still like it!
- erehweb 4y agoAllegedly Tony Blair told his friend Shirley Williams that Bush said this. Snopes claims this is false based on Alastair Campbell's [Blair’s director of communications and strategy] say-so. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/french-lesson/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/french-lesson/ He says “I can tell you that the prime minister [Blair] never heard George Bush say that, and he certainly never told [his friend] Shirley Williams that President Bush did say it. If she put this in a speech, it must have been a joke.” While Blair / Campbell have an obvious interest in denying this (it's not good to be rude about other countries leaders), we might reasonably be suspicious of Campbell's denial.
- tialaramex 4y agoEven if we believe that Shirley Williams was actually told by Blair that this happened, that still wouldn't mean Bush said it. Not least because Blair may have intended it as a joke, just as Williams may have. This is still useful if our interest is "When was this said?" because we know Shirley Williams talks about it, so e.g. if some future historian is wondering about a claim Trump said this to Johnson, they've got this record that well, this particular "American Presidents are idiots" quote certainly pre-dates that. There a lot of interesting turns of phrase where that is primarily what we care about - did Franklin say that stuff about hanging together or hanging separately? Perhaps not. This play on words does however seem to originate in that period, you won't find it much earlier than the American Revolution, while by the 19th century it's commonplace.
- an9n 4y agoSurely Alastair Campbell would never lie /s
- xeromal 4y agoThis sounds ridiculous, but you'll be surprised how thwarted your average american is at accents. If someone wrote down the french words, I'm pretty sure grandma would've figured it out. I'm somewhat the defacto interviewer at my company for latino interviewees because of my time in south america. I don't even speak spanish barring enough to survive, but I can understand their english better than my peers. When they asked how I was understanding what they said, I didn't even realize I was the only one getting it. I think people in general should hang out in strange lands to get your brain to be more flexible to different kinds of inputs even if you don't plan learning a new language.
- splonk 4y agoSome of us just have a really bad ear for accents. I'm a native English speaker who's been to dozens of countries and have at least a passing knowledge of 4 languages, and I still have trouble with strong accents from the southern US, New York, and even my Indian coworkers that I've spoken to for years. I think it's some kind of bad aural signal processing in my case, since pretty low volumes of background noise can also screw up my comprehension of people I can normally understand.
- xeromal 4y agoCan definitely see that being an issue for many people. I think as long as a person is aware that demanding someone to speak English is the wrong attitude, most humans want to try to convey what they're saying. I'm kind of the opposite of you. My hearing is extremely sensitive to a fault and picks up more than I even want. I'll say that I'm easily overwhelmed when there is a lot of competing noise though.
- soco 4y agoI met this kind of situation in more than a few colleagues and a common observation was: they have these troubles only in their native language. Maybe we're stronger wired to that language+accent to be the language, and whatever else we learn is more flexible by definition because it's learned?
- golergka 4y agoIs it a joke about a tourist who doesn't understand a similar language, or about a Frenchman who uncharacterisically switches to English without showing contempt for the tourist?
- jjgreen 4y agoNot a joke at all, I overheard it in a bar in Paris (at the Bar Sancerre, close to La Republic); I thought it mildly amusing. That the waiter switches to English without contempt is entirely characteristic of Paris waiting staff in my experience, professional and polite.
- marban 4y agoNot.even.trying.
- postsantum 4y agoEnglish tourist: do you have frog legs? - Oui - Please lass, hop on a bar and get me a pint
- HWR_14 4y agoWritten, it's obvious. But "dessert" is pronounced very differently in French and English (according to automatic translation). The "rt" don't seem to be pronounced and the "e" right before that is the other kind of "e". I would not have understood what was said to me (again, if the TTS on the automatic translation is correct). And that's leaving out that the articles make it harder. If you don't speak French, knowing where the spaces go in uncafe isn't automatic (although written as one word it is much easier than verbally). I recommend everyone try it before you judge the elderly lady. Although, I may have been able to figure it out from context (end of a meal, sitting down at a coffee and desert place)
- corrral 4y agoI could easily see this being really hard to understand, to an American with no French. "Unkufay? Un days err?" I mean, lots of us have trouble understanding various British accents, before slang even enters the game.
- soco 4y agoThe running gag is telling the Scottish mate when he gets too excited "say it in English please"
- jfengel 4y agoOr get it from both sides: the host of Coffee Break French speaks English with a strong Scottish accent. (Edinburgh, I think.) His French is excellent. I really loved the early seasons, where he was teaching French to a Glaswegian woman. French with a Glasgow accent is baffling and beautiful.
- jfengel 4y agoIt's little surprise that they wouldn't recognize "dessert". The French pronunciation is /de.sɛʁ/. The first half is similar to English, but the last half is a sound that doesn't even really exist in English. The pronunciation of "café" is more similar to English, but spoken at conversational speed it can still be hard to parse. The article and the word flow together; it would sound like "ahcuhfay" (with the last syllable sort of fading out). I'm still learning French. I watch French language films with the subtitles on, because even when I know 100% of the vocabulary I often can't follow the spoken words without a nudge to provide context. French is a lovely language, but it's conspicuously mushy. They French are aware of it. There are many language resources that over-enunciate as an educational tool. So I sympathize with the elderly tourist. Those words are very similar on the page, but in a noisy cafe I could see myself confused as well.