> French people always get criticized for not understanding foreigners' broken French. It is not out of malice. Plenty of people seem to have anecdotes that ar

> French people always get criticized for not understanding foreigners' broken French. It is not out of malice. Plenty of people seem to have anecdotes that are hard to explain in any way other than malice. I have one of my own: I was out camping with the family in france, I don't remember where exactly. As is tradition we managed to forget to bring the can opener. Cue my dad in the campstore with a can trying to get the shop keeper to sell us a can opener. How can you possibly need more than someone miming a can opener with a can saying "ouvrir" to get what he was trying to communicate? Never mind that his french was plenty fluid enough to hold a conversation with plenty of other french people. I'm sure most french people are perfectly nice and do their best to understand foreigners. But -- at least the last time I was over there -- there are also more than enough french people who just straight up refuse to understand foreigners to leave a bitter taste in peoples mouth.