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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-ssant-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.
Please do “I’m sorry, but I don’t speak French” now, please, thanks, please. :)
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
<<Pardon, je suits stupide.>>
No shit this bailed me out in France. 😄
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.
You describe it and I can hear my aunt (in law) saying it that way. I believe it.
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.
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
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.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.
The “director House”?
Why would someone praise someone they thought was American for having the perfect American accent?
Yeah, that story makes no sense.
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”
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.
As someone living in France for a while now, that’s exactly what I picked up from immersion, never noticed that before.
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.
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.
And you wonder why people think you are uptight? /s
“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.
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.
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.
Yeah but in Paris it was sure done on purpose 😁!
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
I always found it pretty easy - just start speaking french with an English accent and they’ll start speaking English just to make you stop.
Didn’t order coffee
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 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.
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.
I’d just keep speaking French to fuck with them. Two can play at that game. I can’t speak French, though.
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.
Ah you discovered the secret. Even among the French, the Parisians have a certain reputation.
I wonder how a parisian would navigate the Seattle freeze.
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 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.
Yeah we have French tourists in Quebec and the Paris ones are the worst.
I had a good friend from France who informed me that Parisians are just arseholes lmao
Maybe the smile
Is not showing a will to live part of becoming fluent in French?
It’s more a question about using or abusing a smile:
https://www.ohlalafrenchcourse.com/en/blog/article/why-aren-t-the-french-nice
I know that in some (many) cultures, the American “smile” can be unnerving
Hell it’s unnerving to my American ass, lots of people very blatantly weaponize smiles here
I’ve heard it described similarly. In much of the US, it’s pretty normal to smile or nod at someone you’re passing as an acknowledgement. But in cultures that aren’t accustomed to that, I’ve heard it feels like if someone walked up to your car at a red light and knocked on your window just to say hi.
The directness one cracks me up. Is that where the word ‘frank’ comes from? Also, ime, they’re pretty direct when no one asked.
The second reason we might think the French are not nice is because of their direct communication.
Ah, the famous French frankness! Unlike some cultures where things are left unsaid and hints prevail, the French often prefer to say things as they are. This transparency aims to prevent misunderstandings, but it can be surprising, even shocking. But believe it or not, it’s often done in a spirit of clarity and mutual respect. After all, why waste time guessing what the other person is thinking?
So, don’t be surprised if a French person speaks directly to you and doesn’t tiptoe around you.
I was taught the French language by a person born and raised in France. Every English speaker comments on my impeccable French accent. Every person from the nation looks at me with disgust when I try to reproduce their tongue.
Isn’t it the same with any language?
In English, if you get the word order wrong, or you say “how”, when it should be “what”, or you speak a bit too clearly, like, you say “Good morning”, instead of “g’morning”.
I expect there are plenty of nuances in every language that can tip off a native speaker, that they don’t think about until it happens.
And, does the French person respond with perfect English, or do they have a bit of an accent?
The French are very cool people, who know how to throw a revolution, and that is what matters at the moment. Respect.
Ehhhhh…
Given how dominant English has been on the world stage for decades, there’s been a few times in my life where I’m listening to someone speak English and I didn’t realize that they weren’t American/AngloCanadian. (Dear Canadians, I am sorry, but like, dude our accents right on each others borders are near indistinguishable)
The only one who can actually say you have a perfect accent is a native speaker.
This seems like self-diagnosed.
Too perfect? American body language?
No french person would be that polite is why. Unless they’re a 4yo out with their mother.
Deux croissants
This is silly. We always order politely in bakeries. At least one of bonjour or svp is mandatory, along with a smile.
If you just say “deux croissants” with a perfect french accent (makes it clear you’re not a random tourist trying their best), you’d get a bad glare in return, and not unlikely to have the people around you in line asking you if you were raised by troglodytes in a cave.
I love that that’s shortened to svp! Not sure why but it tickles me.
Svp is far too long to say, siouplé is more likely.
The French are very keen on following proper etiquette, I have no clue what the parent comment is about lol.
They do this in argentina if you speak Spanish and you have darker skin. And the best part their English is more broken than my Spanish.
Did the sweatpants say juicy or juteuse across the butt?
When I was in Paris a few years ago, it was such an inversion of the rest of my experience in Europe. Anywhere else, english was the language where me and anyone would be best able to communicate. Many times in Paris, my wretched French was the most effective way to communicate and I am genuinely sorry to everyone involved in that.
Yo one time in Calais I was ordering lunch on three hours of sleep and my family had to eat a sandwich with three random meats (one of which a hamburger patty) and chips all stuffed into it. It was still good, but the guy looked at me like I had grown a second head.
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”.
Nobody talks without interferences such as “euh”, “erm”, “like”, etc, because in real life people don’t read lines like actors, they talk as they think. In your example, the person is obviously hesitating about what to order.
For sure, but it’s the rate at which the French use them which always blows me away. And I know I shouldn’t have to say this, and I know it will be ignored anyway, but yes obviously this isn’t every single French person.
I remember a specifically bad example from a person who was, if I remember correctly, introducing their website where they would speak in French and you could listen for practice. Great, sounds good. Except! I couldn’t follow them because they couldn’t pass three words, maximum, without a “uhh”, “beuhh”, or “eeeuhhh”. It was an extreme example, but I think about it all the time.
It all reeks of trying way too hard to hard to convince everyone how laid back they are but they’re some of the most stressed out people I know. I have to wonder if it’s the fact that I live in Montréal so we get a fair number of Parisien.nes here.
You can keep speaking French after this point. Practice makes perfect
