412
French here, it's quite the opposite actually. I think it's basic politeness to try a few words of the language of the country you're in, and French do enjoy it :) (not the parisiens, but nobody likes the parisians anyway)
We stayed in Paris for a few days for my sister's wedding. We know some Canadian french, and the Parisians were ok with that. Never got any bad reactions. I was a little worried about how it would go over with the reputation they have.
When I visited France, I always attempted to speak French, and would explain in French that I was very bad at it, and I only had good interactions where people seemed to appreciate the attempt and would switch to English for me or if they didn't speak English we would just use google translate. Even in Paris.
We've just been on the french north coast last week (from Austria) and I was also positively surprised. Everybody was really nice and spoke English very well. I'm still traumatized by 4 years of french in school because whenever I said something I was scolded that the pronunciation is wrong. Unfortunately that made me hate the french language, but french people made me more confident now and maybe I can set my peace with french now.
Yeah if you go to the north around Normandy, French people there love English speakers and are super friendly if you try to speak French. Like OP mentioned, it's Parisians that are assholes.
Glad to hear!
When I was visiting Alsace with my family, we witnessed a stereotypical interaction between the loud English speaking Americans and the French hotel staff, and neither could communicate well, and both were frustrated. My family was next in line, and the hotel staff looked at us like, "oh God, what's next," but when we started talking to them in French they melted. They were so happy that we could communicate easily, and were so much more relaxed.
I never had seen a French person frowning at the worst possible attempt at French.
Your French could sound like a seal having a stroke while tripping on acid, like a 1920 Ford T coughing on sugar reach diesel, like a dyslexic Albanian speaking Icelandic - and still the result will be at least an attempt at understanding and communication.
Compare that to Germany, where one mispronounced syllable in a conversation with a native aboriginal make the same effect as if you were telling them a double 4-disk Enigma encrypted message.
French here too. Its accurate and the map is wrong. We love when people speak French with weird accents, its fun.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Or the Walloons. At least not when I grew up there trying to learn the languages.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Ireland is incorrect. The majority would be blue or red.
The majority of Ireland speaks English. 39% claim to speak some Irish. 1.5% speak it daily. 10% can speak it well.
The map says "how people react when you try to speak their language" Irish is the native language of Ireland. No matter how many people try to say otherwise even with the petty "people claim to speak it"
The Irish language is also in the middle of big revival after the British had criminalised it for centuries and tried to kill it. The fact that it still survives is a testament to the people. It is still considered Irelands language, and I know only a handful of a people of a certain creed that would say otherwise or try to dispute it, and they wouldn't be considered Irish imho.
Aye but literally nobody speaks it. So the reaction from 90% of people would be 'I have no feckin idea what you're on about mate, conas atá tu?'
Nothing to do with pettiness. I was highlighting that people overestimate their abilities. 39% knowing 'some' Irish means they know a few words. The small clusters that do speak it are mostly in Gaeltacht & Gaelscoileanna students
It doesn't change that Irish is still our language. English is the language that we use due to coercion. The petty remark was in relation to the amount of people who "claim" to speak some of it. Considering it was compulsory in schools until fairly recently, I wouldn't find that unbelievable.
English is an official language too, the dominant one which is used day-to-day and understandable by the (vast) majority. History isn't really relevant.
Aye they probably know as much Irish as the average person who took German or French in school remembers, fuck all.
Nobody said otherwise. The Irish language is the language of Ireland. As mentioned, only a certain creed would dispute that. Also as mentioned, it is used and dominant due to coercion. Of course history is relevant.
It's Irrelevant how much you think people may remember what they learned.
I was going to comment the same, did the person who made this think Ireland is an English speaking country? If so I would suggest they read "Translations" by Brian Friel.
I know about revitalization efforts for Irish Gaelic but doesn't the majority speak English?
Yes. 99%. Not sure what other people in this thread are on about.
load more comments
(1 replies)
I ran a marathon in Italy once on a trip through Spain, France, and Italy with my sister. She speaks fluent Spanish and I can speak tourist French now but back then, I was semi-fluent. (I can read French now and everything is self-checkout but can’t form a complex sentence.)
Anyway, Italian is 80% hand gestures. In France, it’s like “Don’t try, American idiot.” In Italy, it’s like 37 hand gestures and one or two words. I couldn’t find my sign-in booth and I asked if I could run the race anyway and they just waved their hands and said “Go.” And the photographer somehow matched me up with my number that was in some sign-in booth.
I started 20 minutes late and probably came in last place. But every little village made special treats for us so you’d stop and have an espresso and some delicious snack. Perfect marathon. 10 of 10. Would run again. And carb loading in France/Italy is definitely not the worst plan I’ve had.
You give a French person one deep French accent "hoh hoh hoh" laugh and suddenly you're no longer allowed to talk.
Even if it's preceded by a hearty "kwahssan"?
My experience in France has been closer to one of the blue colors. They seem to very much prefer when someone at least tries, even if they’re struggling.
France or Paris?
Not the original commenter, but I've heard that may just be a Paris thing which I think you're hinting at. I've personally been to Paris and had the expected negative experience, but in my singular visit to Montreal (not actually France), the people I talked to were very open to people trying to speak French. Heard that the Montreal experience is closer to the norm and Paris just kind of sucks.
Both, really. Maybe it helped that my first time was really only speaking to waitstaff or hotel employees, or pharmacists (I’d gotten a cold)? That first time my French was my worst, high school French and I’d been out of school 2 years (did not go to university right away). The next time I’d been to university and minored in French, and the last time I was with my wife’s family, who are French.
Is Ireland based off English, or Gaelic? Because I'd imagine the reaction is different.
My partner has been learning Norwegian and some of the reactions from native speakers lean toward the red.
It's not about difficulty (it's one of the easier languages for English speakers), but moreso that they believe it's pretty useless outside of Norway lol
They arent exatcly wrong here.
same here in sweden, at least me personally
like, you know we speak english right? why would you try to badly speak fractions of our language when it would be so much easier to just start with english? it's not impressive or endearing to speak bad swedish, it's just awkward. Our language isn't some special magic we hold dear, it's just what we speak to each other, the same as anglophones speak english to each other.
I was always taught that it's disrespectful to begin in English. The idea is I should be able to use basic phrases, to clearly apoloize for not speaking their language, and then hopefully we switch to my language.
Launching straight into English in someone else's country seems arrogant.
The UK countries and parts of Russia are both wrong.
They = keeps speaking their own language to you, but automatically make it 10x louder.
this is basically habitability zones
I thought French people hated it when you talked English to them without even saying Bon jour first.
i once politely asked some middle-aged lady in Paris a question in English. She understood me perfectly fine and proceeded to give me detailed directions in french.
I'm still not sure what that was about.
(I'm very obviously not British or US-American, so that wasn't it.)
Maybe she could understand English but wasn’t good at speaking it? English pronunciation is kind of tricky. It doesn’t explain why she thought you would understand French, though.
load more comments
(1 replies)
As a Finn I usually just go: "Yeah, you don't need to torture yourself. We can just do english." So it's a mix of Finland and Sweden.
as a Hungarian, true xD you don't need to do this to yourself
Doubt about the Germs tho.
Think only yesterday one of them posted a link without mentioning it was totally in German, bcs they think everyone knows their language.
I had the misfortune of spending time there before and swore never to go back.
10 years later I couldn't avoid it and had to be there a few days for work.
First interaction was in a gas station on a highway.
You know, where plenty people come from various countries.
Me "Sorry, do you speak English?"
Gas Germ: "Nein!" In the most fascist -WTF are you thinking!- manner.
I immediately turned around and walked back to the car where there was a cop furiously yelling at my co-worker for the crime of stopping in the wrong place (with him being in the car).
All in German, despite the obvious foreign license plate.
That was when I decided to never speak to one of them again and let my co-worker deal with it from then on.
Had some awkward situations with me just ignoring anything they said or asked, at best point to my co-worker when he was around.
Lol are you upset that Germans were speaking German to you in Germany? Breh...
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2025
412 points (100.0% liked)
Map Enthusiasts
4558 readers
1 users here now
For the map enthused!
Rules:
-
post relevant content: interesting, informative, and/or pretty maps
-
be nice
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS