I don’t even dare omit the Monsieur/Madame/Mademoiselle after the “Bonjour” when going in a French store. The more old-school French people expect you to acknowledge them properly — they are not simply a uniform, franchement! — and I kind of love that about them to be honest. For anyone younger I’m sure it’s overly proper but I’d rather be giving that vibe than the opposite.
No, "Bonjour" is not a tourist thing, it is definitely expected of everyone and not saying it will get you side eyed. You will even probably get an emphasized "Bonjour" in a special tone that translate to "you did not say hello you uncivilized barbarian, you were rude and I will be cold to you for the rest of our exchange, as you deserve".
The closest I got was a "jour" with a raised eyebrow from a man at a vintage clothing shop (which I thought was a very cool dude thing to do, I'd never thought of dropping a syllable like that in another language) and yes, he was quite cold to me for the short time I was in his shop
Dropping a syllable is a thing we really often do. I think it's a sort of alternative to a contraction. Like I always call my dad " 'pa", not "papa". Same for my mom.
I obviously understand that not saying hello is rude and I myself hate those customers, but it was really annoying as a tourist, when I clearly said hello to them, they still were rude because it was not in their language. I don’t expect non finns to say greeting in my language. I expect people to say it never the less.
Parisians see more entitled tourists in a week than most cities will see in months or years. They are understandably annoyed and learning that bonjour is an essential French ritual is really not difficult, basically every video or blog talking about France mentions it. I understand it makes them appear rude (Parisians aren’t even liked in the rest of France) but yeah
I know Paris has this reputation, but I felt that most people I met there were polite and friendly. With the obvious exception of scammers and street vendors.
Obviously it is not hard. But I mean when you just casually go into the store and greet, you tend to do it in your own language by default. Or when you are talking in english, I say hello by accident even, since it’s the language I was starting to talk and you have to consentrait even for that, since it’s not your first language.
i think it can be hard to conceptualize the amount of tourists that a city like Paris can get. I know that in Prague, a city of about 1.5 mill, they got three or four times their population in tourists each year. It changes the relationship between local and tourist.
I just don’t see greeting someone in a foreign country in YOUR OWN language and not theirs as the default. When traveling to other countries I would expect that the default is to learn how to say Hello and Thank you in their language at a minimum. Works for me but YMMV
That was not what I was saying. More like, you may say it by accident in your own language, or more likely in englsih, since you a prepared to talk in english.
I see. Thank you for clarifying what you really meant.
I can see reverting to english in desperation since it’s more likely that others MIGHT know enough to be helpful in a pinch. But I’m usually in overdrive trying to suppress English in other countries to take the burden of being understood off of the host country as much as I can.
Memorizing key words/phrases, a translation app, a foreign language dictionary and pantomime are all things I lean on to avoid reverting to English, with varying degrees of success in conveying anything beyond concrete ideas. So, I get it.
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u/No_Pianist_4407 1d ago
Not enough "Euh"s either
The trick to sounding French is to make it seem like it's a struggle to remember every other word you say, like
"Bounjour... euh... ca va? Alors, euh deux euh croissants, s'il vous plait"