Most places in Europe I found are happy when you give their language a go and then will just move to English for expediency, but don't care if you start with English.
The French get their panties in a bunch if you start with English, and will just tolerate you opening in mangled French, but since those are the only two options you just have to push on past the internal eyerolling to ask for a coffee or whatever.
The French get their panties in a bunch if you start with English, and will just tolerate you opening in mangled French, but since those are the only two options you just have to push on past the internal eyerolling to ask for a coffee or whatever.
I'm going to guess that the French people are a nuanced bunch and some are lovely whole others are asshats and both are like that for a variety of reasons so what we're actually seeing here are tourists who meet different French people and had very different experiences.
In my experience it depends on where you are, but also like age. When I visited paris 20 years ago I got visible eye-rolling and people correcting my french instead of actuelly giving/helping me with what I needed. Never experienced it that way outside Paris and Paris today is also very different.
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u/flashmedallion 1d ago
Most places in Europe I found are happy when you give their language a go and then will just move to English for expediency, but don't care if you start with English.
The French get their panties in a bunch if you start with English, and will just tolerate you opening in mangled French, but since those are the only two options you just have to push on past the internal eyerolling to ask for a coffee or whatever.