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Originally Posted by lilac_jive
Mwhahaa this just reminded me of a funny story of when I was in Paris. This girl in our group said she spoke "impeccable" French. She was annoying. Anyway here I am getting by just fine not knowing any french at all. One night we go to dinner and she asks the waitress in French where the bathroom was. The waitress gave her the weirdest look and in English said "Uhh, we don't have one of those here." Then like ten minutes later she comes back and says, "OH! You were looking for the bathroom!"
I guess she said it in some really dated way or something. We were all cracking up (we didn't like her).
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pfff ! funny story. i really wonder what the waitress thought she was asking, at first.
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A lot of people in America say the french are rude, but I thought the french were the nicest people of all the countries I have visited. My theory was that if you try to speak french, no one will like you. What do you think Zelda? I mean, the only rudeness I saw was your generic city dweller stuff.
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i can't speak for everybody living here, but personally i find it really annoying when tourists don't make even the slightest effort to understand the different culture and adapt to the fact they are in a different country. they don't have to speak french perfectly, but if they are going to ask directions (or whatever) from a french person, the very least they can do is learn to say "bonjour", "s'il vous plaît" and "merci", it's really not that hard. it's like, when you go to italy, at the very least you learn to say "buon giornio," "dove," "grazie," "per favore". after that you'll find most people are very friendly and glad to help. i think that's true anywhere in fact. actually if a rude tourist comes up to me and starts bellowing in english i pretend i don't understand him and keep walking.
but i have a low tolerance for rudeness, and being a tourist is really no excuse. on the other hand, if a tourist is trying to speak to me in french and clearly having a really difficult time, i will ask them if they prefer to speak in english. i appreciate that they tried.