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'Little England' will you be watching?


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Sometimes there is a tendency to label a whole group of people as being the same which is a bit unfair. There are quiet a few English in our nearest town. Some of these a year or three back were on 'The Money Program' whinging about not getting the extra winter fuel allowance from the UK. One chap, an ex police officer, claimed that without it he could not survive and would have to leave. Well if your finances are so finely tuned that an extra £250 (or whatever) makes the difference between living or not you shouldn't really move to another country. Needless to say I had little sympathy for him and the others. Now this was a group of about six, there are far, far, more than six English (or Brits if you prefer) living in the town so to use this small group as a typical cross section as a typical example of Brits living around here would be totally false.

I have come across some Brits when out and about and yes they do make me cringe. There are a couple of things that either make me laugh or cry that they come out with. Probably the most classic is "You wouldn't do it that way in the UK" or "You couldn't get away with that in the UK", well its France and it's not the UK. Then here is the well attended luncheon club on Wednesdays (market day), something I steer well clear of. The best, and most funniest was "I'm going to vote UKIP at the next election because we shouldn't be in the EU", I don't think they had thought through to the fact that the only reason they can move to France without applying for a residency permit is because we are in the EU. Then there is the old classic as they sit chatting in English to their fellow Brit's "We left the UK because of the immigrants, I mean when you stand at the checkout in Tesco's you can't hear a word of English being spoken and all these immigrants stick together showing no interest in integrating", they have no thought that they are doing exactly the same thing in France that they accuse other of doing in the UK. When challenged they always come out with the same old thing "Some of my best friends are French" to prove that they have integrated.

All that aside there are some very nice genuine Brits about who do the best they can, some more successful than other, some not so. They are not bad people, they don't fall in to the above group and they are here because they like France and want to be here.

Likewise I can also understand why sometimes we gravitate towards another Brit for a chat. Some of us came to France with little or know French linguistic skills, personally I slaughter the language, I do try very hard but there are times when it's nice to sit, have a beer or whatever and a chat in your native language. I would also like to add that we have Danish, Dutch and few Germans down here and they seem to also gravitate towards people that speak the same language as them.

As I said I choose my friends here in the same way as I did back in the UK and I have some good friends both English and French but likewise there are other English and French I wouldn't cross the road for.

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[quote user="LEO"][quote user="Will"]As far as I am concerned the problem is not so much that there are many British in France who eat fish and chips, frequent the English-speaking bars, play cricket, refuse to speak french and all the other things levelled against them and highlighted in programmes like that. My problem (and I am sure it is mine rather than theirs) is that the vast majority of these people are not the sort of people I have any desire to mix with or be friendly towards. I wouldn't socialise with them in England, so why should I be different in France? And before we open that other can of worms, there are plenty of French people I have no desire to befriend either.

I still think it could make an interesting programme though, as long as the producers don't let it all fall into stereotypical mode.

[/quote]

Hi Will, if we were neighbours I think we would get on like a house on fire!

However ,I like to eat fish and chips, frequent the English-speaking bars because , banter is very important in my life.

One cannot have banter with a foreigner!


ps.

I know a fellow in Glasgow who works for the council,reads the "Sun",only drinks Smirnoff and coke,holidays in Florida, watches football every week,and loves Chinese curries!

In his job with the council ,this fellow encourages wayward youngsters to a better life.


He is not working class! He is not middle class!

He is differrent class!
[/quote]

Definitely on my No No list...little scotchlanders...not as ubiquitous as little englanders maybe...fortunately easily identified though![:P]

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We love our hamlet in France and so look forward to retireing there. There are other english people around, some we like, some we dont.... we wouldnt be friends with them in UK so why would we be in France?

Will be watching this evening,hopefully it wont make me cringe too much lol
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Some of the judgemental comments in this post make me squirm, as the old proverb goes, Love your neighbour but don't tear down the fence, perhaps I'm fortunate with some good neighbours and a few friends in the local area, but for those that don't gel well que sera . . .

In all the programs about France there is usually some nugget of info; should an open minded person prejudge? as old Macca sang There is good and bad in everyone. Learn to live, learn to give,; - I have to say on this occasion I'm with Q

[quote user="Quillan"] live and let live providing it does no harm to anyone.[/quote]

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In my little hamlet of around 15 houses we are the only English [8-|] and that suit me just fine. There is only one lady that speaks English and she is very friendly and infact seeks me out first before I her when we arrive in the village, My French is not that good but I can stand in the road or meet on a walk and hopefully make myself understood, but understanding them sometimes is a bit tricky.

When I have attended any social events I am always surprised/pleased that other English speakers (not Brits) come up to me and are very friendly, I don't seek them out, I can be a bit introverted out of my comfort zone.

It's about 50/50 I like the opertunity to practice my French with non-English speakers, but if some-one speaks English first I tend not to try my French with them.

I hate the snobery that I see some Brits portray, the ones who speak good French and think you are something  they stepped in! because you obviously are to dim to learn the language like they did or the ones who  don't even make the effort because every-one should speak English you know! I've met both and I wouldn't like them where ever I was in the world [:-))]

I'm looking forward to tonights program and I hope it shows the real picture of real every day people and not just the ones that make good (bad) TV.

 

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[quote user="Jacqui Too "]

I hate the snobery that I see some Brits portray, the ones who speak good French and think you are something  they stepped in! because you obviously are to dim to learn the language like they did or the ones who  don't even make the effort because every-one should speak English you know! I've met both and I wouldn't like them where ever I was in the world [:-))]

[/quote]

Even better are those that think they speak perfect French till you look at the French person they are speaking to who developes that blank look. [;-)]

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I try my best with my neighbours, but sometimes I say something and they get the blank look, probably the wrong word or ive said it the wrong way, but then again our french neighbour chatters away to us, somethings we understand other we dont.

Think it is really nice that one of them now says 'Good Morning', his only bit of english.

I did manage to tell his wife how to make the jelly I had given her, just to be on the safe side I wrote it down as well for her, really pleased when they do understand tho.

I am deaf but with a cochlear implant, so only hear (sort of) in one ear,so understanding takes a lot of concentration
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They all look at me like that!! [:D]

At first I put it down to them all being "pretty vacabt" around here but now I know that they either cannot understand my mis-use of their language with many Hilda Baker moments or even when I am speaking correctly they are just so shell shocked to hear French spoken with another accent that they overload, usually their wife has to repeat back what I say to them and then they fall in and can follow me, many just cannot believe that an English person around here could/would speak French.

There are very very few people that will actually correct my French and am really gratefull to them, they are my real friends, I am well aware that I make numerous errors as witnessed by the usually vacant expressions or laughing either behind my back or to my face without ever explaining why.

An example of the sort of howler that I come out with, I recently posted "creve de baratiner" on this forum which generated some animated responses, it was part of my vocabulary yet I had misheard it and was pi55pronouncing it, the correct phrase is "Trêve de baratiner" (enough of this bullsh1t) as was pointed out to me yesterday.

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Chancer, I always think you are pretty fluent now, and great that friends do 'correct', but watch out for 'other's. We went to dinner at a friends and they are used to me, my accent, my faux pas, simply 'me'. They had invited other guests and one decided to 'correct' every last thing I said, got so carried away, even tried to correct things that weren't wrong, probably my accent made them sound 'odd'. He even started correcting my husband's 'good' french and he was getting very angry about it. It was bloody rude.

At a friends home, we didn't want to cause a scene, and left early. Ruined evening really.

I won't say french friends never correct me, they do, gently. As it ruins conversations when they are interupted to say that I have not conjugated properly, it happens all too often that I don't conjugate properly. 

And as the lady at La Poste said to me, in a rather confidential tone, 'you speak really good french for an anglaise, I just cannot understand a word you say'.

It is true, some people don't have the ear and someone else has to repeat what I have just said to them and then they 'get it', it isn't just in Picardie, that happens in city's too. I soon learnt to stick to my guns and say it how I thought, rather than saying it differently each time I repeated what I needed to say.

 

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Good advice, there is definitely soething about having the ear, in general women do more so than men, when I analyse those who dont in general it is those that for whatever reasons dont think that I and many others are worthy of their time and effort, the brusque dismissive types, all men of course apart from one noteable remplacant factrice that I had.

Its not just a French thing though, many years back my friend Jean-Marc came to see me in England, back then his English was better than my French was but we both could barely communicate but there was crucially a shared will, i took him along to what was then a Friday night one drink after work at the pub before the wife hollers meeting of the guys in the offices that I shared, other small business men.

He enjoyed it and thought it was hilarious that what I had prewarned him would happen, after bang on an hour one by one their mobiles started ringing, they wore a harangued expression and left exactly like a Frenchman would at 11.50!!! He said that they were an interesting group, only one seemed really interested in talking to him, wanting to understand what he had to say far more than the others, one he felt was not a nice person, seemed impatient to be able to hear the sound of his own voice again, he showed remarkable insight into this group of people that i knew well and was bang on the money, no prizes for guessing who is the only one that remains in contact with me.

My only neighbour, a distant one at that is one who corrects me, he does seem to take a lot of pleasure out of it but I accept that is the way he is and would prefer to learn even if he is sometimes not gentil, it can come as quite a shock when you ask people to either proof read somethin that you have written or to write it for you, many are illiterate around here and some even ask me to write letters fro them in French, such is the way that they are treated by their peers, I find that really sad.

The other day my neighbour corrected me, I had said "je courirai" he said that jars a nerve, you should say "je vais courir" I said OK I know I could have used aller and the infinitive to express it but I wanted to use the futur simple tense, how should I conjugate it? He looked confused and uncomfortable in equal tried again with "je vais courir" but I stuck by my guns, gave him some examples of other verbs in the futur simple and the infinitive using aller, And he finally said that I should say "je courerai" funnily enough that jarred with me and he didnt look that convinced.

Soon after I had the occasion to repeat my now corrected "je courerai" to someone else but i watched their expression carefully once more the blank look and/or laughing at the pauvre con, I even asked them had i said something wrong, No No! they re-assured me, I went home and looked in my Bescherelle and found that it is in fact "je courrai" which sounds exactly like the imparfait "je courais" at first I thought that I had been pi55pronouncing all the verbs that end in ir but no it was just the rir endings.

I wish i knew how to crack the problem of getting French friends to correct me, one English guy said he hated it when people corrected him, I wish they were my friends. 

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That's the way I see it too Chancer  -  the -rir verbs I've totally forgotten how to conjugate, and it sounds, from your story, that the french have too.

I'm one of those brave french speakers who dives in headfirst, and hopes for the best. Our nearest neighbour is a retired languages teacher (french-spanish) and she corrects me very nicely.

But she absolutely refuses to try english, not that I want her to, but our very english neighbours can't understand this.

Having the "ear" I agree with, also I have luckily a good memory for vocabulary, which is another aspect of learning a language.

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The future tense is mostly taught in "Little England" as being the infinitive plus an ending as in courir-ai BUT the french pronounce the future tense with in principle the final "r" of the infinitive attached to the ending as in "rai". Take a simple er verb for example  j'acheterai, so they say j'achete-rai and not j'acheter-ai. If you experiment with courirai it would be couri-rai and it slips badly off the tongue but if you zap that "i" you then get a lovely smooth je cour-rai.[:)]
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But PP he stressed the Courerai whereas in fact it is the simple je courrai sounding just like the imparfait je courais. Or do you mean that they have removed the i that I had added to make it more pronounceable?

Good tip regarding the j'achete - rai, I will practice that!

Editted. why are we discussing prononciation when some of you must have already seen the program Little Britain!!

Was it so bad that you are lost for words?

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I think I ran away from the possibility of living in such a place/community 30 years ago and my original feelings remain.

My husband shouted out 'ah good god' after a couple of minutes and we kept glancing at one another, as couples do, looking amused and flabbergasted.

The Dordogne, looked nice enough to me, but, but, would I go there after seeing this, I would doubt it, unless I was visiting friends and then I would. I'll visit friends where ever they may be.

 

 

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Well I think it confounded  most of your somewhat anglophobic  critisms. They seemed to be perfectly  normal people trying to make a life over here, fnding a niche market, (actuallyI wouldn't mind some fresh back bacon occasionally) and they seemed perfectly able to speak French. They are braver than me - I waited until retirement to make a permanent move. I cant imagine wanting to watch it every week , but that's just me.

ps - we have a  Brit owned Chinese restaurant in Chalus, a small town.  I gather lots of ex-pats and holiday home owners have a high old time there, or that's the gossip I hear in the supermarket.  Never been - dont like Chinese food at all.  

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We prefer King Long in Angouleme, when we get there!

Actually, Geoffrey Palmer always sounds like that!

Interesting so far! Not just Brits - but French/Germans and more besides. In our village we are a mix of French, Dutch, Brits, Germans, Portuguese and Belgians.
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[quote user="idun"]

I think I ran away from the possibility of living in such a place/community 30 years ago and my original feelings remain.

My husband shouted out 'ah good god' after a couple of minutes and we kept glancing at one another, as couples do, looking amused and flabbergasted.

The Dordogne, looked nice enough to me, but, but, would I go there after seeing this, I would doubt it, unless I was visiting friends and then I would. I'll visit friends where ever they may be.

 

[/quote]

I'm confused Idum... what was there to be flabbergasted about... and what did you see to put you off visiting? 

The Dordogne is a very very pretty place and if you've never been then you really are missing out... it has so much to offer visitors.  Maybe if you ever get the chance you should come on a holiday and perhaps our lovely department can charm you and show you what we have grown to love and call home. 

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I've never visited the Dordogne, but it certainly looked very pretty indeed, Rose. I thought the programme was better than I had expected and I'll probably watch again. Nothing very deep or insightful, but a pleasant glimpse of people trying to make a living in a different country and apparently succeeding quite well.
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