We are in France so we must speak French...why?

[nimportequoi]

[quote user="Blitzen"]

The way I heard this one was that it was a choice between English and German!?[8-)]

[/quote]

I'm sure it was French, in fact the French helped America win the war of Independence just before they revolted.

[Blitzen]

[quote user="Susan"][quote user="Blitzen"]

The way I heard this one was that it was a choice between English and German!?[8-)]

[/quote]

I'm sure it was French, in fact the French helped America win the war of Independence just before they revolted.

[/quote]

I've also heard it might be yet another Urban Myth!![:D]

[ali-cat]

I remember being told, by a teacher in school, that English won, by 1 vote, over German.

[Just Katie]

Well it could have been Welsh with all those miners in Philadelphia.  Now theres a thought for ewe all isnt it?

[Wendy]

Jambo!! I would not be surprised what Miki was fluent in but he always gets his point across even if it upsets people[:)]

This thread has become interesting even to me, someone who should rack off 'home' because this is France and I should not expect anyone to speak anything other than French in any circumstance![8-)]

Can I just try and make a weeee bit clearer exactly what I meant?

Health professionals, i.e., doctors, dentists, very often deal with what can be 'intimate' personal health issues. Is it too much to ask that if a particular doctor, or dentist here, communicate in whatever language he/she is capable of simply to put their patient, 'bill payer', at ease?.   That is why I replied to the 'Health Forum'  and the questions of 'Why should they (speak english to you)?' with regards to whether there are any english speaking dentists. Why should a dentist here NOT speak english, if he can, to someone who is paying his bill? Not just national courtesy, not just 'You are in MY country' courtesy, but because of simple darn bloody HUMAN courtesy!.

In Australia I worked in the health field, in that country we get ALOT of new arrivals from South East Asia (to you lot, Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and to some degree Japan). Where I come from it would be rude NOT to be able to, and be prepared to, speak at least a few words of their language. That is why I can speak some Mandarin and Japanese. They were guests in our country and it was common courtesy to make the effort to communicate with them if they could not with us. So what if they were in Australia? so what if they can not speak english?. I was not there to judge them!. And, them speaking English was not a requirement for them to justify their presence there.

Why? because not all of them arrived in Australia ready and armed with the English language, fluent and ready to take us all on.  Not all arrived for the same reasons. The difference is we accepted that and still do. Go to any major 4/5 star hotel in Sydney and you will find that most of the staff can speak at least one asian language.  Do you want to be a travel agent in Australia? Then you had better speak at least one asian language. Why? because we are in that geographical region and that is what they speak.

Why should the French accept that many new arrivals will speak english? because this is the language most common in Europe. We have gauged this from our guests alone. ALL Scandinavians speak english( my Swedish/Danish friends tell me this), many Germans do and I've never met a Dutch person who does not speak fluent english. Also the Turks, Slovakians, Bulgarians, Estonians, Polish...

I am the first person to agree that in another country it is polite to try and have a go in that country's lingo, but, on a more personal level, when it comes down to it, why make everything so political?.

Yes in France the language is offically French, yes we should all try, but, why should it be a crime, at times, to request otherwise?.

I only challenge those attitiudes that oppose such tolerance.

Vive la France![Www]

[Logan]

Crime! gees wen I don't think it's that. French folks are very tolerant. Ask away and most of the time you will face a Gallic shrug not the arm of the law. I like that about France, it's a different place. They do things their way. Long may it remain so.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Wen - you equated a reluctance to speak English with racism, which it isn't. It is not reasonable to expect any health professional to conduct their trade in any language in which they are not totally proficient. Aside from the liability issue I am sure that they would be ethically unhappy about possible misunderstanding. Frankly, if people need a translator they should engage one. In the tourist trade one finds many French capable of speaking English and very happy to do so, but then the consequences of Getting it Wrong are not quite as grave.

Austalia (in population terms) is a small nation surrounded by much larger ones. France is not. Her only larger neighbour is Germany. The Netherlands, Scandinavia are also small nations and they consequently have become very adept at speaking the language of larger neighbours - it makes good business sense after all.

[Just Katie]

I think this very long winded thread boils down to an opinion of Wen.  My opinion, for what it is worth lays with the majority in this instance.  Wen writes that it is courtesy to attempt to speak the language of the visitor.  That would be an awful lot of English, Dutch and German the poor French professional would need to learn.  In a very obvious nutshell, don't you think the courtesy lays with the visitor to speak the language of the country he is visiting? And, if he cannot do that as Jon has rightly said, engage through a translator.  That way your Professional could spend more time in keeping up to date with the legislation within his field.

[TWINKLE]

Hear, hear!

[RumziGal]

I agree with wen about manners.   If someone is struggling and you can help them, you should, what's wrong with that?

Rude is rude, wherever it happens! 

 

[Just Katie]

That is a completely different angle to 'expecting' though SB isn't it?

[RumziGal]

But expectations come from many places.   British people seem to believe that they are the world's worst at forrin langs, so it's natural they will expect other countries to be better than them.

[Will]

[quote user="Susan"]And I think I'm right in saying that when America won its independence it had to decide upon either English or French as the national language - if they had chosen French then how different would things be for the English now?
[/quote]

There are still some bits of the USA where a kind of French is spoken, maybe not as a first language, but you see it in place names and hear it in the music. The state of Louisiana (for it is there) still bases many of its laws on the Napoleonic code.

I am not sure where the German language option came from. The large central bit of the present USA from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico was purchased from the French (and subsequently purchased again from the Native Americans for more than they paid the French), having previusly been mostly in Spanish control, while the western part (and some of the south) was mostly Spanish. Just the Eastern states were English, Dutch etc, though ownership of much of the territory was frequently changing and the boundaries undefined.

[Dick Smith]

It wasn't the whole USA, just Pennsylvania, I believe, and it was mooted rather than voted. There was a move (allegedly) by Ben Franklin to make the official language of the USA Latin, which at least shows you where they were coming from, paradigmatically.

For is it not said, "Life isn't all beer and skittles"?

[Blitzen]

I was also told by a young American that USA was the cradle of democracy [8-)]

[hastobe]

We have seen something of what wen describes.  An elderly couple in our village won't attempt to listen any French spoken to them by English people.  This are probably in their early eighties and have a calor gas sales depot in the village - although depot is perhaps an exaggeration.  They sell only a few gas bottles now (all the old style)  but they do get some customers still....  If ever any English knock on for gas all you hear (even if they ask in perfect French - an often before the English person has even had chance to open their mouth) is a yell of 'les anglais' to our other neighbour (who is French but bilingual).

Imagine if I ran a shop and everytime any asians / poles etc came to buy something from me, before they even opened their mouths, I yelled to my neighbour (who I knew spoke Urdu / Polish etc) - 'Pakis' or 'Poles' - how rude!!    I wouldn't dream of doing it - it's insulting and offensive. Similarly, we find the way these neighbours behave is insulting and offensive. 

We would add, though, that we have found this behaviour to be exceptional - for the most part our efforts to speak french have been welcomed and we have been helped - but there are a minority who won't try to listen to what you say.  (As an aside I find references to 'les anglais' similarly rude.  Even though many people know our names (we have socialised with them regularly, babysat their children etc etc) the still refer to us as 'les anglais'.  Again, no doubt a 'cultural thing' but one we still find offensive.

Kathie

[KathyC]

[quote user="ali-cat"]I remember being told, by a teacher in school, that English won, by 1 vote, over German.[/quote]

This is certainly what I was taught as well.

[hastobe]

[quote user="Jon"]

Austalia (in population terms) is a small nation surrounded by much larger ones. France is not. Her only larger neighbour is Germany. The Netherlands, Scandinavia are also small nations and they consequently have become very adept at speaking the language of larger neighbours - it makes good business sense after all.

[/quote]

France is no longer a 'big' nation in linguistic terms (certainly not when compared with Australia) - I think it more to do with a general attitude of the French about their language.  Its not that long ago, after all, that we saw Chirac throwing his dummy out over English being chosen as the language of preferece at EEC meetings......

Kathie

[KathyC]

[quote user="KathyC"]

[quote user="ali-cat"]I remember being told, by a teacher in school, that English won, by 1 vote, over German.[/quote]

This is certainly what I was taught as well.

[/quote]

Oh well, teachers, what do they know?

http://usa.usembassy.de/germanamericans-language.htm

 

Edit: Mr. Smith excepted.

[nimportequoi]

[quote user="KathyC"][quote user="KathyC"]

[quote user="ali-cat"]I remember being told, by a teacher in school, that English won, by 1 vote, over German.[/quote]

This is certainly what I was taught as well.

[/quote]

Oh well, teachers, what do they know?

http://usa.usembassy.de/germanamericans-language.htm

 

Edit: Mr. Smith excepted.

[/quote]

I stand corrected! [:$]

[YCCMB]

[quote user="hastobe"][quote user="Jon"]
Austalia (in population terms) is a small nation surrounded by much larger ones. France is not. Her only larger neighbour is Germany. The Netherlands, Scandinavia are also small nations and they consequently have become very adept at speaking the language of larger neighbours - it makes good business sense after all.
[/quote]

France is no longer a 'big' nation in linguistic terms (certainly not when compared with Australia) - I think it more to do with a general attitude of the French about their language.  Its not that long ago, after all, that we saw Chirac throwing his dummy out over English being chosen as the language of preferece at EEC meetings......

Kathie
[/quote]

Hang on.......French is still an official language in 27 countries outside France and is widespread in many more, e.g. the 27 doesn't include the Maghreb countries where it's a "cultural" rather than an "official" language.  French is commonly used in over 40 countries as either the maternal language, the official language or as one of the main languages of communication. So not sure what you mean by France not being a "big" nation in linguistic terms. I assume that your reference to Australia as a "big" nation in linguistic terms refers to the fact that Australians speak English? I can't tot up the numbers of French speakers in the world, but I don't think it leaves France as a linguistic "also ran" by any standards.

[andyh4]

Wen

I think you are mixing up expectations and courtesy far to much.

Yes if a doctor recognises that a patient is struggling in French and he can cope in English it is of course a courtesy that he helps out by speaking English. 

It should not however be the expectation of the patient that the next doctor they meet will be able to converse with them in English.

Further there is a world of difference between being able (out of courtesy) to exchange a couple of words in English (or any other foreign language as you have suggested you countrymen can) and being able to carry out a professional conversation.  Being able to say "Ca va" to my neighbour hardly makes me fluent in French any more than a doctor asking "how are you?" makes him fluent in English.

You also have a wildly Anglocentric view of Europeans and their language.  Yes many, many do speak English.  But even more don't.  Further of those that do, how many actually feel comfortable?  Really comfortable?  A lot less than you might think I am going to suggest.

In the words of Max Bygraves, "Let me tell you a story"

I once worked with an Anglo-Dutch team.  "Naturally" English was the language of business.  Everyone spoke English fluently.  The Dutch all speak excellent English because they are totally exposed to it through the media *etc..  Trot out all of the cliches - and then some.  They all applied - and anyway not one Brit spoke a single word of Dutch (so no surprise there).

* Incidently this is a generallisation almost beyond belief, since those close to the German border speak much better German (becuase they get German and not UK TV) and horror of horrors, some speak no English at all.  As I now know.

After a couple of fairly successful years, I eventually twigged that my nearest Dutch colleague, actually was only grasping about two thirds of what was being discussed and that sometimes, that directly impacted on his performance, and that of the group as a whole.  I took the conscious step of making my language construction easier, fewer colloquialisms, of checking that he had grasped the essentials etc and the productivity of the group went up enormously - guess what? A number of the other "fluent/bilingual" Dutch speakers had also been struggling.  Nothing you would ever detect in conversation.  They would nod knowingly at the appropriate point.  They would answer questions, they gave professional presentations with only a few grammatical mistakes. Nevertheless they were struggling a bit too.  And professional pride would not permit any of them to admit it - either to the Brits or between themselves.

 

So Wen, for what it's worth, my view on the subject. 

Expect the French to speak French. 

Be delighted if they can help you out by speaking English if you get in a corner - but never, ever expect it. 

Don't ever assume if they do, that they have actually understood you.  (probably goes for if you are speaking French as well - at least if you are as good as me).

[Will]

[quote user="hastobe"]...still refer to us as 'les anglais'.  Again, no doubt a 'cultural thing' but one we still find offensive.

[/quote]

Although I understand and agree with the rest of the post, I take 'anglais' as complimentary rather than offensive.

Just think what you could be called [;-)]

(I know, it's the sense in which it is meant rather than the word itself)

[hastobe]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]

[quote user="Jon"]

Austalia (in population terms) is a small nation surrounded by much larger ones. France is not. Her only larger neighbour is Germany. The Netherlands, Scandinavia are also small nations and they consequently have become very adept at speaking the language of larger neighbours - it makes good business sense after all.

[/quote]

I assume that your reference to Australia as a "big" nation in linguistic terms refers to the fact that Australians speak English? I can't tot up the numbers of French speakers in the world, but I don't think it leaves France as a linguistic "also ran" by any standards.

[/quote]

Exactly - and that is what Jon was implying when he made the comparison...

[hastobe]

[quote user="Dick Smith"]

[quote user="hastobe"]...still refer to us as 'les anglais'.  Again, no doubt a 'cultural thing' but one we still find offensive.

[/quote]

Although I understand and agree with the rest of the post, I take 'anglais' as complimentary rather than offensive.

Just think what you could be called [;-)]

(I know, it's the sense in which it is meant rather than the word itself)

[/quote]

Sorry Will - I was always brought up to use someone's name to address them (if I knew it).  It's just common courtesy.

Kathie