Ils le comprennent parfaitement mais ils refusent de le parler.
Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
The French don’t mind, cause they don’t understand any language except French.
zaphod@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
RobotToaster@mander.xyz 2 months ago
I don’t want any wine, thanks.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 months ago
jobbies@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Je mapelle jobbies et je 35 ans. Je habite a Ecosse et je taime Duran Duran et le ping pong.
Saber_is_dead@lemmy.world 2 months ago
enchanté
herrvogel@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Je ne veux pas deux cent cinquante grammes d’olives.
ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace@piefed.ca 2 months ago
They hate French people in France too, so…
jif@piefed.ca 2 months ago
This is an outdated stereotype. I’d be willing to bet more French speak a second language than Americans.
Tja@programming.dev 2 months ago
But not than Belgians, Dutch, polish or Germans, which are the most frequent comparisons.
Miaou@jlai.lu 2 months ago
Why would the Dutch/Polish/Germans speak more languages?
dalekcaan@feddit.nl 2 months ago
Idk about the Polish and Germans personally, but for the Netherlands at least it’s a relatively small country with a limited amount of entertainment made there, so a ton of media is imported and subtitled. Since a lot of it comes from the US and UK, and most of it is subtitled (for the most part only kids’ shows are dubbed over), the majority of people speak or at least understand English. According to Wikipedia, it has been estimated that as much as 90% to 97% of the population is proficient in English.
Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
Belgium alone has 3 official languages: French, Dutch and a German speaking part.
The French part refuses to learn any of the other official languages, even in school. They don’t see the need.
While the other parts are a lot more open to other languages. You will be hard pressed to find someone in Flanders that doesn’t speak French on top of their Dutch.
LurkingLuddite@piefed.social 2 months ago
lol not in absolute numbers terms, no way. The US has 5x the population, and there are tons of immigrants that speak multiple languages. So regardless of how stupid native-born citizens are, there are still many bilingual+ people.
dreamkeeper@literature.cafe 2 months ago
Absolute numbers? what kind of intentionality disingenuous comparison is that? We have like 4x they’re population.
Try visiting France. Almost everyone in the major cities speaks English to a competent degree. Only like a quarter of Americans speak Spanish equivalently. I mean not even all Latin people speak Spanish in the US.
LurkingLuddite@piefed.social 1 month ago
So you mean to degrade the immigrant US population further?
Just because Trump and his ilk barely know what “caliente” means does not erase the MASSIVE population who are ESL in the US.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 months ago
most people i know who grew up in california took at least a couple years of high school spanish.
i was a snot, i took german with the goth kids instead.
Hazel@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
I’ve been in France for two days and have already met 2 young people who didn’t speak more than high school English. Oh and I’m a tourist, so they were working a job where they have to interact with foreigners regularly…
Now of course anecdote isn’t statistics, and my French is certainly no better, but compared to other European countries their English level is… notable.
AceOnTrack@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
The reality is that most French people speak enough english to get by, we just don’t like speaking it.
dreamkeeper@literature.cafe 2 months ago
Wow two who young people. So windy everyone else spoke English Ruby? Front lie to me because I’ve been there many times and I know they do.
It’s crazy how Americans get defensive about the dumbest fucking shit.
Hazel@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Yes, almost everyone spoke English, I never lied about that. Just compared to other European countries I’ve been, 2 is still notable. In many countries it’d be hard to find a single young person who didn’t speak English even if you were trying to find them for 2 days.
I’d know because I live in a European country, I’m not American.
Dwayne_Elizondo_Mountain_Dew_Camacho@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
They don’t even understand French from other countries.
Source : Je suis Canadien français mais je parle anglais quand je vais en France. C’est beaucoup moins chiant.
Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
Ce n’est effectivement pas qu’une question d’accent. Ils utilisent des mots différents pour désigner certaines choses. Dites-vous aussi « quatre-vingt-dix-neuf » au lieu de « nonante-neuf » ?
Dozzi92@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yeah, I’m from New Jersey but took French in middle and high school, and eventually, at 19 say let’s do this thing, and I go to Montreal, and imagine my surprise when I have no idea what the fuck they’re saying. And I make friends with a couple on a cruise from Gatineau, and my god, it’s even harder to understand. I was failed by my education!
And when I go to Paris and speak French they’re like “Okay you can stop,” which to me means good enough! The New Jersey accent is quite unlike the French accent, it seems.
BreadOven@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Someone in France told my friend she was speaking barbarian French (Quebecois French) once.
janus2@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
the impression I get is that they’re pretending not to understand, but they do, they just don’t give a flying fuck what other people think of them because everyone keeps buying their cheese, wine, and fashion so they’re busy counting money, getting laid, and smoking like chimneys lol
grranibal@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Can confirm, their cheese if fucking awesome
Mac@mander.xyz 2 months ago
then what
grranibal@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Then, Mac, maybe we can get some Mac & cheese
sukhmel@programming.dev 2 months ago
Even their cheese is busy getting laid, I see
Cheesus@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
They don’t care to understand.
Hazel@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
A shame, they seemed an honest man
Wander@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Historical they think or at least seem to think learning English is beneath them. In fact doing anything not French is beneath them. Then they act like wankers and that’s why everyone hates them.
English is the dominate language and the Chinese even accepted it before the French. At this point the youth have sort of given up and end up consuming a lot of media and internet in English so it’s way better. Also European lingua franca is English so they got to learn it just to speak to everyone else, but they don’t really and as such have probably the worst english is western Europe and even most of Europe in general.
mabeledo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
While I get your point, it’s hard to argue that English is the lingua Franca in Europe, since there are more native French speakers than English.
janus2@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
en.wikipedia.org/…/List_of_languages_by_number_of…
This list estimates native French and English speakers are approximately the same amount as of 2024
I knew Russian was gonna be the largest but I’m surprised German was higher than French and English, and didn’t know French and English were approximately neck and neck
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Lingua franca isn’t about native speakers, and if anything it’s about second language speakers. Mandarin has the most global native speakers, but even if we remove it from the running because it has a logographic writing system, number 2 is Spanish. Yet the global lingua franca is English.
msage@programming.dev 2 months ago
Don’t forget their baguette and croissant dividends.