Perhaps, but my experience of trying to use my French in Paris once fairly much put me off. I still use it when I go on holidays and I generally have good enough French to ask for stuff in a shop or restaurant but I wouldn't be up to holding a full conversation.
That's Paris for you. But yeah, the French in general are chauvinistic enough that some of them don't really appreciate tourists speaking intermediate or fluent but accented French. There's a lot of bad things one can say about Americans in terms of languages, but they're more welcoming of foreigners speaking their language than anyone else. Then again, they'd have to be.
I was never met with that attitude in Paris. The city that stands out as a hellhole in that respect for me was Milano. I managed fine inn Italian two whole weeks in Rome, but when I tried it in Milano, I was met with stubborn incomprehension when ordering ice cream. I am still miffed.
*MySmiley*
structured procrastinator
structured procrastinator
/Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
24/09/2010 01:37:42 PM
- 1347 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
24/09/2010 02:10:57 PM
- 754 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
24/09/2010 03:32:09 PM
- 701 Views
That is rather sad to say the least.
24/09/2010 04:15:32 PM
- 925 Views
Indeed
24/09/2010 06:23:52 PM
- 747 Views
That's just Paris being a city of nasty people.
24/09/2010 06:32:40 PM
- 894 Views

I never noticed that
24/09/2010 07:05:18 PM
- 787 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
24/09/2010 04:00:04 PM
- 820 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
24/09/2010 05:47:09 PM
- 785 Views
Interesting.
24/09/2010 06:04:30 PM
- 730 Views
Re: Interesting.
24/09/2010 06:42:02 PM
- 884 Views
Re: Interesting.
24/09/2010 07:05:44 PM
- 793 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
24/09/2010 09:38:05 PM
- 883 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
25/09/2010 05:49:05 AM
- 871 Views
Self-study can be worth as much as formal classroom study, I suppose
25/09/2010 03:43:14 PM
- 835 Views
Certainly it can.
26/09/2010 12:35:56 PM
- 834 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
25/09/2010 04:54:40 PM
- 976 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
25/09/2010 07:38:29 PM
- 903 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
26/09/2010 12:07:19 AM
- 919 Views
They should have asked about second languages rather than foreign languages.
26/09/2010 11:34:27 AM
- 769 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
27/09/2010 03:18:30 PM
- 814 Views