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
1492 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
- 24/09/2010 02:10:57 PM
902 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
- 24/09/2010 03:32:09 PM
837 Views
That is rather sad to say the least.
- 24/09/2010 04:15:32 PM
1067 Views
Indeed
- 24/09/2010 06:23:52 PM
885 Views
That's just Paris being a city of nasty people.
- 24/09/2010 06:32:40 PM
1017 Views
- 24/09/2010 06:32:40 PM
1017 Views
I never noticed that
- 24/09/2010 07:05:18 PM
916 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
- 24/09/2010 04:00:04 PM
954 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
- 24/09/2010 05:47:09 PM
943 Views
Interesting.
- 24/09/2010 06:04:30 PM
871 Views
Re: Interesting.
- 24/09/2010 06:42:02 PM
1022 Views
Re: Interesting.
- 24/09/2010 07:05:44 PM
926 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
- 24/09/2010 09:38:05 PM
1023 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
- 25/09/2010 05:49:05 AM
1025 Views
Self-study can be worth as much as formal classroom study, I suppose
- 25/09/2010 03:43:14 PM
980 Views
Certainly it can.
- 26/09/2010 12:35:56 PM
984 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
- 25/09/2010 04:54:40 PM
1113 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
- 25/09/2010 07:38:29 PM
1034 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
- 26/09/2010 12:07:19 AM
1058 Views
They should have asked about second languages rather than foreign languages.
- 26/09/2010 11:34:27 AM
913 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
- 27/09/2010 03:18:30 PM
957 Views

*NM*