this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2026
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I love the French because every other country I have been to besides France where I have attempted to speak the language, people are super appreciative of my efforts, even if I'm shit.
Not so in France. There's often an air of arrogant expectation, because making an effort to speak French isn't considered going above and beyond, but is expected (and if your French is mediocre, then you are not meeting that expectation). This isn't always as abrasive as I make it sound here, but it is a sharp contrast to my experience in other countries.
I weirdly like this though. It's a reflection of how British people travel about the world with a default assumption that many people will speak English. I have a Norwegian friend, for example, who said that when he was travelling, he was grateful that he knew English, because there would often be some people who could speak at least some English in most places he went. Attempting to speak French in France reminds me of how much privilege I have when travelling, because the French are as stubborn about expecting people to speak French as the English are about English. But the French are mainly like this within France, whereas English folk carry their expectations everywhere with them.
France feels like our sibling — we have a tumultuous relationship that could easily give the impression that we hate each other, but it's far deeper than that. One of my interests is fashion history, and it's so funny how many instances there are of a trend originating in France that people in Britain take notice of and want to emulate — in part because it is French: trends that are developing in a different cultural context, and are thus exotic and interesting compared to British fashion. Sometimes there'll be attempts to stop trends from crossing the channel, but that just makes them seem cooler. If you want an example of one such trend, this video from Abby Cox is great.
But the cultural exchange happened in the other direction too; sometimes a trend would start in Britain and slowly diffuse over to France. Stuff like this is why I see the French as being our family. For better or for worse, we are joined together by history.
French language is the original lingua franca, it's no wonder that if you admit that you don't speak well yet, they will simply ask "Why not?" It's probably not as far as we'd expect from the hauteur of English-speaking tourists, we just get our way more often I think. When I took my family to Paris last year I expected to get some of that high-handed treatment, but even out as far as Calais they were almost unfailingly forgiving of my decidedly mediocre attempts. I hope to go back soon, armed with a little more of the language.
Exactly! That's why I find it so refreshing.
What's funny that if you're a French Canadian, you spend most of your life resentful that English is everywhere. Quebec has laws doing everything possible to try to prevent English from becoming a major language in Quebec. But, as soon as someone from Quebec goes travelling, they're probably grateful that they know English because it's the common language of the world these days.
I grew up primarily speaking English. But, I don't think I'm too arrogant about expecting everyone else to speak it. I'm always pleasantly surprised when there are signs in English in places where there can't be that many tourists.
What I did kind-of take for granted wasn't necessarily English, but it was the Roman character set. When I went travelling in East Asia, I came across Thai script, Korean, Japanese and Chinese. Previously when I'd travelled in other places, if I didn't know the language, I at least knew the letters. So, I might not have known how to pronounce the name of a place, but I could still read it and match it to the place I was looking for. But, when I was in Japan, I had to try to remember that the stop I wanted was the one where the first symbol sort of looked like a box with some scribbles inside and a lid on top, then the next one looked like a T but with two bars at the top instead of one.
I learned a little Japanese in high school, and it's a surprisingly easy alphabet to pick up... The actual language is another matter!
Hiragana and Katakana aren't too hard, but Kanji is another matter, and Kanji is used a lot in the names of mass transit stations, for example.
In Holland everyone would switch to English immediately after I butchered the greeting in Dutch.
It made it super hard to learn the language