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Taiwanese born. I have lived in the US for 20+ years. I speak the local Taiwanese Hokka dialect. Married a Taiwanese woman.
I walked into a local breakfast shop and the owner, without looking up, said "What do you want to order"?
How the fuck?!?!
So I moved back to Taiwan after the pandemic and I too can pick them out. It's honestly the way Americans carry themselves. It's hard to explain.
French guy here, It's always the accent. You think you don't have one, but you do, and when it's not the accent it's a confusion about grammar or the gender of a word.
The French was probably too perfect. Shoulda been:
“Je prends uhhhh deeeeux…deux croissants”. 90% of the French people I know can barely get two words out without a “uhh” or “beuh”.
Nobody talks without interferences such as "euh", "erm", "like", etc, because in real life people don't read lines like actors, they talk as they think. In your example, the person is obviously hesitating about what to order.
For sure, but it’s the rate at which the French use them which always blows me away. And I know I shouldn’t have to say this, and I know it will be ignored anyway, but yes obviously this isn’t every single French person.
I remember a specifically bad example from a person who was, if I remember correctly, introducing their website where they would speak in French and you could listen for practice. Great, sounds good. Except! I couldn’t follow them because they couldn’t pass three words, maximum, without a “uhh”, “beuhh”, or “eeeuhhh”. It was an extreme example, but I think about it all the time.
It all reeks of trying way too hard to hard to convince everyone how laid back they are but they’re some of the most stressed out people I know. I have to wonder if it’s the fact that I live in Montréal so we get a fair number of Parisien.nes here.
Oh, well, parisians are an entirely separate, degenerate species so we'll at least agree on that.
But yeah, it's always the accent. I'll die on that hill. We all have accents and it's normal.
Damn, Paris has changed a lot. In my days you could talk in basically any language, living or dead, to a Parisian and they would understand every single word. And they'd still only answer in French.
Tbh, I tend to do that sometimes. The number of languages I can somewhat understand outnumbers the number of languages I can attempt to speak.
Especially when it comes to reading: it's a lot easier to see a bunch of cognates and understand the jist of the sentence than it is to come up with those words and conjugate, order, and pronounce them correctly.
On multiple occasions, I've tried to use my limited knowledge to order food or something in another language, only to have the person on the other side look at me confused until I restate myself in English.
I like to think of it like Star Wars where everyone just speaks and responds in their own language.
Did the sweatpants say juicy or juteuse across the butt?
I'm French and I bet that it's the rythm. I can hear this foreigner with a perfect accent but with a way too perfect rythm with the same tonality: "Bon-jour-deux-croi-ssants-s'il-vous-plait"
A French would sing it. Bonjour ! : High pitched, the "bon-" louder than the "-jour", quick, dynamic.
A pause...
"Deux croissants" medium pitch, without any pause before: "S'il vous plaît". Sometimes said very fast, since it's something you say everyday ("Silouplai"), and with a low pitch since it's the end of the sentence.
A simpler explanation is that people tend not to be able to hear their own accents.
Someone who wasn't brought up speaking French will probably never have an "absolutely perfect" accent. They may think that they sound exactly like everyone around them, but to someone brought up speaking French, they don't.
There are a lot of British actors who do American accents for various parts. These are native English speakers who grew up listening to American accents on TV shows and in movies. They work with dialogue coaches, and can rehearse their lines until they think they can deliver them perfectly in American-style English. Any slips in their accent can be fixed in ADR before the film is released. Yet, many people, including me, are able to spot a few quirks in their speaking and often identify these people as not American.
For French in particular, it has the "u" sound that also exists in German, but doesn't really exist in English. Many people who weren't brought up with that sound can't even really hear it, or can't hear it as different from the "oo" sound that they associate with the letter "u". As a result, words like "ouverture" don't have two distinct "oo / u" sounds for them. So, they might think they're speaking flawlessly and that nobody can notice, but it's really obvious for anybody who was brought up hearing and speaking French.
My wife gets absolutely irate when I tell her she still has an accent, and that she also code switches her accents depending on who she is talking to.
And you wonder why people think you are uptight? /s
“Bonjour ! Euhhh…. Deux croissants s’il-vous-plaît et euhh…. ce sera tout”
As someone living in France for a while now, that's exactly what I picked up from immersion, never noticed that before.
Saw this very thing in an article today. It was said it was the "American lean". Apparently we lean on things when chilling and that's very American.
We're tired, or invading, sometimes it's hard to tell.
Not even necessarily on things, just like lean to one side while standing.
The American motherland has a magnetic pull on them, drawing them in.
I walked up to a change office to transfer a travelers check to cash.
me: Bonjour!
he stopped me right there
change guy: "I do not speak english"
me: nods, shrugs, hands him the check
change guy: ignores the check, pulls down the lock shutter.
I was just in Bordeaux. Not a single issue with my weak French and I’d almost always get a reply in French. I promise I am nowhere near fluent, maybe A2 level.
But in Paris, nearly every reply was in English and even if I replied back in French I’d get that look “please stop butchering my language” before they’d reply in English. It’s a running joke now, but I really question if it’s just parisons being assholes or maybe they just want to practice.
Ps. Never had this issue with Italian. My accent is almost Roman too and I’m again, not fluent.
Ah you discovered the secret. Even among the French, the Parisians have a certain reputation.
I'd just keep speaking French to fuck with them. Two can play at that game. I can't speak French, though.
I had a good friend from France who informed me that Parisians are just arseholes lmao
I had a couple of interactions like this while in Italy recently. I'd not even opened my mouth and the person responds in English. I specifically selected clothes that don't have any text on them, but I strongly suspect it's because I'm white as fuck and look as Midwestern American as one can.
I didn't have any trouble though, most of the Italians I spoke with seemed happy that I've been trying to learn their language and were happy to talk in a mix of Italian and English to meet me where my Italian level was. It was interesting comparing how in the touristy areas of Italy many folks spoke such perfect English they'd lost most accent (or perhaps were themselves transplants) but once I got out of the touristy areas folks were willing to work with my limited Italian
The only French I know is the lyrics to a bunch of songs from Clair Obscure and I guarantee, I am butchering the absolute fuck outta it. Except for "dim dim dam dada dim dim da dada dim da lialom." I nail that shit. 😤
Speaking French like a native is so hard. They basically smush every word together into one long sound. I think the French also may not just say “two croissants please, you need to stick a “je prendre” in front or something. I know people who speak fluent French who still can’t speak to the locals in certain places because they can’t understand you unless you get the accent just right.
I was taught the French language by a person born and raised in France. Every English speaker comments on my impeccable French accent. Every person from the nation looks at me with disgust when I try to reproduce their tongue.
Too perfect? American body language?
Should've used a quebecois accent
I’ve done it, with a québécois accent, and the fucker still answered me in English. And she was supper polite too. I asked to confirm that I could park my car in the street next to the hotel and she said “I don’t know, I don’t have a car.”
