Re: CHAT: Being taken for a furriner ...

--- Christophe Grandsire
<christophe.grandsire@...> wrote:

 And they just cannot
> believe a French person
> could speak such a language, so I'm automatically a
> foreigner. Even when I
> speak French to them, they congratulate me for my
> accentless French rather
> than recognise I'm *really* French ;)) .
>
Ha ha ! I liked that.

I also noted that French people decide that you speak
well a foreign language as soon as they hear that you
put the stress on syllables not the same way as in
French. This is the absolute criterion. For ex, if you
say Lorenzaccio with the stress on "za", they will
immediately conclude that you speak great Italian,
even if it's the only Italian word you know. Because
they would, of course, put it on "ccio".


=====
Philippe Caquant

"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)

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