Re: French pronunciation (Was: Re: Fw: [wika] Boreanesian)

At 13:57 21/05/00 -0500, you wrote:
>> >It also comes from the fact that we French are particularly intolerant in
>> >the way foreigners speak our language. For us, you have only one
>> >alternative: you speak French perfectly or you don't speak it at all. If
>> >you don't speak it very well, you'd rather not try to talk in French
>> >because people won't even try to understand you.>
>
>I discovered last summer that this is only really true in Paris and
>thereabouts. My ex-girlfriend and I were in Aix-en-Provence, and we were
>treated substantially better there than Paris in relation to our
>French-speaking attempts.
>
Well, that wouldn't surprise me. In Paris, if you are not Parisian, you're
treated as a subject of more annoyment, and if you happen to be a
foreigner, it gets worse. But it depends mainly on the people. When my
boyfriend goes to the bakery to buy bread, they are very forgiving of his
accent, and yet I live at twenty meters from Paris. On the other hand, when
we got a ticket from the subway company (the RATP), they didn't even bother
answer to him when he asked for explanations. I think I should have talked
English, they seemed not to understand a word of this language and to a
French ear, I'm quite a good English speaker (whereas I'm really not good
in fact :) ). Maybe we wouldn't have had to pay in this case (I don't
really care, they are going to pay me back :) ).

                                                Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

"Reality is just another point of view."

homepage : http://rainbow.conlang.org
(ou : http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepages/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html)