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

Christophe Grandsire 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.>
    Isn't it odd?  Most Americans, I think, are willing to put up with
someone's accent, and unless it's really bad, manage to figure things out.
Except for those raging xenophobes, who wouldn't like a foreigner even if
s/he spoke perfect English!  My experience in the Spanish speaking world and
in Indonesia was always good, too.
    We were served some very tasty but unidentifiable little dumplings once
at a Chinese restaurant.  The waitress clearly hadn't been here long; when
we asked what they were, she answered something like [kæ? mi?] CAT MEAT!!!
Further inquiry got that down to [kwæp mit] 'crab meat'....but we're still
not sure...........

The Javanese, I think, tend toward the French attitude-- speak it well, or
stick to Bah.Indonesia.  The added problem is that it's so easy to give
offense in Javanese, by using a word of the wrong level.  Javanese friends
told me that after BI was declared the official national language, they were
relieved, because now they had a way to write home/deal with relatives etc.
without having to be constantly aware of colloquial ~ respectful ~ high
differences.

>Of course, it's not that manichean, and someone with a fair knowledge of
>French but a not so good pronunciation will be accepted......It happens
quite often with
>my Dutch boyfriend when he tries a few words in French.
    I trust you are learning Dutch, then?  ;-)