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Don't you just want to throttle themPaz do toot, shoe pet. 
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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>Oddly, the Québecois can readily understand the French but the opposite is not always the case – thus their assertions that we are speaking the language incorrectly (grrrr!!)
I think we discussed something similar a while ago. I was trying to find charitable reasons why the French never seem to be able to understand other people speaking (or attempting to speak) their language - we didn't discover any!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Hel-Lo ... Let us get back to the basic how-it's-pronounced.
Ahem (throat clearing for pronouncement! Pay attention now.)
When I studied music, singing to be exact,I learned the "Panis Angelicus" and in it is the word coelicus (heaven) which I learned to pronounce chay-li-cus NOT Koe-li-kus.
Who was my teacher? Father Daniel O'Leary, whose credentials included a stint as one of the private secretaries at the Vatican.There, because there were clerics from many lands in residence or visiting, Latin was the preferred language for conversing one to another and in conferences. I other words, Latin was the lingua franca of the day in Vatican City. (I am talking the 1930s through the early 1950s.) There's the link. The church has been around as long as the Romans...well, nearly... Also, may I submit that the Romance languages all favor the softer, more euphonious pronunciations? I await replies with anticipation and glee. I live to shake beehives. wow
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Joined: Jun 2000
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addict
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addict
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>>Oddly, the Québecois can readily understand the French but the opposite is not always the case – thus their assertions that we are speaking the language incorrectly (grrrr!!)
I think we discussed something similar a while ago. I was trying to find charitable reasons why the French never seem to be able to understand other people speaking (or attempting to speak) their language - we didn't discover any!<
Surely this is just the Francophone equivalent of US English as an international standard?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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This explanation may also be a load of codswallop... FishOnABike, you gonna take this sitting down? 
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The French are indeed even-handed in their treatment of foreigners speaking French -- they treat them all with suspicion. From my years in Europe, I have this observation to make: The Italians love anyone who tries, however badly, to speak Italian. The Germans will insist on correcting anyone who errs in speaking German. The French are insulted at French spoken badly.
If you don't speak French very well, you are asking for grief if you try it in France. In this context, I have to tell one of my favorite stories, which has to have the dialogue in French: In the early 60's, we were on a trip to France and one morning, driving down the Champs Elysees from the Place de l'Etoile to the Place de la Concorde, I heard the shriek of a whistle and saw a gendarme coming up. I stopped and rolled down the window. "Monsieur," he informed me, "Vous avez passe le feu." I looked around and saw no traffic light nearby -- the last one I saw was several blocks back. As I spoke French well with very little accent, I asked, "Monsieur l'agent, quel feu?" He pointed at the intersection I had just gone through: "Ce feu la-bas." I looked again, and succeeded in making out a traffic light behind the trees, which made it virtually invisible, so I replied, "Monsieur, je vous demande pardon, mais je n'ai pas vu le feu a cause des arbres." He drew himself up to full height, sniffed indignantly, and replied, "Monsieur, vous avez du le voir!" with great emphasis on "du", so that was that. He then motioned me on my way, but I'm convinced that if I had spoken English, or, worse yet, spoken French badly, it would have cost me dearly, even if I escaped being thrown into the bottommost dungeon of the local bastille.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I have it on good authority that during the active warfare part of Desert Storm there was a dearth of tourism in Europe, particularly in France. It was so bad, 'tis said, that the French had to be rude to one another.
TEd
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I regret to say that compared to the Germans, the French are models of poiteness and consideration. It's not bad enough that those bloody Krauts (I can say this because I am of German family on both sides) still have dozens of dialects and various accents and pronuncations with which to drive you crazy, but they have the infernal nerve to correct anybody making a grammar or pronunciation error. I have been subjected to a lecture just for asking for zwo Pfund Hackfleisch.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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Sorry, Bob, but I think your two stories lose something in the non-translation. Can you provide just a little more interpretation for those of us with a command of 1.3 languages or less? Nothing worse than missing the punchline.
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The story falls flat in English, but here's the dialog: As I was going down the Champs Elysees, the cop came up and said, "Sir, you ran the red light." I asked, "Officer, what red light?" He replied, "That one over there." (The one behind the trees.) I replied, "Sir, I didn't see the light on account of the trees." He drew himself up in real Gallic fashion and replied, "Sir, you SHOULD have seen it."
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