I mean, this is what you call a power move.
I actually did this
This doesn’t reflect my housemate’s experience in Italy at all. Evidently if they detect an American accent in your “buongiorno” they’ll just spend the rest of the day mocking you in Italian and occasionally just yelling “DONALD TRUMP HAMBURGER TRANSGENDER” at you.
Not all Germany is like that. I was in Freiburg last winter and the can’t/don’t want to speak English. Only the most tourist places would speak English, I guess.
Norway might not be accurately described in this map. While walking through the airport, every airport worker kept trying to speak to me in Norwegian. I don’t know any words in their language. It would be cool if I did, but I don’t. Anyway, they always looked confused, repeated themselves more slowly, and waited for a response from me. Eventually, I realized one of them was asking me about my backpack.
Also I feel like the French really appreciate it if you try. Or at least hate you a little less. In my experience, after showing off my best (still bad) bonjours and mercis all of the people I talked to turned a lot friendlier and were even willing to speak a little English.
I did that to Russian language.
This is what one of Edmond Dantes alter egos did in the Count of Monte Cristo. “Lord Wilmore” was an eccentric Englishman who understood French perfectly well, but refused to speak it:
… Lord Wilmore appeared….His first remark on entering was, “You know, sir, I do not speak French?”
“I know you do not like to converse in our language,” replied the envoy.
“But you may use it,” replied Lord Wilmore; “I understand it.”
Hey, an Anglo-Québecois!
Je ne parlé français, même que je comprend un peut le français.
(Almost nothing, I just took one class lol).
C’est pas mal pour un cours !
Merci beaucoup!
Que bacán huevon
I feared someone answering me in French and I’ll be like “yeah I understand 40% of what you’re saying”… never expected someone to answer me in my native tongue and slang.
1000111100100111, 111100011 1100 11001110001! :)
I can’t figure it out.
rekt
From experience the french do the same with english
That’s the joke.png
Oh i guess i got whoosed. I thought it was a just the usual beef with french.
Que dis-tu ? Je ne parle pas anglais
That’s the joke
I’m fine with that. French has done enough damage to English.
Parle vu English…
z
Va swinger la bacaisse dans l’fond d’la boite à boîs
Ouf… Je me suis pris un bon de Québec en pleine tête. Je n’étais pas prêt.
Imagine if French people learned English and chose to speak it online/in-game instead of assuming everyone speaks French as if it is still the lingua franca.
“Je ne parle pas français” There you go, everything you need.
IIRC if you cannot do it because you never learned it it’s “Je ne sais pas parler français”
“I do not speak French” versus “I do not know how to speak French”. Both are correct, though only the latter clarifies not speaking the language because they do not understand it, rather than purely out of spite. So in this specific case, the former could be used as a subtle FU.
Wouldnt “je ne sais pas parler francais” be more of a “i dont know speak french”? Like, sounding more gramatically broken?
The ‘parler’ is in an unconjugated form, i read that like its some broken form heheFrom what I can find and from what I know, it is grammatically correct however French is not my first language. As an English speaker I would probably go “parler le français”
That would mean “speaking the French”, so while incorrect, I’m sure people would get what you would be trying to say.
Ok that’s what I thought thinking back on it. I don’t use french often enough to really be certain all the time
Moé chais pas comment jassé en jouale
The verb “parler” is indeed supposed to be unconjugated. That’s down to differing grammar and syntax in French and English. If I were to try and translate directly from French to English while maintaining the original sentence structure and whatnot, it would look roughly like this: “I not know not speaking French.”
…Which is awkward as hell to read, mostly thanks to French splitting negatives into two parts, but you can see how the verb “parler” (speaking or talking) is unconjugated.
You may also notice how that sentence structure looks more similar to an antiquated way of speaking English, if we tweak that just a little bit: “I know not how to speak French.”
I can say “I don’t speak [language], sorry.” in about 10 languages, just so if someone tries to speak to me I can say that to them.
So far only one person has said any follow up things in that language. I like to think it was “but you’re speaking it now!” but probably just about work stuff.
Is it weird that I get a very tiny kick out of the slight confusion I can see on some people’s faces?
Nope, i also get that kick out of it haha. Love it.
Though, i must say that my french is really terrible so i might as wel just not speak it
Ça me va. On fait comme ça👍
Ça me va. On fait comme ça 👍
This may be the most Canadian meme ever made, even if unintentionally.
Very few of us know any of it, the further west you go the less you’ll find it
But we do view Quebec as better than Ontario
And French people as better than Americans
