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I’m French and I bet that it’s the rythm. I can hear this foreigner with a perfect accent but with a way too perfect rythm with the same tonality: “Bon-jour-deux-croi-ssants-s’il-vous-plait”
A French would sing it. Bonjour ! : High pitched, the “bon-” louder than the “-jour”, quick, dynamic.
A pause…
“Deux croissants” medium pitch, without any pause before: “S’il vous plaît”. Sometimes said very fast, since it’s something you say everyday (“Silouplai”), and with a low pitch since it’s the end of the sentence.
A simpler explanation is that people tend not to be able to hear their own accents.
Someone who wasn’t brought up speaking French will probably never have an “absolutely perfect” accent. They may think that they sound exactly like everyone around them, but to someone brought up speaking French, they don’t.
There are a lot of British actors who do American accents for various parts. These are native English speakers who grew up listening to American accents on TV shows and in movies. They work with dialogue coaches, and can rehearse their lines until they think they can deliver them perfectly in American-style English. Any slips in their accent can be fixed in ADR before the film is released. Yet, many people, including me, are able to spot a few quirks in their speaking and often identify these people as not American.
For French in particular, it has the “u” sound that also exists in German, but doesn’t really exist in English. Many people who weren’t brought up with that sound can’t even really hear it, or can’t hear it as different from the “oo” sound that they associate with the letter “u”. As a result, words like “ouverture” don’t have two distinct “oo / u” sounds for them. So, they might think they’re speaking flawlessly and that nobody can notice, but it’s really obvious for anybody who was brought up hearing and speaking French.
My wife gets absolutely irate when I tell her she still has an accent, and that she also code switches her accents depending on who she is talking to.
Everybody has an accent. But, do you mean that you can still tell that English isn’t her first language or something?
A friend of mine is a champion unconscious code switcher. I lived in Australia for a bit and I don’t think my accent drifted much. It was enough of a problem that when I went to restaurants and asked for water they’d look at me confused, so I had to learn to say “whoa-tah”. This friend came to visit me in Australia and within a week he was using Australian terms and drifting into an Australian accent, even when talking to me, and it was completely unconscious.
Reminds me of Hugh Laurie, the director House praised him for having the perfect American accent, not knowing he was British.
Everyone cites Hugh Laurie as the best UK-born imitator of the American accent, and I completely agree, but I also think it’s fucking hilarious that now a lot of UK actors trying to do an American accent also end up imitating Hugh Laurie’s gravelly voice.
The Fauxmerican Accent is now Grumpy Doctor Voice, 11/10 comedy
Same as every american sketch comic trying to do a German accent, does a Brüno imitation (Sasha Baron Cohen’s character).
Brüno’s accent is really good, being a mixture of many characteristics, one of them German, another being typical gay speech patterns.
So now everyone who thinks they’re doing a German accent, does a gay German Brüno voice. Not quite right.amusingly, Laurie complained that he had, in fact, lost his British accent after so many years of working on House and had to work with a dialog coach to get it back.
The “director House”?
Why would someone praise someone they thought was American for having the perfect American accent?
Yeah, that story makes no sense.
If I recall, he was chastising another audition, as in “look at that guy there, that’s a perfect American accent, that’s what I want”
And you wonder why people think you are uptight? /s
As someone living in France for a while now, that’s exactly what I picked up from immersion, never noticed that before.
“Bonjour ! Euhhh…. Deux croissants s’il-vous-plaît et euhh…. ce sera tout”
Literally this, just add an insane amount of euhh everywhere and they’ll think you’re one of them.
Please do “I’m sorry, but I don’t speak French” now, please, thanks, please. :)
You say it with the pitch and rythm of “Je ne regrette rien” from Edith Piaf.
Thank you. I will try not to burst into song next time I get this springs up :P
<<Pardon, je suits stupide.>>
No shit this bailed me out in France. 😄
JE SORROUX, JE NON SPEAKOUX FRENCHOUX
WE WE CROISSANT. OMELETTE DU FROMAGE.
Yeah that’s just gonna piss off any French person because we have no idea how that became so popular.
Dexter’s Laboratory must be the reason, I can’t accept any other explanation.
Yeah, but it’s a cultural niche that’s not known at all over on this side, and it became a meme, while being wrong.
So basically the same tempo as HEllooo, two croissants please. Taking as much time saying “s’il vous plait” as “please”.
Basically talking like a normal person haha.
You describe it and I can hear my aunt (in law) saying it that way. I believe it.
Unless they are Breton
That would be more like “bo------r, (nods vaguely toward the croissants)” the “s’il vous plaît” is implied, but definitely there somewhere. The “merci” will be a slight nod backwards.
Saw this very thing in an article today. It was said it was the “American lean”. Apparently we lean on things when chilling and that’s very American.
We’re tired, or invading, sometimes it’s hard to tell.
Not even necessarily on things, just like lean to one side while standing.
The American motherland has a magnetic pull on them, drawing them in.
That’s true. Part of it was taking about how we rarely stand squarely on both feet.
Contrapposto is best pposto
TIL I am American.
I’m sorry for your loss
I’m Indian and I do it. Do the French not?
The only French I know is the lyrics to a bunch of songs from Clair Obscure and I guarantee, I am butchering the absolute fuck outta it. Except for “dim dim dam dada dim dim da dada dim da lialom.” I nail that shit. 😤
The music in that game was phenomenal. It gives me chills.
Only reason I really played it all the way through since I wasn’t too keen on the combat, even with the more active parrys and dodges and what not. That and the story, but I kinda hated the ending/explination of what was going on when I finally got there.
I get it. It sort of fell into a trope that I generally dislike in media, but I guess I was hooked on the story because I ate it up.
My only French is from the Talking Heads song “Psycho Killer”
Psycho killer, qu’est-ce que c’est?
Not even Joe Cocker with “N’oublier jamais”?
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa
GOD DAMN YOU
The music in that game isn’t French btw
Out of the 120+ pieces of music in the game, only a small handful are not in French. 🤨
Whenever I try to speak French, the reply is always the same…
When I was in Italy I felt like lieutenant Aldo Rains. Italy was the only place I actually struggled because English was far less common, and when I was in France for a day I had a near fluent linguist with me. I can speak a little German but never had to.
Isn’t that the name of their national lunch?
You’re thinking of Croque Monsieur. Monsieur Clown is the name of a famous cabaret in Paris.
Speaking French like a native is so hard. They basically smush every word together into one long sound. I think the French also may not just say “two croissants please, you need to stick a “je prendre” in front or something. I know people who speak fluent French who still can’t speak to the locals in certain places because they can’t understand you unless you get the accent just right.
Bonjour, je vous prendrais deux croissants s’il vous plait
With about half the letters not pronounced, the “je vous” becoming “j’vou”, and a pause with a smile between bonjour and the rest.
This is my struggle learning Mandarin as well. For individual words or short phrases, my pronunciation is pretty good, but for long sentences, my cadence is shit enough that people have trouble following unless I intentionally speak like an idiot. Like, my immediate Chinese speaking family understands, because they are acquainted with my accent, but random people on the street look at me like I’m an idiot.
It’s the same in any language, the people that were born learning it spoken will always have an instinct that those who didn’t learn until school won’t have. That said, if you live there for a decade you would pick it up to.
I was just in Bordeaux. Not a single issue with my weak French and I’d almost always get a reply in French. I promise I am nowhere near fluent, maybe A2 level.
But in Paris, nearly every reply was in English and even if I replied back in French I’d get that look “please stop butchering my language” before they’d reply in English. It’s a running joke now, but I really question if it’s just parisons being assholes or maybe they just want to practice.
Ps. Never had this issue with Italian. My accent is almost Roman too and I’m again, not fluent.
Ah you discovered the secret. Even among the French, the Parisians have a certain reputation.
I spent way to many years traveling to France for business and spending several weeks there at a time. I don’t speak French of course as I studied a bit of Spanish. When there as a foreigner you generally get either pleasant and wonderful people or snobbish assholes.
Parisians lean more towards assholes though I met many wonderful people there. It’s more of a disdainful bored attitude without much bite. They know tourism is necessary for their jobs but dealing with tourism is a pain the ass. This interaction pretty much sums it up.
When you are outside of Paris the reactions get more extreme. I got some of the best and worst reactions when I was in smaller cities like Nantes or Lyon.
Yeah we have French tourists in Quebec and the Paris ones are the worst.
I think it helps speaking the language in France, they can to be more nationalistic than Americans.
True, but so do the Bordeaulais
Source: wife is parisien, but her family are al Bordeaulais
Never been to Bordeaux so didn’t know about the reputation. As a foreigner I always had the impression in France that the more you go south the nicer they are (my own lived experience, due to circumstances I live in the Occitanie).
Massive generalisation, but for the Bordeaulais nothing can match Bordeaux.
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I’d just keep speaking French to fuck with them. Two can play at that game. I can’t speak French, though.
I had a good friend from France who informed me that Parisians are just arseholes lmao
As an American I’d just be happy you’re trying. The fact that you try to speak a native language IMO shows respect, even if it isn’t that good. You care enough to try.
I haven’t had issues in Paris, but it might help that I often apologize for my French in advance. I’m Canadian and clearly have learned a different accent, but most people I encountered were quite eager to help me practice.
From my experience in Spain, if you don’t speak Spanish and they don’t speak English they will still try to help you. In the store they may just show you how much you have to pay on the screen. In other places they will quickly open google translate and use that.
In France they just stare at you and make 0 effort to help. Best they can do is just repeat it in French again.
I was taught the French language by a person born and raised in France. Every English speaker comments on my impeccable French accent. Every person from the nation looks at me with disgust when I try to reproduce their tongue.
You didn’t smell like cigarettes and have a contempt for humanity
Wow the only time I’d be considered not enough of a midwestern hick to fit in to Europe
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Didn’t order coffee
Should’ve used a quebecois accent
I’ve done it, with a québécois accent, and the fucker still answered me in English. And she was supper polite too. I asked to confirm that I could park my car in the street next to the hotel and she said “I don’t know, I don’t have a car.”
“I don’t know, I don’t have a car.”
This killed me. I can literally see her face.
Did you say “parker mon char” because that’d sound like English to us ;)
Salut chum! Tabernak, doix crossaints si vous plait.
That’ll probably get you shot in France
Taiwanese born. I have lived in the US for 20+ years. I speak the local Taiwanese Hokka dialect. Married a Taiwanese woman.
I walked into a local breakfast shop and the owner, without looking up, said “What do you want to order”?
How the fuck?!?!
So I moved back to Taiwan after the pandemic and I too can pick them out. It’s honestly the way Americans carry themselves. It’s hard to explain.
It must be a paris thing, I went to Lyon and obviously hit up a bakery near my friend’s place. I did pointing & grunting and extremely basic french.
I did not enjoy the random fish danish I ended up eating since I fucking hate fish.
Merci beaucoup.
Maybe the smile
Is not showing a will to live part of becoming fluent in French?
It’s more a question about using or abusing a smile:
https://www.ohlalafrenchcourse.com/en/blog/article/why-aren-t-the-french-nice
I know that in some (many) cultures, the American “smile” can be unnerving
I’ve heard it described similarly. In much of the US, it’s pretty normal to smile or nod at someone you’re passing as an acknowledgement. But in cultures that aren’t accustomed to that, I’ve heard it feels like if someone walked up to your car at a red light and knocked on your window just to say hi.
The directness one cracks me up. Is that where the word ‘frank’ comes from? Also, ime, they’re pretty direct when no one asked.
The second reason we might think the French are not nice is because of their direct communication.
Ah, the famous French frankness! Unlike some cultures where things are left unsaid and hints prevail, the French often prefer to say things as they are. This transparency aims to prevent misunderstandings, but it can be surprising, even shocking. But believe it or not, it’s often done in a spirit of clarity and mutual respect. After all, why waste time guessing what the other person is thinking?
So, don’t be surprised if a French person speaks directly to you and doesn’t tiptoe around you.
Hell it’s unnerving to my American ass, lots of people very blatantly weaponize smiles here
Did the sweatpants say juicy or juteuse across the butt?
Isn’t it the same with any language?
In English, if you get the word order wrong, or you say “how”, when it should be “what”, or you speak a bit too clearly, like, you say “Good morning”, instead of “g’morning”.
I expect there are plenty of nuances in every language that can tip off a native speaker, that they don’t think about until it happens.
And, does the French person respond with perfect English, or do they have a bit of an accent?
The French are very cool people, who know how to throw a revolution, and that is what matters at the moment. Respect.
Ehhhhh…
Given how dominant English has been on the world stage for decades, there’s been a few times in my life where I’m listening to someone speak English and I didn’t realize that they weren’t American/AngloCanadian. (Dear Canadians, I am sorry, but like, dude our accents right on each others borders are near indistinguishable)
It depends a lot on how close the pronunciation of the languages in general are - like every native english speaker will be instantly recognizable even if they speak perfect finnish, no matter how well they learn it, but take an estonian and they might be able to learn so well you don’t spot them. If the phonemes, intonation etc. are completely different, it’s almost impossible to get it right unless you learn the language as a child or speak a cousin language as a native
