And further compounding the issue, in a specific part of France, they will give you shit for even trying to speak French. It doesn’t matter if you have good vocabulary and decent grammar / pronunciation, they still will refuse to speak to you or worse insult you for even trying. This certainly isn’t an issue in all of France, just one specific area that I’ll avoid naming to not offend folks from there.
Having been to most corners of France so far, I cannot confirm this. I can confirm so, that French have a tendency to not like speaking English at the very beginning of a conversation. They do appreciate so, if foreigners try speaking French. Some even all of a sudden can speak English.
I live in a bilingual city (english / french), and the french-speakers here that vacationed in France (n=3) all say that the French laughed at them when they tried speaking.
Yep, as I said, it’s a very specific part of France and not a “French” thing in general. Anecdata is anecdata, but I’ve had a lot of friends (some French, some not) agree that this is common in this specific place, so I know I’m not alone.
