quote:

Originally posted by LoginZ Glad to see that we're agree on many points but now i've never suffered from ppl saying to me well "halloween, this is a total bullshit" "we're invaded by americans." I'm not nationalist. But i find many times that english spoken are easy to criticize our capacity to speak foreign langage when most of them don't give even give a piece of effort to learn another one. And this will always pissed me off. Else, yep, i'm French cos' of this i'm really different in my way of the thinking and culture than an American or a Dutch or an English. I don't even know if it's good or not. But when you travel, as you did, you can notice that we're definitely not european citizens, either citizen of the world, yeah we live in the world, but we are deeply tagged by our native nation. We just get open minded in travelling and i love that. So i feel really sorry if you had such bad experience with your friends @ school, but yep in paris as in the western part of France, ppl are glad to speak english and are not opposite to the anglosaxon culture @ all. Maybe you're living too near from germany, maybe the first foreign langage their is german. Here, it's still English. And yep, I do prefer to give ppl a whole vision of the situation cos really here no one is against English and everyone has an enough good english to get it red, talked, not to understand from another english spoken ppl as American or English. But the level is not bad at all. Ppl will make their opionion from this posts, the truth should be in the average as usual. Cya'

Who's he trying to fool?! I was in France last year, Had a layover going to Germany, Had 6 hours on my hand's, SO I took a quick walk through Paris. Stopped at a street restaurant. They guy was seating people left and right who cam after us. I was with my girlfriend so we decided to walk to another place we saw comming to that place. (Sorry I dont know names, They were all french) And while we were walking their, Honestly, About 5 different guys asked her if she wanted to "Take Pictures" up in their apartment...How could anyone say that in front of their boyfriend?! She was quit scared, And having no clue about this place, We hurried, Got to the second restaurant. And then the guy was talking english to his friend, And when he came to us, He started speaking in French. So my girlfriend goes, English please. And he goes "Ohhhh nooo! I dont speak English!". So, That concludes my story, A lesson I learnt. Americans ARE NOT welcome in France.

Lytchix, you're going off
I didn't say that YOU were being arrogant, and absoluetely not because of the Mc Donald's thing.

In one of my previous posts, I wrote : "When I travel, i'm trying not to be influenced by the place where I grew up, but that's obviously very difficult".
So please don't say "You can't take no account of the fact that you're influenced by French culture (language, food, custums...)!! You went to french school! I'm sorry but a country is not only an area where you live!"

I'm obviously influenced by French culture, I never tried to deny it.
Besides how many people in the world live in a country where they wish they could escape ? People who have been displaced from one country to another, thus not sharing the culture in the country where they live ? Think about some countries in Africa and in Eastern Europe.
It's obviously not my case, but i'm just trying to point out that a country can sometimes be only a place where you live. Unfortunately, no one can chose where s/he were born. (actually, i wasn't even born in France, hehe, somewhere else even worse than France to me!)


Extulas, I will include your story to my forth oming about how "the French despise against the Americans" hehe
It's a good story...if you want to, privately, I can tell you many more like that !

You know i was talking about our capacity to talk english and the capacity of english not to speak french and to find almost abnormal that we have a bad english. That was my only point.

Unique point.

I do really appreciate the americans and the american way of life, as far as i know it and of my dream is to go to california to see SF, LA and San diego. So, i'm definitely not an anti-american. José BOVE is not the France and i'm not José BOVE and i'm not talking to you about the Protection policy of bush on Steel industry in a world of liberalism....








Yeah, i know that wasn't your point.





Me either for your post.




But, you should have spent time in the worse district of Paris, i'm really sorry for you if it was the case but i would not decently go to some bronx-like district in U.S if i wasn't from there. Cos really in Paris you can go from a wonderfull place to a weird, dodgy one in less than 5 min.

But it does surprised me anyway, you have to remember also that in France to say hello to a girl even an unknown one you give a kiss. I've frighten so many american girls cos' of that before knowing it, and almost getting into fight with their jealous boyfriend.

Code, behaviour are differents, it depends where you are from...

Else, believe me, we don't do english when not necessary i mean you have heard two french guys talking in english for fun in an french restaurant ? Well, that's not common indeed.

But, ppl that were coming to you saying "we don't speak english" sounds much more normal...

All this sounds to me more as a "Lucy in Sky with Diamonds" tale than a trip to Paris...

The truth is out there.

___________________
http://www.djguide.nl/image/nieuws/2dayskaos.gif

quote:

Originally posted by extulas Americans ARE NOT welcome in France.

NOR in Holland



2 Biz: I'm not judging Americans and Englishmen based on their internet-language cuz DOH! everyone knows that different from what you normally speak/write...but...

when I see you guys writing whings like definately and quiet instead of quite and wich instead of which and my list is MUCH longer....that just makes me very suprised!! and i wonder...how can you people talk about onther people's english when you're having trouble with it yourselves

Oh yea....must be because, no matter what, you're the best at everything anyway (you in general biz)

___________________
Mayibuye Africa!Viva Mexico - Hasta la Chingada!Malaysia I will be there

English is spoken in many countries cos its simple to learn but its not the most fluent language in the world, I believe Portuguese is and that language scares me, looks so hard to learn

Over here theres so many variations of english and noone actually speaks proper english except for some 'posh' people. We all have our own slang and it can get mixed up, for example I lived in Nottingham and if u cobs (bread rolls) are called Buns. Over here, like 1 hour away if I asked a woman in a bakery to see her buns she'd slap me round me head.... The American english also makes me laugh, cos theres words we dont use and they don't know all ours, like Arse, a simple word, I said it to my american friend and she had no idea what I was on with. I think its an easy language to use though, but the variations can be quite funny. Over here we're oblivious to other languages and I didn't even start german or french till I was 11, now I'm fluent(ish) in german and don't get french much, Spanish is also handy to use for holidays in Ibiza or the med or canaries... especially the following words

Yo no dormí con su hija - I did not sleep with your daughter

Ponga todo el dinero en notas no secuenciales en la bolsa y se apresura - Put all the money in non-sequential notes in the bag and hurry up

¿Tiene usted VD? - Do you have VD (this one is in a phrase book I got last year)

they use english on all the trance names and stuff for the same reason we use english in here... most places in europe u get taught english from an early age at school.

___________________
MUGGETS

quote:

Originally posted by tu_face they use english on all the trance names and stuff for the same reason we use english in here... most places in europe u get taught english from an early age at school.

thanks for reelin' this thread back into focus tu_face

___________________

Hey, I really enjoyed reading this thread.

Just a few quick things before I go to bed:

Firstly, I have studied four languages (excluding English) in my life time: French (for four years), Indonesian (for two years), Italian (for three years), Japanese (for two years). It was only compulsary at my school to learn languages for the first two years of high school (years 7 and 8) at my school, and after that, while they did encourage the continued learning of languages, few did. It's just part of the culture in the English speaking world: chances are we're not going to need to speak these languages again, so many of us just choose not to continue learning them. Well, that's the situation from an Australian perspective anyway. I can hardly remember how to speak any of these languages now, apart from a few basic phrases (with the exception of French where I can only hold down a simple conversation) and I regret do regret it now. I would love to be bilingual, just from a cultural perspective.

quote:

An indeed, French is awfull to learn in my opinion, isn't it hard all this particular things, so many irregular stuff you need to remember. Oh Yes, it is, if if i takes you lot to get it, consider it takes a lot to get english too.

I will agree entirely mate.

English, for me, would be the hardest language to learn in the world. If you can master it then it's probably the best language to communicate with (due to the immense vocabulary - greater than any other language I'm lead to believe - as well as the complex gramatical structure which allows you top convey ideas with an unparelelled degree of specification). At the same time though, the things which make English such a good language for communicating with, must make it so difficult to learn.

Of the languages I've learnt, French would easily be the hardest. People would think that Japanese would be the hardest, simply because there's not just one, but two different alphabets to learn. But, the thing is, once you've memorised the characters, it's a doddle. The vocabulary is relatively small and the grammar is incredibly straight-forward and simple. If I'd studied Japanese for as long as I'd studied French I could probably speak it twice as well. And Indonesian is just as simple to master in terms of grammar and vocabulary, except it uses the English alphabet. Quite the cinch.

But the thing is, even though French was difficult, the language is far more straight forward when compared to English. The hardest part of French to master is the conjugation and grammatical structure (which is what they spent basically the entirity of the fourth year teaching) but the thing is, as I've come to realise, the conjugation in English is far more complex, and the grammatical structure is infinately more complex (in French you can only say "Je suis James" - "I am James" - but in English you can say "I am James", "James I am" and "James am I" and it means exactly the same thing). And it's the same with any other sentence you care to think of in English: it's far more maleable (you can structure the same sentence in a number of different ways) but at the same time less consistant, and thus harder to learn. Just a thought.

quote:

when I see you guys writing whings like definately and quiet instead of quite and wich instead of which and my list is MUCH longer....that just makes me very suprised!! and i wonder...how can you people talk about onther people's english when you're having trouble with it yourselves

Haha, yeah I'd agree with that.

I can remember vividly watching the premier league one night, where they interviewed Andy Cole and I couldn't understand a bloody word he was saying, and then they interviewed Jaap Stam and he spoke English perfectly, with virtually no accent. Absolutely flawless. And I know I'm selecting a pretty unusual example here, but it's kinda representative of the way different cultures approach learning new languages: I'm always suprised by how well the people from non-English speaking countries on this board are able to speak the English language, and always disappointed by the way I forgot the languages I learnt the second I left the classroom. Oh well, c'est la vie. (<-- that was French by the way guys. I can still speak it see? Well? Did you see that guys? Did you? DID YOU? )

Anyway, that's it. Time for a cig and a bed me thinks.

quote:

Originally posted by Miss Proximus NOR in Holland 2 Biz: I'm not judging Americans and Englishmen based on their internet-language cuz DOH! everyone knows that different from what you normally speak/write...but... when I see you guys writing whings like definately and quiet instead of quite and wich instead of which and my list is MUCH longer....that just makes me very suprised!! and i wonder...how can you people talk about onther people's english when you're having trouble with it yourselves Oh yea....must be because, no matter what, you're the best at everything anyway (you in general biz)

wow that was prolly THE most offensive post i have ever gotten on TA - thanx Proxi!!

what i wonder is how you all feel you can judge our speaking so well. frankly you all speak well (all those who arent native speakers of english) but its not perfect by any means. and the fact that we dont 'speak', or type in this case- perfect english doesnt make us terrible speakers. often culture and region can dictate how one speaks a language - and YOU should know that...its true anywhere.

if WE arent allowed to make typos once in awhile (and frankly i never type definately or quiet instead of their contemporaries) you shouldnt be allowed to say anything when typing 'onther' in your post ripping on ME.

when did i say i was the best? i think you just dont have justification and dont know me so you think you can make accusations like this...my only reason for defending my claim was to get REASON out of you- and you couldnt come up with anything concrete, so...

basically this post, and the ones debating whether the French like Americans is that nobody likes a bully. and no matter what Americans do they are always seen as an agressor of other nations whether we are or not. i dont have solutions for this problem, but i wish i could ask people (especially on TA) who have contact with these other cultures and countries to not be so judgemental...i KNOW it wont happen. (prolly cause im better than everyone else)


---> proxi

miss proximus knows everything there is to know about Dutch AND English. she NEVER spells anything wrong and NEVER uses the wrong word in a sentence...(NOTE:this is a completely unsubstantiated claim) proxi i KNOW better than this - you should too. but im not gonna pretend i know you cause you dont know me...

I think everyones due the odd typing error, and I think that it's unfair to use the topic to turn into a bitching session, and that's what the last post seems to try & do, to start a bitching war, I think Miss P. is better than this though, we all have troubles with english, sure about 40% of people who speak it as a primary language don't say or spell things right, but theres no reason to bitch over it, give everyone a break for bothering to learn our language, it's not written in cement that you should learn english and maybe we should try & learn others languages too

quote:

Originally posted by ferrycorstenfan Ponga todo el dinero en notas no secuenciales en la bolsa y se apresura - Put all the money in non-sequential notes in the bag and hurry up

Hehe. You made the commands polite. For you non-spanish speaking people it's like saying "Sir, put all the money..." lol

Damn Freetranslation.com