alt Hacker NewsThat’s an unhelpful take, if you expect everyone to be fluent in the language of the country they’re traveling to.
Another note: I live in Cambodia, where many French people live, and nearly none of them speak the local language, and a very decent amount of them don’t even speak English. Worse yet, the older generation is still hung up in the idea that it’s better for the locals to learn French than English or Chinese.
This is really a very French thing, and you don’t see the same behavior in eg Germany or Italy.
(I’m originally from The Netherlands)
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> That’s an unhelpful take, if you expect everyone to be fluent in the language of the country they’re traveling to
I'm myself native french speaker and do hate the French attitude on language. It's extremely patronizing and do not benefit anyone
I'm from Poland, but my grandma was living in Germany (Essen). When I was (rarely, she was visiting Poland much more often) visiting her I definitely experienced similar behaviour from Germans.
My German is very poor, I used to somewhat understand what was spoken to me (if simple language was used), and to speak is short, basic sentences with shortage of vocabulary. This is just to provide some context - I never actually tried to learn German.
So I was trying to use English as often as possible. A lot of people - and I mean persons like clerks, salespersons, not random passers-by - either straight-up ignored me, or issuing comments like "Du solltest Sprachen lernen".
On the other hand, I never had similar experience when I was speaking broken French in France (or Marocco).
Please note that I don't want to bash Germans or to defend French. But it all depends on who you encounter - but these encounters might on some level shape your opinion on the whole nation no matter of you want it or not