zenmonkey wrote:Le Baron wrote:We already know the truth that in African countries where French is the 'official language', only a small, elite percentage speak it properly, if at all.
Absolute nonsense.
Go spend a few days in ... say... Douala, Cameroon. North of 50% of the population speaks French.
(... and French spoken in the various dialects of Africa is as proper as Canadian, Swiss, or Belgian French)
But I've been to Senegal, briefly in Chad, Mali and Burundi. Also some places in the old Maghreb. I can't go everywhere. It just isn't what it was. And even the official stats register the percentages as low. It's a sliding scale as well, so even though you come across speakers it ranges from good to broken. The major percentage are city people and often the middle classes getting decent education. On French TV they sometimes dub over people speaking 'French'.
It isn't nonsense,