Need advices for a Quebec-accented French speaker visiting France

[Rum]

Hello I'm new to this forum, I wasn't a member on the old htlal but I took some time and read the language profile page for French on the htlal website and I have a few questions concerning it.

I have plans on going to France in few years but even so I feel like that it'll be better to get informed than not so I took a stab at that article even if I spoke French already(I learned it as a first language).

As stated there, it said that France French people are quite the perfectionist, snob types when it comes to tourists and aren't forgiving when it comes to mistakes...especially when it comes to their own language. Of course these are only stereotypes but even so stereotypes are born from generalizations and I don't want to be one of the victims attaining Paris Syndrome.

Since I'm quite sensitive to others' reactionsand don't have that tough of a skin, I want to prep myself a bit so I was wondering if you could share some pointers as to how to not to get treated as an outsider/getting the best impression, etc.

Should I try to learn the parisien accent? Will they like it better or I'll just use my Quebec's one?

Should I try to learn the French manners? Learning their cultural quirks? So that I won't offend them?

Or should I learn the slangs, the regional specific vocabulare?

What kinds of conversation does the French like to have?

Well that's the gist of it...

[emk]

Hello I'm new to this forum, I wasn't a member on the old htlal but I took some time and read the language profile page for French on the htlal website and I have a few questions concerning it.

I have plans on going to France in few years but even so I feel like that it'll be better to get informed than not so I took a stab at that article even if I spoke French already(I learned it as a first language).

Welcome! It's good to have you here.

Before we can answer your questions, it might help if you could clarify your level of French. In your profile, you have no native language listed, and your French is only marked as "B2." B2 means, roughly, "Speaks and understands a language well enough to struggle through a native high-school class with a lot of work." Or, in Montreal terms, it might mean "an anglophone who can do most things in French if they need to, but who isn't comfortable using French professionally." But above, you say that you learned French as a first language, and in another post, you mention that you're relearning English from scratch.

If your French is really only B2 Québecois French, and not native Québecois French, it may make a big difference in the advice people give you. B2 may not quite be high enough to move between Québecois French and Parisian French with ease. If you're only B2, and if you haven't watched a lot of movies from France, etc., then you may struggle with listening comprehension while in France, and you may not always be able to make yourself understood without a lot of work.

But if you went to a French-speaking high school in Québec, and if you've lived your life in French for many years, then you're probably somewhere between C1 and native. And if this is the case, then you'll probably find that moving between Québecois French and Parisian French is pretty easy. At least in my case, it became much easier for me to use European French in Montréal about a year or two after I reached B2—one day, I could understand 80% of the people that I met in Montréal, and I could keep many conversations in French. Both of these things had been really hard for me just after I passed my B2 exam.

As stated there, it said that France French people are quite the perfectionist, snob types when it comes to tourists and aren't forgiving when it comes to mistakes...especially when it comes to their own language. Of course these are only stereotypes but even so stereotypes are born from generalizations and I don't want to be one of the victims attaining Paris Syndrome.

I've met many lovely and wonderful people in France, and they were usually even willing to put up with my horrible A2 French back in the day. In my personal experience, the French are mostly very lovely people.

That said, there's a grain of truth to the rumors about rude Parisians. I actually think that this is caused by a mixture of different things:

1. French customer service doesn't work like North American customer service. In the US, it sometimes seems like waiters want to be your new best friend. "Hi, my name's Tom! I'm going to be your server tonight! I hope you're having a lovely evening!" French waiters are there to serve you food, and to mostly stay out of your way. Benny Lewis has a good article on how French customer service is different, and how to get along with people. And there are other little things, too—everybody always tells me that if you walk into a small shop in certain parts of France, it's a bit weird not to say "Bonjour!" to the clerk when you arrive, and if you don't, then people may think that you're rude.
2. Paris is a bit like a French version of Manhattan. I remember visiting a bagel shop in lower Manhattan. The shop was totally empty, and I spent about 15 seconds looking at the selection of bagels. At this point, the clerk suddenly snapped at me, "Ya gonna buy somethin', or what?" Now, I've also met many lovely and wonderful people in Manhattan. But when I'm in Manhattan, I do expect to run into the occasional rude asshole. Paris is a bit the same way—most people are just fine, but there are definitely a few jerks.
3. Paris is a huge tourist city, and the service workers don't want to be French tutors to every visitor. If you have only A2 French, and if you want to practice it with somebody, then don't choose a busy waiter in Paris who has 15 other tables to get to. Find a bored shop keeper somewhere in the countryside who wants to chat.
4. Some Parisian waiters really are just rude. Even other Parisians make jokes about awful waiters in Parisian cafés (apparently all the things said by the waiter in that strip are actual quotes). Again, there are plenty of nice waiters, too—but maybe you need to be ready for the occasional jerk.

Should I try to learn the parisien accent? Will they like it better or I'll just use my Quebec's one?

My advice: Just speak the way that you would at a business meeting in Montréal with a French-speaking anglophone present. Professional French in Montréal is basically the same as Parisian French, except with a bit of an accent. Almost any native Parisian French speaker should understand you just fine. I've asked several French people how they feel about Québecois accents, and they usually say something like, "Oh, sometimes it sounds a bit exotic, but actually, I kind of like it."

But if you sound more like Louis-José Houde, then you might want to slow down and speak clearly. Certain informal Québecois accents are far enough away from European French that people in Paris might not always understand those accents right away. For example, I've spoken to European French speakers who moved to Montréal, and who said they needed a couple of weeks before they could completely understand the strongest local accents when people were speaking casually.

Anyway, I hope this helps. And I hope you get to go to France someday! It's a fun country with lots of cool stuff to see.

[Ogrim]

I can only confirm what emk says about Parisians, they do have a reputation, even in France, for being arrogant, rude and unhelpful to foreigners (and with foreigners they mean anyone who is not from Paris). A couple of weeks ago I was in Provence, and came into a discussion with a true "Provençal" about the differences between French regions. He had never been to Alsace, but he had been to Paris - once - and said he had felt that people treated him with scorn because he spoke with a Provençal accent. He had no desire to go back, and for him Provence was paradise on earth.

That being said, I have been to Paris many times, and I have had many positive experiences, even with waiters who gave good service with a smile and who were willing to talk to a foreigner with less than perfect French. Still, Paris is a big city, and like most big cities pace is different from that in a small(ish) city or town in the "provinces".

By the way, it seems to be quite usual in many European countries that people from the "provinces" consider that those from the capital city are arrogant and think of themselves as superior. I've seen it in countries like Spain, Sweden, the UK and Norway.

Here is a fun map showing how the Parisians see the rest of France: http://www.cartesfrance.fr/insolite/cartes-france-vue-par/carte-france-vue-par-parisiens.html

[garyb]

I found the Parisians to be polite, kind and helpful, and most waiters and shopkeepers etc. happily spoke French with me. I've not found the "rude French"/"rude Parisans" stereotypes to be accurate. I'm sure it helps that I have decent French and make the effort to use it even if it's far from perfect. The bad attitudes I've had from the French have been limited to social situations, not service and tourist ones.

[Rum]

Thank you for the advices, they are certainly very helpful and I will do my best to remind myself when to apply them. I definitely will need these since I lack a background when it comes to formalities. I tried watching a few movies and play a few games in France French and oh boy... I would much rather watch the English version because... Not because of the accent, but the vocabulary is totally unknown to me! couldn't understand half of what was said.

As for the native language thing... I don't really like using that term because of its vagueness. I saw it somewhere from stack exchange that it is implied to be a "language learned from childhood", so even in that cas... Even English can technically be considered as one of my native language because I supposedly learned it very young (I went to an English kindergarten but then forgot it because I never use it again in grade school ). But it is not the case, I think, since I never use it outside the Internet.

As I am still pursuing education and going to a French high school right now (in Quebec, there is no middle/junior high segregation line so from age 12 till 17 everybody gets lumped together to high school), I think that B2 is a safe bet to make when it comes to my current level since I'm pretty much stalling my plan to master French.

The funny thing is, as someone who takes French classes everyday, I still find French way harder than English. I've barely passed Projet Voltaire's Supérieur "programme de mise à niveau" with a mere 65 last month so I'll say that C2 is still very far from here. The subordonné shtick is tedious to master and I'm not knowledgeable enough with the general expressions ...not to mention that my vocabulary isn't up there yet.

But once my English will become as good as my French, I'll take a break from it and switch to la langue de Molière and try to raise it to C1 in half a year.

And also, I am very interested in partaking local cultural events, so how well do locals respond to foreigners? To be honest after reading and watching Jean de Florette it was quite scary how the locals treated outsiders...[/quote]

[emk]

I tried watching a few movies and play a few games in France French and oh boy... I would much rather watch the English version because... Not because of the accent, but the vocabulary is totally unknown to me! couldn't understand half of what was said.

As for the native language thing... I don't really like using that term because of its vagueness. I saw it somewhere from stack exchange that it is implied to be a "language learned from childhood", so even in that cas... Even English can technically be considered as one of my native language because I supposedly learned it very young (I went to an English kindergarten but then forgot it because I never use it again in grade school ). But it is not the case, I think, since I never use it outside the Internet.

As I am still pursuing education and going to a French high school right now (in Quebec, there is no middle/junior high segregation line so from age 12 till 17 everybody gets lumped together to high school), I think that B2 is a safe bet to make when it comes to my current level since I'm pretty much stalling my plan to master French.

Ah, OK, your linguistic situation is more complicated that I had guessed. No problem. We've had a couple posters over the years who've been in similar-sounding situations, some of them sort of stuck between languages but feeling like they hadn't entirely mastered any of them. You could try looking through the Heritage Language tag at HTLAL, which has several threads with titles like Help me to have a real “native language"; you might find some useful advice somewhere there.

If you don't mind sharing a bit more information, here are a few questions that might help you get better advice from the language learners here. You're not required to answer them if you don't want to! But they might help somebody give you better advice.

1. What language(s) does your family speak at home, and which language(s) do you use?
2. What language(s) do you speak with your friends?
3. Do you watch TV or read books for fun? And if so, in what language(s)? How well do you understand them in each language?
4. Did you go to school in French from the year after kindergarten until now?
5. Can you watch French-language cable TV at home?

Let me tell you my personal story: I'm a native English speaker, and I learned French in my 30s. The single best thing I did for my French comprehension was the original Super Challenge here at HTLAL, which involved reading a lot of French books (about 30 or 40 regular-sized books, much of it "fun" stuff) and watching about 20 seasons of various European French TV series straight through, season after season. When I started doing this, my reading was one-third guesswork, and I could only partially understand the radio news in French. When I finished, I could read actual adult books comfortably, only running into a completely unknown word every few pages, and I could channel surf French television and understand much of what I heard.

Of course, I did a bunch of other stuff along the way, too. But personally, the single best thing I did was to expose myself to a lot of interesting French. That made everything else a lot easier.

If you have trouble understanding spoken European French, can you just find a cable channel with a couple of European French series that you like? Whenever I'm in Montréal, there's always plenty of French series available on cable TV. If you're currently going to school in French, and if you can't understand European French well at all, then perhaps all you need is a bit more exposure? For most people, it gets easier pretty rapidly.

Other people here may have better advice for you, of course.

[Ogrim]

And also, I am very interested in partaking local cultural events, so how well do locals respond to foreigners? To be honest after reading and watching Jean de Florette it was quite scary how the locals treated outsiders...

I assume you are talking about "locals" in France? There is no single answer to your question, as it will depend on who, where and in what context. Here where I live it is really not a problem to take part in the local culture, but then Strasbourg is quite international and peole are used to foreigners. However, I have a British colleague who has been living in a small Alsatian village for more than 20 years, and she said it took her years to feel integrated in the local village life. Even now after 20 years some of the old people in the village still only refer to her as "l'anglaise", which annoys her a lot as she is Scottish I guess it is like everywhere, it is harder to be accepted in a small community where everybody knows everybody, than in a larger town or city where people are used to dealing with strangers more or less every day.

If at one point you are going to France for a longer period, my recommendation would be to join an association of some kind. What are your hobbies? Sport? Chess? Theatre? Walks in the mountains? Join a club or a group in order to do activities with the locals, that is the best way to integrate in my experience. People who share your interests or hobbies are normally very welcoming.

[Speakeasy]

I have a British colleague who has been living in a small Alsatian village for more than 20 years, and she said it took her years to feel integrated in the local village life. Even now after 20 years some of the old people in the village still only refer to her as "l'anglaise", which annoys her a lot as she is Scottish I guess it is like everywhere, it is harder to be accepted in a small community where everybody knows everybody, than in a larger town or city where people are used to dealing with strangers more or less every day.

Your colleague's experience is not at all unique and it is not restricted to any particular culture; rather, it is part of human nature. It is quite common for people in small communities to consider those who were not born and raised in the community as some form of "outsider". This can extend to the outsider's children and even to their grandchildren who were subsequently born and raised in small communities. There is a high possibility that the "locals" will continue to refer to the "new arrivals" as some form of "outsider", particularly when speaking amongst themselves. The terms vary, but the message is always the same: "not (yet) one of us".

I can assure you that this phenomenon exists within existing, stable, homogeneous linguistic and cultural groups. For example, people who grow up in small communities often assume, erroneously, that their social integration into another small community will be smooth, whereas they are invariably surprised at being treated as "outsiders" even though they possess the same language and ethnicity as the receiving community. While "integrating" into a large cosmopolitan community poses its own challenges, since "no one knows anybody", the phenomenon of being treated as an "outsider" is dramatically lessened.

Honestly, I do not think that this is the result of deliberate, malicious intolerance with the intent "to exclude the other"; it is simply the way our brains are wired.