The Myth of the French Language

Long before I started learning French and up until this present day, I’ve been told one consistent ‘fact’: the French will not tolerate badly spoken French.

Of the three languages I’ve studied, the one I was least looking forward to putting into practice was French. I read claim after claim by people who had never been to France that the French would cut you off mid-sentence if you’re speaking poorly. You have to master the subjunctive before you can even begin speaking to anyone, apparently.

When we rolled onto French soil 4.5 months ago I think part of this fallacy was lodged into my brain, somewhere out of conscious reach. I was far more hesitant with my French than I ever was with Spanish or Indonesian. The many French people we’d met on our travels were all very patient as I fumbled through their language. This must have been because they were used to people speaking broken French during their voyage, I thought. I expected the average French person to be less forgiving.

Yet, when we set up shop in our first house sit all those months ago a new picture of the French started to form in my mind. Unlike the rude, impatient listeners that some would have us believe, I encountered extremely polite people everywhere. In fact, I would say without question that the French outside of Paris were more polite than the general English population.

I’ve never felt pressured or stupid when speaking French. In Korea people would laugh in your face when you attempted to reply in their native tongue. This wasn’t necessarily an impolite response in their eyes. They simply laugh when they’re uncomfortable and since they aren’t accustomed to hearing a Westerner speaking Korean, the situation can become awkward/frustrating.

In France, most people listen attentively, nudge me a long if I get stuck, make a joke about their poor English, or correct me if they feel I’m open to feedback. On a few occasions I’ve been speaking French and knew at a particular point that I was making a basic error and the listener hasn’t flinched or indicated in any way that I’d made a mistake.

In terms of learning French I’m not going to improve quickly if people don’t correct my mistakes, but it also encourages me to be confident in situations that are linguistically out of my league.

We’ve only been in Paris for 5 days – it’s too early to note any difference between here and the other places we’ve visited. Yet we still haven’t encountered the famous rude Parisians that cause Japanese tourists to be hospitalised every year for mental breakdowns.

The truth is, as with any other country in the world, locals appreciate the effort you take to speak their language. For me, it’s sometimes too easy to speak English with my French friends because their English is so good, but ultimately I have little hesitation in fumbling around in the French language because I’m confident that while I’m sure there are a few rude people in France, they certainly don’t make up the majority.

Journey with us from place to place, language to language, photo to photo