Perhaps, but my experience of trying to use my French in Paris once fairly much put me off. I still use it when I go on holidays and I generally have good enough French to ask for stuff in a shop or restaurant but I wouldn't be up to holding a full conversation.
That's Paris for you. But yeah, the French in general are chauvinistic enough that some of them don't really appreciate tourists speaking intermediate or fluent but accented French. There's a lot of bad things one can say about Americans in terms of languages, but they're more welcoming of foreigners speaking their language than anyone else. Then again, they'd have to be.
I was never met with that attitude in Paris. The city that stands out as a hellhole in that respect for me was Milano. I managed fine inn Italian two whole weeks in Rome, but when I tried it in Milano, I was met with stubborn incomprehension when ordering ice cream. I am still miffed.
*MySmiley*
structured procrastinator
structured procrastinator
/Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
24/09/2010 01:37:42 PM
- 1305 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
24/09/2010 02:10:57 PM
- 712 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
24/09/2010 03:32:09 PM
- 666 Views
That is rather sad to say the least.
24/09/2010 04:15:32 PM
- 889 Views
Indeed
24/09/2010 06:23:52 PM
- 705 Views
That's just Paris being a city of nasty people.
24/09/2010 06:32:40 PM
- 849 Views

I never noticed that
24/09/2010 07:05:18 PM
- 744 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
24/09/2010 04:00:04 PM
- 777 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
24/09/2010 05:47:09 PM
- 743 Views
Interesting.
24/09/2010 06:04:30 PM
- 693 Views
Re: Interesting.
24/09/2010 06:42:02 PM
- 841 Views
Re: Interesting.
24/09/2010 07:05:44 PM
- 749 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
24/09/2010 09:38:05 PM
- 842 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
25/09/2010 05:49:05 AM
- 826 Views
Self-study can be worth as much as formal classroom study, I suppose
25/09/2010 03:43:14 PM
- 798 Views
Certainly it can.
26/09/2010 12:35:56 PM
- 796 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
25/09/2010 04:54:40 PM
- 936 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
25/09/2010 07:38:29 PM
- 860 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
26/09/2010 12:07:19 AM
- 876 Views
They should have asked about second languages rather than foreign languages.
26/09/2010 11:34:27 AM
- 730 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
27/09/2010 03:18:30 PM
- 772 Views