when I went to France I wanted the opportunity to practise it.
My wife’s biggest frustration in France was that she wanted to practice her French, but everyone picked up on her American accent and immediately switched to English. She rarely got more than a sentence out.
My experience being stationed in Germany with the US military, about 30 mins from the French border:
A coworker of mine complained about his visit to Paris because every single French person he tried to speak to either ignored him, turned their nose up at him, or was just rude to him. He only spoke English and they all seemed offended when he tried to get their attention in English.
My wife and I took several years of French in high school, and whereas neither of us could hold a proper conversation, we knew enough to ask directions, order from a menu, or request help.
Every time we started off a conversation in French, the French people would immediately switch to English and help us out. They were very kind to us.
We learned that if you make an effort to speak their language, most French people are very helpful. But if you just assume they’ll speak English, they’re likely to be offended and won’t help you out.
One time in Berlin, my wife tried to speak German to a guy at a tourist shop and he immediately switched into French. Apparently, my wife has a heavy French accent to her German. She was able to finish the conversation in French.
Reminds me of this article I read yesterday:
Adopt a Red State: How Democrats Can Expose Republican Cowards
Glad to see Tim Walz is taking this approach.
Did you also notice the baseball cap to the bottom right of the fire? I didn’t see it until just after I made my comment.
That camo jacket seems a little too close to the fire…
For some reason, this just sparked an ancient memory of the Geek Code, which was a sort of signature block you could append to your emails and online bios to show off how much of a geek you were in the geekiest fashion possible.
Goddamn I’m old.
Ken Cheng is a satire account, poking fun at the ridiculous “business first, personal welfare second” bootlickers on LinkedIn.
The fact that people can’t tell if he’s satirizing or being serious is kind of a sad glimpse into our capitalist society today.
Personally, I prefer this comparison: