OV9

IanF wrote: Sat Aug 12, 2023 9:46 am I was in Châteauroux a couple of months ago. Everyone was friendly except a pretty French girl who refused to understand my mate’s French! His accent wasn’t that bad! She was very angry with the world (threw her iPhone across the bar, shouted at other guests and bollocked some bloke for being late to work).. I quite liked it!

Did you fly in? The old art deco terminal building is really nice. They had a load of BA A380s stored there during COVID I stopped and took some photos as I was riding by.

tim wrote: Sun Aug 13, 2023 4:10 pm

IanF wrote: Sat Aug 12, 2023 9:46 am I was in Châteauroux a couple of months ago. Everyone was friendly except a pretty French girl who refused to understand my mate’s French! His accent wasn’t that bad! She was very angry with the world (threw her iPhone across the bar, shouted at other guests and bollocked some bloke for being late to work).. I quite liked it!

Did you fly in? The old art deco terminal building is really nice. They had a load of BA A380s stored there during COVID I stopped and took some photos as I was riding by.

Yes, they do cosmetic stuff there and lack of proper ATC made it interesting .. 2 border agents, 8 police and one police dog was probably overkill, but it looked like they didn’t have much to do, so stamping our passports was probably quite exciting! Anyway, stayed the night and then flew out via Tours the next day…

Jobbo wrote: Sat Aug 12, 2023 9:38 am I’ve only ever found Parisians rude. The problem is they all holiday around now so get everywhere and block the autoroutes from Paris to the nice French seaside towns.

I've never had a problem with any French - even Parisians. Admittedly, I speak decent French but no matter where I've been they've always been fine. The French (especially Parisians) do get a bit pissed off if you don't make an effort with the language. I spent a few weeks in Paris working and when I arrived in the evening with a colleague (he was Czech) I suggested we grab some food at a restaurant opposite our hotel before calling it a night. He'd been working there the previous week and said that he'd already been there and it was shit. I wasn't about to traipse around Montparnasse looking for another place to eat, so I just said maybe he'd caught them on a bad night. I got us a table, ordered the food, flirted a bit with the waitress and we had a great time. Pretty sure we got a couple of free beers too. He couldn't believe the difference. I asked him if he spoke any French and he just said "No. English is international language of business - everyone should speak it". So he'd rocked up to a restaurant in Paris, only spoke English, asked for an English menu and wondered why he got shit service.

Delphi wrote: Tue Aug 15, 2023 1:55 pm . So he'd rocked up to a restaurant in Paris, only spoke English, asked for an English menu and wondered why he got shit service.

Tbf to him, in most countries that approach would be absolutely fine - it's only really in France that they have an issue with it.

Not that I agree with him.

It’s always fun when a French Person in London asks you where Buckingham Palace is in their heavy french accent.

You then get to look at them like they’d just shit in your floor and then, in your best Essex Cabbie accent, shout “It’s Buckingham fucking Palace you fucking plum” before storming off

Swervin_Mervin wrote: Tue Aug 15, 2023 2:54 pm
Tbf to him, in most countries that approach would be absolutely fine - it's only really in France that they have an issue with it.

Not that I agree with him.

I was last in Paris in February and I noticed a lot more English being spoken than I previously remember. One of my mates (who is French) noticed it too.

Delphi wrote: Tue Aug 15, 2023 3:14 pm

Swervin_Mervin wrote: Tue Aug 15, 2023 2:54 pm
Tbf to him, in most countries that approach would be absolutely fine - it's only really in France that they have an issue with it.

Not that I agree with him.

I was last in Paris in February and I noticed a lot more English being spoken than I previously remember. One of my mates (who is French) noticed it too.

We went 9yrs ago and stayed in multiple places (incl. Lyon at the hotel of the former evo forum member as above), one of which was a reopened camp site run by a young French couple in the Haute-Loire. They were lovely people and I got chatting with the guy one night over some wine, and he said it would be mandatory for any staff looking to work there to learn English if they couldn't already speak it. His view being that, regardless of what the French traditionalists might like, it was an undeniable fact that English is the one language spoken by the majority of nations, and therefore for a business looking to attract people fom all over Europe it was essential to be able to communicate in it.

They had both lived and worked in London for 12mo though so maybe a little more open/liberal-minded than your typical Frenchman.

I've had a similar conversation (without asking for it!) with a Flemish Belgian chap in Cambrinus in Bruges. He was a touch more disparaging about them.

Swervin_Mervin wrote: Tue Aug 15, 2023 3:20 pm We went 9yrs ago and stayed in multiple places (incl. Lyon at the hotel of the former evo forum member as above), one of which was a reopened camp site run by a young French couple in the Haute-Loire. They were lovely people and I got chatting with the guy one night over some wine, and he said it would be mandatory for any staff looking to work there to learn English if they couldn't already speak it. His view being that, regardless of what the French traditionalists might like, it was an undeniable fact that English is the one language spoken by the majority of nations, and therefore for a business looking to attract people fom all over Europe it was essential to be able to communicate in it.

They had both lived and worked in London for 12mo though so maybe a little more open/liberal-minded than your typical Frenchman.

I've had a similar conversation (without asking for it!) with a Flemish Belgian chap in Cambrinus in Bruges. He was a touch more disparaging about them.

On my recent Germany trip, when I was checking into the V8 Hotel in Stuttgart, there was an Italian couple behind me who spoke no German and only a little English and ended up using Google Translate to translate their Italian into English so the German receptionist could understand them!

I was somewhat disappointed that all the Germans spoke excellent English - I've been learning German for the last few months and rarely got the opportunity to practice it.

Delphi wrote: Tue Aug 15, 2023 3:34 pm

Swervin_Mervin wrote: Tue Aug 15, 2023 3:20 pm We went 9yrs ago and stayed in multiple places (incl. Lyon at the hotel of the former evo forum member as above), one of which was a reopened camp site run by a young French couple in the Haute-Loire. They were lovely people and I got chatting with the guy one night over some wine, and he said it would be mandatory for any staff looking to work there to learn English if they couldn't already speak it. His view being that, regardless of what the French traditionalists might like, it was an undeniable fact that English is the one language spoken by the majority of nations, and therefore for a business looking to attract people fom all over Europe it was essential to be able to communicate in it.

They had both lived and worked in London for 12mo though so maybe a little more open/liberal-minded than your typical Frenchman.

I've had a similar conversation (without asking for it!) with a Flemish Belgian chap in Cambrinus in Bruges. He was a touch more disparaging about them.

On my recent Germany trip, when I was checking into the V8 Hotel in Stuttgart, there was an Italian couple behind me who spoke no German and only a little English and ended up using Google Translate to translate their Italian into English so the German receptionist could understand them!

I was somewhat disappointed that all the Germans spoke excellent English - I've been learning German for the last few months and rarely got the opportunity to practice it.

We had similar in Puy - a Spanish couple that spoke hardly any French and a waitress that spoke hardly any Spanish! I nearly stepped in as I knew what they were both talking about if they didn't

As for hte latter - the French campsite owner's response to a similar comment I made was "well how is the other person going to practise their English if you speak to them in their own tongue"!