Good news we can all agree on

[riskllama]

[jonesthecurl]

My French used to be pretty good, but I've gotten horribly rusty since moving to the US. ON another topic, way back in the 90's I often went to Greece. I learnt enough Greek to get by in everyday situations, and even chat a little bit. Everyone told me not to bother, "they all speak English anyway".
When I went to Rhodes, I discovered part of the reason why this was. They tend to deliberately attract English-speakers to one part of the island, Germans to another, Italians to another, maybe other language groups to other bits (though I couldn't confirm that last comment). We drove around the island for a couple of days, and once outside the area full of English-speaking tourists we found that nobody spoke English. Not in shops, not in restaurants, not in the bank. Instead, the local schools taught everyone, primarily, the language of the people who would most likely stay in their area.

[2dimes]

In Montreal it's neither French nor English.

[Arama86n]

I must confess, I don't listen to nearly enough French content here. I keep meaning to but it's difficult to find people to converse with here, so I almost never get to practice speaking it. On the very rare occasion I do they usually want to just speak English and move on.

Join LHDD, or their equivalent French Speaking tribe.
Google Translate & fake it to you make it

[betiko]

I have thought about that many times; about the fact that at some stage (or perhaps many times) there was a meeting somewhere in Sweden. Where it was decided to subtitle instead of dubs films and series, as you say. Whoever was involved in reaching that decision deserves some sort of damn medal.
Those countries that dub have done their citizens a real disservice.
I would consider getting free education in any language a very good thing, English especially so.

TBH, I think it's not a swedish decision. Most likely the swedish market wasn't important enough to justify dubbing costs for film exportation... like in most north and eastern european countries, but I might be wrong. My guess is that back in those days, dubbing was much more expensive.
I know old disney and such are dubbed in mexican here for the spanish market, and it really sounds terrible for us here. It was just a matter of costs, and they thought that if it was dubbed by mexican actors there was no use to dub in proper spanish.
Now everything is different... like films would be dubbed in Quebec french and in french... I don't know how many spanish dubbed versions they need for south america but at least 3-4 I guess (mexican, argentinian, colombian, venezuelan... those 4 sound really different and probably deserve their own version... chile and peru might use like the colombian maybe, which is the most neutral accent of these?)

[betiko]

My French used to be pretty good, but I've gotten horribly rusty since moving to the US. ON another topic, way back in the 90's I often went to Greece. I learnt enough Greek to get by in everyday situations, and even chat a little bit. Everyone told me not to bother, "they all speak English anyway".
When I went to Rhodes, I discovered part of the reason why this was. They tend to deliberately attract English-speakers to one part of the island, Germans to another, Italians to another, maybe other language groups to other bits (though I couldn't confirm that last comment). We drove around the island for a couple of days, and once outside the area full of English-speaking tourists we found that nobody spoke English. Not in shops, not in restaurants, not in the bank. Instead, the local schools taught everyone, primarily, the language of the people who would most likely stay in their area.

Lol. That's a pretty intelligent way to be good tourist hosts... but that kind of shows that most tourists don't want to go out of their comfort zone, litterally

[betiko]

I agree with Betiko about the French.. I think it is pretty funny when people who can't even say a simple greeting in any other language besides English complain when going somewhere. And it happens a lot. "We went to xxxxxxxx and they were so rude. No one even spoke English. It was the worst trip ever." Awesome story bro.

First time I was in France, the closer we got to Paris and the north part of The country where tourists go, the ruder and less likely to help with my bad attempts to speak French some people were. I find it interesting hardly anyone speaks about how rude the Brits and other English speaking tourists are. I watched many English speaking people being jerks in Dieppe.

It's no different from going to New York and not learning English. They will probably be pretty rude there too.

Good luck going to most places in western Canada or the USA and trying to speak French. The lazy English speakers won't help at all, and here they had to sit through French class in elementary school. But French people usually don't do that. They at least learn basic English.

Often I have spoke with a French person who speaks perfectly reasonable English then they apologize for doing it. "Sorry, my English is not very good." I never hesitate to tell them, "Your English is fine. It is much better than my French."

Oh no, Betiko called the ram disrespectful.. He will be distraught. He will likely need to write about being the smartest, hard working, sober person in his room full of guys who caught a bird, to get over that harsh accusation.

For French people.... Parisians are super rude. Just like for American people, newyorkers are super rude. Paris and New York being the most visited cities of these countries, it would be wrong to assume that newyorkers and parisians are the stereotype of each country s inhabitants.

[Dukasaur]

In Montreal it's neither French nor English.

I used to deliver to Quebec quite often. I'd try to work on my French, but I'd say something in French (badly) and instead of correcting me in French they would just speak to me in English. I'd say, "no, no, don't switch to English. Help me improve my French. Tell me how to say it properly," but nobody wanted to invest the time.

[betiko]

In Montreal it's neither French nor English.

I used to deliver to Quebec quite often. I'd try to work on my French, but I'd say something in French (badly) and instead of correcting me in French they would just speak to me in English. I'd say, "no, no, don't switch to English. Help me improve my French. Tell me how to say it properly," but nobody wanted to invest the time.

Maybe because you were delivering stuff.... if you receive a new dildo from amazon, i m sure the only thing you have in mind is to go try it out, not to start teaching english to the Quebec delivery guy on your front porch!

[jonesthecurl]

I used to find that, in France, my French was perfectly good enough to have even quite complicated conversations with the French people who spoke no English. OK, a bit slow and laboured at times, but sufficient for the task. However, it would often happen that French people who spoke very good English would pretend that my French was so awful that they couldn't understand it at all.
In Greece, it was very different, maybe because so few tourists make any attempt beyond "Yassou". If my Greek wasn't up to what I was trying to say, they would ask "what are you trying to say?" and then tell me the correct Greek for it.

[2dimes]

In Montreal it's neither French nor English.

I used to deliver to Quebec quite often. I'd try to work on my French, but I'd say something in French (badly) and instead of correcting me in French they would just speak to me in English. I'd say, "no, no, don't switch to English. Help me improve my French. Tell me how to say it properly," but nobody wanted to invest the time.

Maybe because you were delivering stuff.... if you receive a new dildo from amazon, i m sure the only thing you have in mind is to go try it out, not to start teaching english to the Quebec delivery guy on your front porch!

Wrong again.

Duke would be excited to help a guy learn English or Czechoslovakian

[saxitoxin]

In Montreal it's neither French nor English.

I used to deliver to Quebec quite often. I'd try to work on my French, but I'd say something in French (badly) and instead of correcting me in French they would just speak to me in English. I'd say, "no, no, don't switch to English. Help me improve my French. Tell me how to say it properly," but nobody wanted to invest the time.

Maybe because you were delivering stuff.... if you receive a new dildo from amazon, i m sure the only thing you have in mind is to go try it out, not to start teaching english to the Quebec delivery guy on your front porch!

What if you needed someone to teach you how to operate this new dildo you've ordered from Amazon, betiko?

[Dukasaur]

In Montreal it's neither French nor English.

I used to deliver to Quebec quite often. I'd try to work on my French, but I'd say something in French (badly) and instead of correcting me in French they would just speak to me in English. I'd say, "no, no, don't switch to English. Help me improve my French. Tell me how to say it properly," but nobody wanted to invest the time.

Maybe because you were delivering stuff.... if you receive a new dildo from amazon, i m sure the only thing you have in mind is to go try it out, not to start teaching english to the Quebec delivery guy on your front porch!

Wrong again.

Duke would be excited to help a guy learn English or Czechoslovakian

And if he didn't apply the lessons correctly, he'd get the dildo!

[jimboston]

In Montreal it's neither French nor English.

I used to deliver to Quebec quite often. I'd try to work on my French, but I'd say something in French (badly) and instead of correcting me in French they would just speak to me in English. I'd say, "no, no, don't switch to English. Help me improve my French. Tell me how to say it properly," but nobody wanted to invest the time.

Same in Germany.

Me and a buddy went there for Ocktoberfest.
I could understand a bit, he was moderately better, but with a bastardized version they speak in parts of midwest/Chicago area.

He would try to speak in German and ask for proper pronounciation, but they just couldn’t be bothered and wanted to move on...

So if you’re going for a visit it’s absolutely NOT worth it to bother trying to learning anything more than “please” and “thank you”.

If you are living in a place for a period of time or going to school there, that’s a different story.

[jimboston]

I used to find that, in France, my French was perfectly good enough to have even quite complicated conversations with the French people who spoke no English. OK, a bit slow and laboured at times, but sufficient for the task. However, it would often happen that French people who spoke very good English would pretend that my French was so awful that they couldn't understand it at all.
In Greece, it was very different, maybe because so few tourists make any attempt beyond "Yassou". If my Greek wasn't up to what I was trying to say, they would ask "what are you trying to say?" and then tell me the correct Greek for it.

Cultural and maybe situational...

In my case is Germany it was mostly restaurant workers or other retail places... and they just wanted to do their jobs.

They weren’t being ‘rude’... but just wanted to get on with it.

[jimboston]

For French people.... Parisians are super rude. Just like for American people, newyorkers are super rude. Paris and New York being the most visited cities of these countries, it would be wrong to assume that newyorkers and parisians are the stereotype of each country s inhabitants.

I agree, somewhat... it’s situational.

In big cities people are in a rush, and this can be perceived as being rude.
The same people may be quite different in more social situations.

[mrswdk]

There are basically three types of capital city centre:

- Those that get that relatively few foreign workers/tourists and therefore the locals think you’re interesting and are willing to humour you (e.g. Kampala, Tehran, Astana)
- Those that get a fair few foreign professional workers and tourists and where the locals have had therefore one too many stilted conversations with foreigners to be willing to have any more (e.g. Paris, Rome, Dublin)
- Those that are so international that half of shop/restaurant staff and pedestrians are probably other foreigners anyway and so they’re in the same boat as you (e.g. London, New York, Brussels)

On ‘rude’: people from outside big cities visit and generally only see the city centres, which bear no resemblance to the rest of the city whatsoever. For example, London city centre has nothing but tourist landmarks and commuting office workers. As soon as you step out of the city centre you find yourself in a regular city full of regular people, who are capable of displaying manners and warmth.

[saxitoxin]

More good news!

President Trump has ordered the purchase of 100% of the world's supply of 15-minute antigen tests for the United States. The U.S. will pay Abbot Labs $750 million for the tests. Had they been divided up among all the little countries they would have been too few to make any difference so it's good that a single country got all of them.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... f=GJfVw2fX

Thank you, President Trump!

[Dukasaur]

There are basically three types of capital city centre:

- Those that get that relatively few foreign workers/tourists and therefore the locals think you’re interesting and are willing to humour you (e.g. Kampala, Tehran, Astana)
- Those that get a fair few foreign professional workers and tourists and where the locals have had therefore one too many stilted conversations with foreigners to be willing to have any more (e.g. Paris, Rome, Dublin)
- Those that are so international that half of shop/restaurant staff and pedestrians are probably other foreigners anyway and so they’re in the same boat as you (e.g. London, New York, Brussels)

That's an interesting breakdown. Makes sense.

[KoolBak]

I enjoyed your posts Frenchie Duk delivering dildos...oh man, what a visual ...lmfao.

And no one city or portion thereof is representative of a population...bingo. Portland representative of Oregon? Nope. We're not all either 1. Homeless or 2. Raging liberal rock throwing pissants. Most of Oregon is rural farming and ranching, geographically, and those people would give you the shirt off their back. Small example, but....

Duk...you got a brochure?

[2dimes]

The guy who could not speak much English was delivering the dildo to Dukasaur.

He also drives a taxi cab.

[saxitoxin]

More good news!

President Trump has just extended his beneficent mercy to Alice Johnson. (Not this Alice Johnson.)

President Trump had previously ordered Alice released from prison where she'd spent 22 years for a Jean Valjean-type crime but, when he saw her in the crowd at the party mass rally last night, decisively decided to declare her fully pardoned and absolved of all crimes. After pardoning her today, President Trump charged Alice to prepare a list of others still sitting in prison for minor drug offenses committed under Bill Clinton's regime of the 1990s who can be freed.

After signing her pardon, Rev. Robert Jeffers said an invocation declaring that Jesus Christ acted through the person of Donald Trump to answer Alice Johnson's prayers.

Thank you President Trump!

[jimboston]

That’s english? I can’t understand most of it.

[betiko]

More good news!

President Trump has just extended his beneficent mercy to Alice Johnson. (Not this Alice Johnson.)

President Trump had previously ordered Alice released from prison where she'd spent 22 years for a Jean Valjean-type crime but, when he saw her in the crowd at the party mass rally last night, decisively decided to declare her fully pardoned and absolved of all crimes. After pardoning her today, President Trump charged Alice to prepare a list of others still sitting in prison for minor drug offenses committed under Bill Clinton's regime of the 1990s who can be freed.

After signing her pardon, Rev. Robert Jeffers said an invocation declaring that Jesus Christ acted through the person of Donald Trump to answer Alice Johnson's prayers.

Thank you President Trump!

You mean thank you Jaycee. Trump had nothing to do with it according to Church, which you are proudly mentionning.

[saxitoxin]

Donald Trump today conducted a presidential inspection of Kenosha, Wisconsin, which was recently devastated by Pro-Biden rioters. Members of the public greeted the president and thanked him for reestablishing law and order and for helping them rebuild from the damage and destruction left behind by the Democrioters.



The president then conducted an audience in a National Guard armory to receive requests for additional assistance from community leaders to help defend Kenosha in case Biden or his supporters return.



Kenosha residents attempt to clean-up after Biden supporters devastated the city.