• SonnyVabitch@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    French is too generalised, in my experience.

    Paris, they’ll pretend they don’t understand neither your English nor your 100 words of French.

    Towns in the country, you meet indifferent professionalism and you kinda get by in English.

    Rural areas, you encounter the greatest of enthusiasm for your knowledge of the local language, and just as well, because those 100 words are all you can rely on for the entire duration of your stay.

    • supercriticalcheese@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Depends where you go and when and for what. For most part of things I got by with my 100 words of french and English, but I avoided the touristic areas at the minimum possible.

    • GreatAlbatrossA
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      8 months ago

      Towns in the countryside, you’ll get corrections, and often encouraged to repeat the word they just corrected you on.

    • hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      There’s a joke about how Finnish tourists deal with this.

      They simply speak Finnish. If the local doesn’t understand, then just repeat louder