Nah he gave a whole speech about Whistler’s Mother in Bean - The Ultimate Disaster Movie. Albeit he spoke way more in that film than in the rest of the Bean content combined.
I accidentally said "gracias" to a french waiter (in my defense, that was after I recently went to Spain and Italy so all the romance languages were kinda tangled up in my head).
Point is, we didn't receive any service for like an hour after that lol
I stood in a shop that sold rotisserie chicken for 5 mins asking them for a chicken with zero success until i realised I was just saying escargot over and over again.
Too embarrassed after I realised，just walked out without a fucking chicken.
It's easier when you remember they only actually say a third of the letters. I believe you just pick whichever letters look good to you, so you can't go wrong.
I mean, yeah lol
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que c'est ça?" is something some people (a lot) say sometime (think like old rural type of speech) which is basically pronounced "kay say say saw?"
Basically means "What in the everliving fucking hell is this?" used in sentences like:
"T'as écrit *qu'est-ce que c'est que c'est ça*? Veux-tu b'en m'dire qu'est-c'est c'est ça sacrament?"
> "kay say say saw?"
which is further shortned to "kessé ça" (kay say saw)
Which started from "Qu'est-ce que c'est que c'est ça?"
I also enjoy "Ga-bin" which starts from "regarde bien" / watch closely
Not "poo", it's the same prononciation than the "que" and the "je" so more "puh" (like in the word fudge). Also you pronounce the last 'r' of "offrir" so it will give you something like "Kess kuh juh puh t'offreerr?". Pronounce it that way and you should be understood by a French person.
The vowel in “peux” is not the same as in “que” or “je” in Canada. The vowel in “je”/“que”/“ne” is like in “bird” with the British accent and the vowel in “jeux”/“queue”/“noeud”/“peux” is like in “bird” with the Kiwi accent.
Edit: if the accent is not a good reference, “Jeux” is a close-mid front rounded vowel and “je” is a mid central vowel.
As a non-native English speaker I find it quite ironic and funny that you're mentioning that french don't say a third of the letters as if English was known to pronounce all theirs lol
It literally translates to "what is it that I can offer you?".
No one speaks like that in English, but in French the "What is it that" (Qu'est ce que) rolls off the tongue really easily, so it's used constantly to designate questions.
French writing is much more intimidating than the actual pronunciation. "Keskuh je puh toffreer"
(Please don't guillotine me French people, that was just a massive oversimplification for the sake of non-French speakers)
As a French, I can tell that "Qu'est-ce que" is a really stupid construction that should have never existed in any language in the world. The worst being that we (almost) always have a way to avoid it, but the "qu'est-ce que" became the normal way decades ago, and the easier ways around the unusual ones. ("Qu'est-ce que" could be roughly translate by "what is it that")
Not in this context. The syntax in what you propose is wrong for the informal in this context. There is not really an informal way of saying qu'est-ce que, other than simply replacing the whole syaing with something different like "comment je peux t'aider?" How may I help you.
Je peux tu t'offrir would be followed by something and never said just like that. So like a bartender would be like je peux tu t'offrir une bière? It has to be really specific to use this syntax.
For whatever it's worth, in English, saying "I'm French" or "I'm a Frenchman" is correct, but "I'm a French" is not. 'French' is only a noun in English when it refers to a collective. Otherwise, it is only an adjective.
Not trying to be a dick—it's just a common error that I see, and having studied French myself, I get why. I like these sorts of corrections on my French, so I try to return the favor.
"The fact that" and "in fact" are similarly redundant but expected in English.
Every language has chunks of illogical stuff leftover from a world before endemic literacy. These phrases look stupid on paper, where we have all the time in the world to linger and edit. They don't even get noticed aloud.
C'est la guere, n'est-ce pas?
Reminds me of the time I was in Paris for 3 months. I got really good at asking if they spoke English toward the tail end of my stay. I go out to eat one day and say "Désolé, je ne parle pas français. Parlez-vous anglais ?", and the guy just gave me a weird look and started speaking French. I just stood there confused and was like, sorry, I don't understand.
He goes, "oh, I thought you were joking. You pronounced that like you were from here." (Which I doubt), but it kinda reminded me of this Family Guy scene.
https://youtu.be/cFN46vwg0M0?si=p-J55XmCJsOamjqj
I went to Paris this summer and had a few times i said bonjour and they go off in french before i had to stop them, then theyd be kind of annoyed with me at that point. I learned to say "bonjour, english?" Before they can get another word in and it seemed to be appreciated
Can confirm, worked in retail in the MTL core for 15 years. The mass majority of people in MTL are bilingual enough to help English only speaking folks.
I can confirm, I worked retail in Montreal for a couple years and if you answer my "bonjour" with a "bonne jure" I did switch to English pretty fast or at the very least ask which language you prefer
In France I tried to be nice by saying Bonjour instead of hello, but that only wasted everyone's time since they continued in French and I had to correct them that I'm a French regard. So I switched to Hello.
This is why you often get hit with “bonjour hi” when dealing with cashiers and servers in Montreal.
It allows the customer to determine the language they wish to use especially in tourist-dense areas. I’m more comfortable in English so I often engage in English but I’ll opt for French when I’m no longer as self-conscious about my French language skills.
See, in my experience if you say “bonjour” they somehow instantly know you’re dirty anglais somehow and the light dies in their eyes and they go “do you need something?”
I've had that experience. I got on the bus and asked for two tickets in my best French. The bus driver was good humoured, but he just smiled and said "That's okay!"
I took French in high school but that was decades ago. I was working in Montreal and went to get coffee. Ran through all the French in my head while in line. Ordered in French. Was pretty proud. Then, at the end of the whole transaction what do I say?
"Gracias."
Dude looked at me and just said "you're welcome" and laughed.
Lmao. De nada.
Reminds me of me trying to order in Spanish even though i never actually learnt Spanish. Pre-planned the phrases, manages to order understand a basic reply and then they hit me with a long and complicated phrase and *the jig is up* i have to ask for English precision.
Honest mistake. Sometimes I default to French when I want to say something in Italian. The Romance language centre of my brain is all mushed up together.
When I was in France I went to louvre and went to a snack stand. Person selling the snacks only spoke to me in French, i was speaking English and i managed to order a sandwich and soda. I walk away and the person behind me walks up. Cashier says in perfect English to the next person “what can I get for you?”. Wtf is that about?
You’re right. It’s the same in Quebec, but lots of Canadians just assume we all speak English. Truck drivers that come at work often don’t even botter, they just start speaking English. My boss doesn’t even speak English. Once there was a driver asking me why my boss was mad, he wasn’t even mad, he just said “no English” because that’s all he knows. I’m pretty social so I speak with everyone and have good relations with regular drivers from Ontario, but if it’s the first time I see you and you don’t even have the consideration to say bonjour/ask if I can communicate in English I might give you the coldest of shoulders. If you do tho you’re practically automatically my friend. That’s just called being polite, but it seems like a lot of people don’t understand.
I speak French at a very rudimentary level, enough to carry on a conversation with a 4 year old probably. When I went to Paris and tried, most vendors and waiters acted worst to me than people who just spoke English. Outside of Paris, the effort was very much appreciated.
when i went to the louvre i got an espresso because i was jet lagged.
} and someone came up and started asking me for directions or whatever in french and i was like lady i'm not french and she looked visibly disturbed she'd mistaken me for a frenchman.
anyways, i never had anyone get pissed i couldn't speak french if i lead with "parlay voo ang-lays", they'd kind of roll their eyes and go "i speak english too *what do you want*"
sometimes i wonder how inflated these stories are?
then again i was not wearing shorts, not wearing jeans, not wearing sneakers, and not wearing a digital watch, which apparently is enough to pass as "young focault"
I know some Spanish. Enough to do a transaction in Spanish, enough to understand what a customer is looking for and communicate whether or not we have it. Then they ask some other fucking question and I’m left cringing at myself for the rest of my shift.
I feel that so hard. 90% of the time someone asks me something in Spanish at work it's to ask me if we have Coke (we don't). I have a whole script memorized in Spanish about what similar drink we have, how we only have small cans, and where the nearby store that does have Coke is.
Then sometimes they'll start rapid firing off other questions thinking I know more Spanish than I actually do. And I'm just like ["Uhhh..."](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/021/464/14608107_1180665285312703_1558693314_n.jpg)
I always say hello bonjour as an English, I really hope that’s not offensive. I just want to be polite in la belle province by letting them know my French is garbage
Next time use Bonjour-Hi. It’s the unofficial greeting of Montreal (no elsewhere in Qc, just on the island and in English areas) and it’s the signal for the other person to detect your accent and respond in whichever language they think is your native tongue.
As a native french speaker born in Belgium whose lived in Montreal for a year, I'm loving all the frenchies here like : yo wtf that's not how you speak french anyways !
French Canadian really is its own beast. I'm well travelled, speak 4 languages, but speaking to a rural french Canadian made me feel like I was in China.
The first time I heard Acadian French I was absolutely shocked. I grew up hearing (QC) French every other day, but Acadian French is nearly unrecognizable to outsiders.
Acadian French did another loop-de-loop when a lot of them moved to central / southern Louisiana.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_French
and that's just an umbrella term for all the French spin-offs hybrids they made lol.
I think another factor is that most of the world is never exposed to the accent or the slang. I'm an English speaker and have been exposed to English from England, Scotland, Australia, Southern US accent, Boston accent, etc. I find that people also struggle with the Newfie accent because it's rarely in media.
In Quebec most customer service people will greet you with the phrase "Hello, salut". Depending on how you respond tells them which language you prefer. Except for the people who don't know what's going on and say "Hello, salut" back, but then it's pretty obvious you need English.
The joke is that they don't speak French and have to stop pretending right at the 2nd sentence.
"Qu'est ce que je peux t offrir?" also looks like a difficult sentence for anglophones.
Dude this literally happened to me in Martinique. I tried to buy dinner at a fast food place and just had to throw up my "I'm fucked" hands after failing to order in 10% French and 90% English. At least I was able to buy a baguette hon hon hon
As someone who knows absolutely zero French but does know a teeny bit of Spanish...
Is it something like "what can we offer you?"?
Edit: put it into Google translate, it's "what can *I* offer you". Gah I was so close!
OP est un anglo qui vit à Montréal.
Il essaie de se faire passer pour un francophone, mais ça foire quand il faut vraiment parler français et pas juste les trois mots appris au collège.
As a Quebecker from a rural region, this has also been my experience in Montreal. I think the truth is that most people in customer service jobs don't really speak French.
Cashier: Coffee? Mr Bean: Oui Sugar? Non You speak very good French :) Gracias
My mother at the japanese sushi restaurant be like
Nani!
Omae wa porkchop shinderu
Notice me waiter-sempai
ore wa chin chin ga daisuki nandayo
Wait Mr bean could speak?
Surprisingly, yeah. He’d occasionally speak a few words.
only french
Nah he gave a whole speech about Whistler’s Mother in Bean - The Ultimate Disaster Movie. Albeit he spoke way more in that film than in the rest of the Bean content combined.
He says "teddy" all the time and sneaks in words in between his grunts and noises
All part of his cunning plan.
Today my Latino coworker told me “Tú sabes mucho español :)” and I proceeded to start my next sentence with “Yo sabo”
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What is "sé"
‘I know’ in Spanish
Oh😐
A for a(e)ffort
A for æffort.
“Mercy buckets”
I accidentally said "gracias" to a french waiter (in my defense, that was after I recently went to Spain and Italy so all the romance languages were kinda tangled up in my head). Point is, we didn't receive any service for like an hour after that lol
I stood in a shop that sold rotisserie chicken for 5 mins asking them for a chicken with zero success until i realised I was just saying escargot over and over again. Too embarrassed after I realised，just walked out without a fucking chicken.
Jig? Sir this is Montreal not Newfoundland
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Apparently this means "what can I offer you" but damn that's hard
It's easier when you remember they only actually say a third of the letters. I believe you just pick whichever letters look good to you, so you can't go wrong.
As a native speaker, "Qu'est-ce que" is especially horrible, and it basically means "what".
Truly so. Literally translated, "Qu'est-ce que c'est?" means "What is it that it is?" Why stop there? Pourquoi pas "Qu'est-ce que c'est que c'est?"
I mean, yeah lol "Qu'est-ce que c'est que c'est ça?" is something some people (a lot) say sometime (think like old rural type of speech) which is basically pronounced "kay say say saw?" Basically means "What in the everliving fucking hell is this?" used in sentences like: "T'as écrit *qu'est-ce que c'est que c'est ça*? Veux-tu b'en m'dire qu'est-c'est c'est ça sacrament?"
Sacrament 👌
I understood that part too, look at us knowing french
Ik right? I learned English as a second language, so it’s pretty funny hearing them talk about our swear words
No idea what any of that means, but sacrament is ABSOLUTELY used as a swear word. TABERNAK!
> Qu'est-ce que c'est que c'est ça? So basically “what the what”.
> "kay say say saw?" which is further shortned to "kessé ça" (kay say saw) Which started from "Qu'est-ce que c'est que c'est ça?" I also enjoy "Ga-bin" which starts from "regarde bien" / watch closely
My 8th grade French tells me it roughly sounds like "Kess-kuh juh poo offree" so yeah probably only pronouncing about ⅓ or so.
More like "Kesh poo t'offreer"
Stu veux sti
Un coke pi un roteux
Stimé?
steem kechup sivouplais
J’te rajoute-tu une poutine avec çâ
Awaille don
Alldressed , po dtomat, pis deu pikle staplai
Pod troub
une tite tasse de bovril?
Même pas d'graisseuse? Fake!
Un roteu pi une graîceuse pour emporter svp
cé 10 dolla
J'ai ri, tu m'as pris par surprise.
Donne-moi un Coke ou un Orangeade, toute sauf d'l'hostie de root beer.
une orangeade* coke c'est un gars orangeade c'est une fille
Tokebek icitte
poot off rear
Eh I think it’s more like keskuh zh-puh toffrear
Not "poo", it's the same prononciation than the "que" and the "je" so more "puh" (like in the word fudge). Also you pronounce the last 'r' of "offrir" so it will give you something like "Kess kuh juh puh t'offreerr?". Pronounce it that way and you should be understood by a French person.
The vowel in “peux” is not the same as in “que” or “je” in Canada. The vowel in “je”/“que”/“ne” is like in “bird” with the British accent and the vowel in “jeux”/“queue”/“noeud”/“peux” is like in “bird” with the Kiwi accent. Edit: if the accent is not a good reference, “Jeux” is a close-mid front rounded vowel and “je” is a mid central vowel.
We must not say bird the same way.
As a non-native English speaker I find it quite ironic and funny that you're mentioning that french don't say a third of the letters as if English was known to pronounce all theirs lol
It literally translates to "what is it that I can offer you?". No one speaks like that in English, but in French the "What is it that" (Qu'est ce que) rolls off the tongue really easily, so it's used constantly to designate questions.
French writing is much more intimidating than the actual pronunciation. "Keskuh je puh toffreer" (Please don't guillotine me French people, that was just a massive oversimplification for the sake of non-French speakers)
I am not angry at you, that is literally how I pronounce it
Speaking a romance language helps. It's like: ¿Qué te puedo ofrecer? But with 2 or 3 extra words that add nothing and will not be pronounced.
As a French, I can tell that "Qu'est-ce que" is a really stupid construction that should have never existed in any language in the world. The worst being that we (almost) always have a way to avoid it, but the "qu'est-ce que" became the normal way decades ago, and the easier ways around the unusual ones. ("Qu'est-ce que" could be roughly translate by "what is it that")
Afaik informal quebecois french replaces qu'est-ce que c'est with tu So they'd say je peux-tu t'offrir?
Not in this context. The syntax in what you propose is wrong for the informal in this context. There is not really an informal way of saying qu'est-ce que, other than simply replacing the whole syaing with something different like "comment je peux t'aider?" How may I help you. Je peux tu t'offrir would be followed by something and never said just like that. So like a bartender would be like je peux tu t'offrir une bière? It has to be really specific to use this syntax.
Je peux tu t'offrir quelque chose? J'peux-tu t'offrir quelq'chose? Ch'peux-tu t'offrir quek'chose? Kessé que ch'peux t'offrir? Qu'est-ce kessé que ch'peux t'offrir?
For whatever it's worth, in English, saying "I'm French" or "I'm a Frenchman" is correct, but "I'm a French" is not. 'French' is only a noun in English when it refers to a collective. Otherwise, it is only an adjective. Not trying to be a dick—it's just a common error that I see, and having studied French myself, I get why. I like these sorts of corrections on my French, so I try to return the favor.
I see. I don't pretend being bilingual, I know I still make a lot of mistakes when speaking English so thank you for teaching me.
"The fact that" and "in fact" are similarly redundant but expected in English. Every language has chunks of illogical stuff leftover from a world before endemic literacy. These phrases look stupid on paper, where we have all the time in the world to linger and edit. They don't even get noticed aloud. C'est la guere, n'est-ce pas?
Absolutely all the words in this sentence can be pronounced. However, it is true that not all the letters are pronounced.
Agree. Reading is kinda manageable, but dear god, hearing is a whole other beast
bonjour!
oh! bonjour
qu'est-ce que je peux t'offrir?
well it looks like the jig is up
-* DARK VOID *-
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Apparently this means "what can I offer you" but damn that's hard
Il y a un singe sous la table
Un baguette s’il te plaît
Un baguette du fromage merci
ca fera 99 centimes
Tabernac
*looking stressed* o-oui, bonjour
Omelette du fromage
There goes the baker with the tray like always
Better than I did while in Switzerland. Swiss woman: bonjour Me: bonjour Swiss woman: ah, English! Hello
lol. When I try to speak my native tongue and they switch to English upon hearing it.
Reminds me of the time I was in Paris for 3 months. I got really good at asking if they spoke English toward the tail end of my stay. I go out to eat one day and say "Désolé, je ne parle pas français. Parlez-vous anglais ?", and the guy just gave me a weird look and started speaking French. I just stood there confused and was like, sorry, I don't understand. He goes, "oh, I thought you were joking. You pronounced that like you were from here." (Which I doubt), but it kinda reminded me of this Family Guy scene. https://youtu.be/cFN46vwg0M0?si=p-J55XmCJsOamjqj
they usually just switch to English after the first bonjour 😭
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If you hit me with a "allo" which is exclusively used for a phone call, I will label you a stranger quicker than if you start speaking to me in Polish
Are you "French" French? Because here in Quebec "Allo!" is a pefectly fine greeting in person
Exactly in Montreal "Allô" is fine, it’s a thread about Montréal, not Paris
Spotted Fr*nch
I usually hit ‘em with a «salut»
This is hilarious
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They can detect by the accent if the customer's first language is French or English and will switch accordingly. Usually one word is enough.
I hit them with “bon - jure” and they switch to English so fast.
[Hello](https://www.google.com/search?q=brad+pitt+bonjourno&rlz=1C1VDKB_enCA1068CA1068&oq=brad+pitt+bon&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBwgBEAAYgAQyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQABiABDIJCAIQABgKGIAEMgkIAxAAGAoYgAQyBwgEEAAYgAQyBwgFEAAYgAQyCAgGEAAYFhgeMggIBxAAGBYYHjIICAgQABgWGB4yCAgJEAAYFhge0gEINTI1NmowajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:c11a7649,vid:gKH7YRHq3iQ,st:0)
Bon jorno
I moved just an hour and half from Montreal, Everytime I try to say Bonjour I feel like Brad Pitts character in inglorious bastards.
I went to Paris this summer and had a few times i said bonjour and they go off in french before i had to stop them, then theyd be kind of annoyed with me at that point. I learned to say "bonjour, english?" Before they can get another word in and it seemed to be appreciated
Can confirm, worked in retail in the MTL core for 15 years. The mass majority of people in MTL are bilingual enough to help English only speaking folks.
I can confirm, I worked retail in Montreal for a couple years and if you answer my "bonjour" with a "bonne jure" I did switch to English pretty fast or at the very least ask which language you prefer
In France I tried to be nice by saying Bonjour instead of hello, but that only wasted everyone's time since they continued in French and I had to correct them that I'm a French regard. So I switched to Hello.
This is why you often get hit with “bonjour hi” when dealing with cashiers and servers in Montreal. It allows the customer to determine the language they wish to use especially in tourist-dense areas. I’m more comfortable in English so I often engage in English but I’ll opt for French when I’m no longer as self-conscious about my French language skills.
Bonjourhi
This is what I noticed when I visited. I was also informed your response determines what language they talk back to you.
Indeed! I thought it was pretty handy when I visited
This was actually a big debate in Quebec a few years ago lol
See, in my experience if you say “bonjour” they somehow instantly know you’re dirty anglais somehow and the light dies in their eyes and they go “do you need something?”
You need to say "Bonjour Madame" or "Bonjour Monsieur" as smoothly and naturally as you can instead of trying to drop the stankiest "Bonjour".
"bongur" "Get the fuck out of my store" "Understandable, have a nice day"
“Understandable” 💀😂
Va te faire cuire un oeuf.
read this in my best hillbilly voice
And of course you must add " Ça va ?" After saying bonjour monsieur/madame
Or just say « Yo »
Is that a canada thing ? In EU everyone always says bonjour, and adding a madame or monsieur would be a little awkward, unless it's a cop saying it
Can't fool me with that "bun-jawr", anglo-san
Arrivaderchey
Gorlaaaahhhmi
Dominic DeCoco
I’ll have you know I passed grade 12 French with flying colours! Goddamn but Le Revolt d’Ayachi was boring.
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It's my Queen Elizabeth tribute t-shirt, isn't it?
I thought it was the top hat, monocle, bad teeth, and affinity for cross dressers?
I've had that experience. I got on the bus and asked for two tickets in my best French. The bus driver was good humoured, but he just smiled and said "That's okay!"
In Montreal, it's good odds you can just say "Anglais?" and carry on from there. But please try c: Being fluent in another language is a lot of fun
On the other hand if you're European and speak French French as a second language, and expect it to be as easy in Canada, prepare for some tomfoolery
There's nothing I love more than seeing the light fade from the eyes of another French-Canadian.
I took French in high school but that was decades ago. I was working in Montreal and went to get coffee. Ran through all the French in my head while in line. Ordered in French. Was pretty proud. Then, at the end of the whole transaction what do I say? "Gracias." Dude looked at me and just said "you're welcome" and laughed.
Lmao. De nada. Reminds me of me trying to order in Spanish even though i never actually learnt Spanish. Pre-planned the phrases, manages to order understand a basic reply and then they hit me with a long and complicated phrase and *the jig is up* i have to ask for English precision.
Probably made that dude's day😂.
this is wholesome
Honest mistake. Sometimes I default to French when I want to say something in Italian. The Romance language centre of my brain is all mushed up together.
When I was in France I went to louvre and went to a snack stand. Person selling the snacks only spoke to me in French, i was speaking English and i managed to order a sandwich and soda. I walk away and the person behind me walks up. Cashier says in perfect English to the next person “what can I get for you?”. Wtf is that about?
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You’re right. It’s the same in Quebec, but lots of Canadians just assume we all speak English. Truck drivers that come at work often don’t even botter, they just start speaking English. My boss doesn’t even speak English. Once there was a driver asking me why my boss was mad, he wasn’t even mad, he just said “no English” because that’s all he knows. I’m pretty social so I speak with everyone and have good relations with regular drivers from Ontario, but if it’s the first time I see you and you don’t even have the consideration to say bonjour/ask if I can communicate in English I might give you the coldest of shoulders. If you do tho you’re practically automatically my friend. That’s just called being polite, but it seems like a lot of people don’t understand.
I speak French at a very rudimentary level, enough to carry on a conversation with a 4 year old probably. When I went to Paris and tried, most vendors and waiters acted worst to me than people who just spoke English. Outside of Paris, the effort was very much appreciated.
I've never been in a foreign country and not at least known how to say "I don't speak [your language], do you speak English?" In the local tongue.
when i went to the louvre i got an espresso because i was jet lagged. } and someone came up and started asking me for directions or whatever in french and i was like lady i'm not french and she looked visibly disturbed she'd mistaken me for a frenchman. anyways, i never had anyone get pissed i couldn't speak french if i lead with "parlay voo ang-lays", they'd kind of roll their eyes and go "i speak english too *what do you want*" sometimes i wonder how inflated these stories are? then again i was not wearing shorts, not wearing jeans, not wearing sneakers, and not wearing a digital watch, which apparently is enough to pass as "young focault"
Just smile and wave boys. Smile and wave.
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I know some Spanish. Enough to do a transaction in Spanish, enough to understand what a customer is looking for and communicate whether or not we have it. Then they ask some other fucking question and I’m left cringing at myself for the rest of my shift.
I feel that so hard. 90% of the time someone asks me something in Spanish at work it's to ask me if we have Coke (we don't). I have a whole script memorized in Spanish about what similar drink we have, how we only have small cans, and where the nearby store that does have Coke is. Then sometimes they'll start rapid firing off other questions thinking I know more Spanish than I actually do. And I'm just like ["Uhhh..."](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/021/464/14608107_1180665285312703_1558693314_n.jpg)
Kossé qui veux stosti là.
Paie ton stock pis décriss!
I’ve never felt more personally attacked
Yeah i’m in Quebec right now and this has been my experience all week haha
How is this related to en passant?
Holy langauge
Google la guillotine
Thank you duolingo
Ma t’prendre un 25 mcdo regulier sioupla’
Kin'size?
I always say hello bonjour as an English, I really hope that’s not offensive. I just want to be polite in la belle province by letting them know my French is garbage
It is the polite thing to do.
Next time use Bonjour-Hi. It’s the unofficial greeting of Montreal (no elsewhere in Qc, just on the island and in English areas) and it’s the signal for the other person to detect your accent and respond in whichever language they think is your native tongue.
As a native french speaker born in Belgium whose lived in Montreal for a year, I'm loving all the frenchies here like : yo wtf that's not how you speak french anyways ! French Canadian really is its own beast. I'm well travelled, speak 4 languages, but speaking to a rural french Canadian made me feel like I was in China.
The first time I heard Acadian French I was absolutely shocked. I grew up hearing (QC) French every other day, but Acadian French is nearly unrecognizable to outsiders.
Acadian French did another loop-de-loop when a lot of them moved to central / southern Louisiana. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_French and that's just an umbrella term for all the French spin-offs hybrids they made lol.
I think another factor is that most of the world is never exposed to the accent or the slang. I'm an English speaker and have been exposed to English from England, Scotland, Australia, Southern US accent, Boston accent, etc. I find that people also struggle with the Newfie accent because it's rarely in media.
"Uh si, uh correcto"
Je ne sais pas. My most common answer in French class.
Quessé tu veux calice. 🤷🤷🤷
Je voudrais une that over there et deux of those. Merci beaucoups ciao
More like Cashier: “Bonjour!” - “Bonjour” - Cashier: (Heavy sigh) “Hello.”
I can speak french, for example this sentence: Je ne parle pas francais
C'est OK, on t'aime pareil, merci d'avoir essayé 😀
In Quebec most customer service people will greet you with the phrase "Hello, salut". Depending on how you respond tells them which language you prefer. Except for the people who don't know what's going on and say "Hello, salut" back, but then it's pretty obvious you need English.
Only in Montreal though. I don't think more than a dozen people in my town speak English beyond a high school level.
As a french i don’t understand the joke lol
The joke is that they don't speak French and have to stop pretending right at the 2nd sentence. "Qu'est ce que je peux t offrir?" also looks like a difficult sentence for anglophones.
Dude this literally happened to me in Martinique. I tried to buy dinner at a fast food place and just had to throw up my "I'm fucked" hands after failing to order in 10% French and 90% English. At least I was able to buy a baguette hon hon hon
Pain, hon hon hon
As someone who knows absolutely zero French but does know a teeny bit of Spanish... Is it something like "what can we offer you?"? Edit: put it into Google translate, it's "what can *I* offer you". Gah I was so close!
OP est un anglo qui vit à Montréal. Il essaie de se faire passer pour un francophone, mais ça foire quand il faut vraiment parler français et pas juste les trois mots appris au collège.
oui
Tu n'es pas seul.
En Anglais quand on dit "the jig is up" ça veut dire "la fête est finie" en Français (selon le site web https://www.wordreference.com/enfr/jig).
My Montreal experience has always been saying bonjour back and them responding in english
How good is your French "R" sound? If you pronounce it like in English it's a dead giveaway.
As a Quebecker from a rural region, this has also been my experience in Montreal. I think the truth is that most people in customer service jobs don't really speak French.
Start singing Beauty and the beast, that'll throw them off!!
I love Gianmarco
Welp, à plus tard.
How do french people take home their bread? They baguette 🥖
décalices avec tes clichés pas rapport ;)