France: “Please Don’t Do That.”

May 30, 2024 by 54 Comments

From Terrible Maps, “People’s reaction when you try speaking their language”: Facebook, X-Twitter, Reddit. I can’t say they’re wrong; I myself have had exactly that reaction from Russians (“why would you put yourself through this?”). Thanks, Songdog!

Comments

  1. languagehat says
    May 30, 2024 at 5:20 pm

    And I don’t want any malcontent Welshmen complaining that people don’t only speak one language in the UK. All reactions within a nation’s borders are identical, got it?

  2. Y says
    May 30, 2024 at 5:47 pm

    The Asian edition.

  3. languagehat says
    May 30, 2024 at 5:50 pm

    I like “Good luck even getting here.”

  4. drasvi says
    May 30, 2024 at 6:14 pm

    “…I myself have had exactly that reaction from Russians…”

    I suspect it depends on your native language:)

  5. Jen in Edinburgh says
    May 30, 2024 at 6:25 pm

    Someone in the comments suggests that the Celtic fringe should be teal, but I’d go for red myself…

    (Are malcontent Scotswomen allowed?)

  6. languagehat says
    May 30, 2024 at 6:26 pm

    All malcontent Scotspersons are allowed!

  7. Jen in Edinburgh says
    May 30, 2024 at 6:29 pm

    Watch out, DE might sneak in under that rule!

  8. Ook says
    May 30, 2024 at 7:09 pm

    Funny concept. But this is is actually a map of popular Anglo stereotypes of what happens when you try to speak to the foreigners when you’re on holiday in their country.

  9. languagehat says
    May 30, 2024 at 7:14 pm

    Of course it is. It’s Terrible Maps, not a scholarly website.

  10. cuchuflete says
    May 30, 2024 at 9:03 pm

    Is Terrible Maps a secret code for Langwich Logg?

  11. David Eddyshaw says
    May 31, 2024 at 2:33 am

    any malcontent Welshmen

    An impossibility. Famously, we’re all  pretty Zen.

  12. Vanya says
    May 31, 2024 at 4:57 am

    I assume this is the reaction to “when people with a phrasebook at a restaurant try to order in the local language”. Mostly on point, in my experience, although my wife was actually yelled at by a crew member in a McDonalds (of all places) in the middle of Hungary for not speaking Hungarian (I blame Orban). Also, don’t most Spanish just expect everyone speaks Spanish? I suppose less so on the touristy coastal areas Brits and Germans like to frequent.

    I have never gotten the “why would you put yourself through that” reaction from Russians, which I guess I will take as a compliment. I have sometimes gotten the “are you from the Baltics”? reaction, which I don’t take as a compliment.

    Maybe not in Romania as a whole, but people in Bucharest often react to attempts by foreigners to speak Romanian with the “cute, but let’s speak English”, sometimes even bordering on suspicion – “what untoward dark motives could possibly make you want to learn Romanian”? Interestingly if I answer “my mother is Italian so I don’t find Romanian that difficult” people seem to accept that as completely reasonable.

  13. PlasticPaddy says
    May 31, 2024 at 6:26 am

    There are several things which a broad-brush approach does not capture:
    1. Aural tolerance: how well can speakers understand accented/ungrammatical speech?
    2. Exposure: how familiar is the speaker with the accent?
    3. Language attitude: is the speaker trying to acquire/avoid acquiring the interlocutor’s L1?
    4. Openness: how does the speaker feel when being addressed by a stranger who may violate cultural norms, be untrustworthy or stressful?
    5. Language confidence: how comfortable is the speaker with the register the interlocutor is (presumed to be) aiming at?

  14. mollymooly says
    May 31, 2024 at 7:15 am

    OTOH if you answer “my mother is Albanian so I don’t find Romanian that difficult”…

  15. Hans says
    May 31, 2024 at 9:22 am

    I have sometimes gotten the “are you from the Baltics”? reaction, which I don’t take as a compliment.
    Back in theearly 90s, that was the usual reaction a German who spoke Russian reasonably well would get – even if your lexicon and grammar were good, your accent would give away that you weren’t native, and the Baltics accent sounded close. I even know Germans who claimed they were from the Baltics when asked where they came from, in order not to be fleeced as rich Westerners by e.g. taxi drivers. At that time at least, the Russian stereotype of people from the Baltics was “a bit dour, but reliable and orderly”, and generally positive. I guess that may now have changed with the geopolitical situation.

  16. David Eddyshaw says
    May 31, 2024 at 9:44 am

    Hausa speakers will reply in Hausa if you address them in Hausa (no matter how bad.) Nobody will comment on the fact that you can speak Hausa: people just do speak Hausa, after all.

    On the other hand, I had several variants of this conversation (in Kusaal throughout):

    Me: Well, my good man, what appears to be the trouble?
    Patient: [blank incomprehension]
    Nurse: He’s speaking Kusaal.
    Patient. Oh. I understand! Well, it’s like this, Doctor …

  17. Dmitry Pruss says
    May 31, 2024 at 9:51 am

    Apropos “are you from the Baltics”, I know people who got the same response. It boils down to the imperial nature of the xUSSR where most people were “from somewhere” and were stereotyped on this basis daily, and therefore assigning an ethno-regional category to one’s new contact was perceived as one of the most important things at the beginning of a conversation. Nothing particularly worrisome about a stereotyped Baltic person though … maybe boring / mental / emotionally reserved but also reliable and safe, which probably comes close to stereotypes about Scandinavians as well.

  18. languagehat says
    May 31, 2024 at 9:57 am

    I wonder if there was a faint residual memory of the class of Baltic Germans, very prominent in imperial Russia?

  19. Dmitry Pruss says
    May 31, 2024 at 10:07 am

    I don’t think so. The Baltic Germans weren’t even known in Russia under that name. They were остзейские немцы instead. And stereotypical impressions about people are probably primarily impacted by one’s personal experiences, not by obscure references in the books of great-grandparents’ times? Case in point, Dostoyevsky wrote more than a thing or two about Poles but there was no extant stereotypes about Poles in our days.

  20. languagehat says
    May 31, 2024 at 10:09 am

    And stereotypical impressions about people are probably primarily impacted by one’s personal experiences

    I disagree — they are primarily from the general culture. You only have to think about anti-Semitism to realize this.

  21. languagehat says
    May 31, 2024 at 10:10 am

    And lots of memories of pre-Revolution culture survived long into Soviet times thanks to grandparents and teachers passing on traditions.

  22. Stu Clayton says
    May 31, 2024 at 10:21 am

    The past seems like a foreign country, but things were done there exactly as we do and should be doing them. Our grandparents and teachers tell us so. They were eye witnesses, after all – or, in the case of teachers, have read the eye witness accounts.

    It occurs to me that the “history has stopped” technique of 1984 is merely the scary version for kids. All the “alternative history” narratives that people play around with, and the freely-combined narratives that we can expect AI to dream up, will overwhelm conventional attempts to deal seriously with history. It’s not authoritarian, goal-directed rewriting of history that we must fear, but rather a flooding of the market due to price dumping. Or rather free gifts. It costs nothing to “generate” a narrative.

  23. Dmitry Pruss says
    May 31, 2024 at 10:54 am

    Sure, there are grandparents’ tales and general cultural influences, but I suspect that it’s also true that each generation’s stereotypes and perceptions vary in a way which is influenced by the interactions and experiences specific to the new generation, and it includes interpersonal communications. Even Russia’s ages-old antisemitism seems to have faded to a significant extent with the disappearance of the actual Jewish people from there. But the strongest cultural tenets persist longer, no question about that.
    My point was much more specific, that there was no strong, persistent stereotyping of the Ostsee Germans in Russia for quite a few generations, and that it was probably aided by their utter disappearance from the scene.

  24. Stu Clayton says
    May 31, 2024 at 11:08 am

    Even Russia’s ages-old antisemitism seems to have faded to a significant extent with the disappearance of the actual Jewish people from there.

    A praiseworthy thing for damning reasons ? I wonder whether misogyny would abate if actual women went somewhere else. Or would there merely be less occasion for indulging in it ?

    I’ve always maintained that the modern “tolerance” of homosexuals is not to be trusted without reservations, because such tolerance fashions come and go. It seems I was right about that.

  25. Stu Clayton says
    May 31, 2024 at 11:30 am

    If the disappearance of the actual Jewish people from Russia led to a fading of anti-semitism there, we have a fascinating hint of a causal relationship. I would modestly propose to move homosexuals to another planet for 100 years, until homophobia on the Earth had died out. Then they could move back and all would be harmony.

    There must be sci-fi novels with a similar plot-line.

  26. languagehat says
    May 31, 2024 at 11:30 am

    Yes, we’ve all been taught bitter lessons of that kind lately.

  27. David Eddyshaw says
    May 31, 2024 at 11:30 am

    Indeed: La lutte continue.

    It is integral to the working of fascism that there must be minorities to hate (any minority will do.)

    Therefore, the problem will continue until either

    (a) there are no more fascists

    or

    (b) homosexuals are a majority.

    [Proust represents the Baron de Charlus as believing (b), and the Baron does seem to have dedicated considerable time and resources to researching the question. Experto crede.
    However, achieving (a), either alone or as well, would also provide a number of other benefits which should not be lightly tossed aside.]

  28. Stu Clayton says
    May 31, 2024 at 11:38 am

    (b) homosexuals are a majority.

    Not such a good idea. A majority of heteros is needed to restock the meat market on a running basis.

    The Baron apparently believed that electricity is available from wall sockets, so there’s no need to think about where it comes from.

    (a) there are no more fascists

    Fascists are not available from wall sockets, but there is still need to think about where they come from.

  29. David Eddyshaw says
    May 31, 2024 at 11:54 am

    A majority of heteros is needed

    We all have our part to play.

    Fascists are not available from wall sockets, but there is still need to think about where they come from.

    Mark E Smith addressed this question, but I read his musings as aporetic.

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=7mH076DeT_Q

  30. languagehat says
    May 31, 2024 at 12:10 pm

    Have you heard it on the news

  31. Stu Clayton says
    May 31, 2024 at 12:11 pm

    Surely this can all be amicably arranged by market means, on the principle of supply and demand. If the people factory workers consider us to be a drain on reproductive ressources, they could just produce more to correct stocks. When demand slackens, the number of kids can be reduced. When supplies become critically low, we can resort to vibrators and Bette Davis movies.

  32. David Eddyshaw says
    May 31, 2024 at 12:18 pm

    we can resort to vibrators and Bette Davis movies

    Oh, the humanity!

  33. Stu Clayton says
    May 31, 2024 at 12:32 pm

    reproductive ressources

    German kicking in there out of turn. Ressource with two esses. Adresse with one dee. Präsumtion internally pee-less.

  34. J.W. Brewer says
    May 31, 2024 at 1:15 pm

    It has been observed that the Putin regime’s episodic campaigns against the Homosexual Menace (a fifth column for the decadent and Godless West …) bear a certain family resemblance to the traditional political use of anti-Semitism by authoritarian regimes in the more easterly parts of Europe (and not just there). But Russia is not so completely denuded of actual Jews that the Putin regime couldn’t use the traditional anti-Semitism playbook if it wanted to and as various unsavory nationalist politicians in other parts of the former Soviet bloc have done in post-Soviet times. Rather, the most plausible answer seems to be that for whatever reasons Putin personally does not care very much for anti-Semitism, to a degree that is historically unusual for a Muscovite strongman, and thus prefers not to make use of it if there’s something else that will do the job. And indeed he has invested some energy over the years to squelching excessive anti-Semitism among free-lance Russian nationalist groups that are part of his natural political coalition. This gives him certain concrete benefits (good relations with ethnically-Jewish oligarchs who are good for the Russian economy and can be induced to be supportive of the regime or at least politically silent; support or at least comparatively muted criticism from some significant segments of the post-Soviet diaspora; the ability to try to score debating points by harping on the unfortunate historical associations of prior generations of Ukrainian nationalists with undoubted anti-Semites) but is still the sort of thing that’s odd when you think about it against a generic model of Thuggish Strongman Ruler in that part of the world. Which many apparently do not do because it requires thinking about something complex rather than just a cartoon villain. I’ve read that some Jews still in Russia (or in recent diaspora) have their own pet theories about why this should be, some of which sound like fanciful Just So stories.

  35. Dmitry Pruss says
    May 31, 2024 at 1:45 pm

    My hunch is that with the Great Patriotic War Victory and its proclaimed remix becoming the centerpieces of Russian state ideology, maligning Ukraine and the West as the reincarnation of the Nazis (and Putin as a Stalin wannabe), it’s become ideologically difficult to make greater use of the traditional anti-Semitism. Difficult doesn’t mean impossible. Attacking LGBT, the Nazis’ other major target, raises no eyebrows, to give you just one example. But it’s also true that Israel tries its best not to affront Putin /not to lend support to Ukraine, and Jewish religious leaders in Russia support the regime, which probably makes embracing antisemitism as a traditional value even less appealing at the moment. Who knows how it might change…

    A resource I volunteer at, Jewish Roots ( forum.j-roots.info ) is actually already blocked in Russia, perhaps just because it’s an uncontrolled grassroots thing, perhaps because it may help young males escape conscription, or perhaps because of the simmering distrust to the Jewish activities below the crust of the official ideology…

  36. David Marjanović says
    May 31, 2024 at 4:32 pm

    I have sometimes gotten the “are you from the Baltics”? reaction, which I don’t take as a compliment.

    It does mean you don’t have an English or German accent.

    Interestingly if I answer “my mother is Italian so I don’t find Romanian that difficult” people seem to accept that as completely reasonable.

    I’ve been told by Romanians that the foreign language they find easiest to learn is Italian, and I can actually believe it. Even easier to believe is that that’s a widespread stereotype in Romania after 150 years of concerted efforts to put the Roma back into România.

    Hausa speakers will reply in Hausa if you address them in Hausa (no matter how bad.) Nobody will comment on the fact that you can speak Hausa: people just do speak Hausa, after all.

    That reminds me of my experience in Beijing (in 2006, so before the Olympics). I wasn’t able to say much, but what I did say never triggered any surprise. Keep in mind that not only can’t I pass for a local, I literally look like a ghost (red hair, green eyes, gleaming in strong sunlight).

    A majority of heteros is needed to restock the meat market on a running basis.

    Oh, it’s actually enough if they’re bisexual.

    …as most people in fact are, in the sense that almost nobody is 0 or 6 on the Kinsey scale. (I’ve even encountered denials that these values exist at all; they both do. They’re just rare.)

    Ressource with two esses.

    So far. Some 25 years ago, the word began to be re-sourced from French to English, and even to be pronounced accordingly.

    Journalist has begun to undergo the same process.

    Präsumtion

    I didn’t even know that word. It must be a technical term of philosophy.

    as various unsavory nationalist politicians in other parts of the former Soviet bloc have done in post-Soviet times

    Well, in Hungary, it is feasible to blame Soros for everything because he funded that one university. Orbán needs all the scapegoats he can find, so he’s been doing that. I’m not aware of anything like that from Fico or Duda.

  37. J.W. Brewer says
    May 31, 2024 at 5:10 pm

    @David M.: In the Hungarian context as an example consider e.g. Jobbik rather than more moderate-in-context figures like Orban. I didn’t mean to limit myself to unsavory nationalist politicians who actually currently govern nation-states although maybe I should have made that clearer. Slovakia has various political factions which have or have had in the recent past parliamentary representation that likewise make Fico seem boringly centrist/establishment. And then there’s often a quite diverse array of ballot options in Romania, etc. etc.

    On the other hand it is said to be the case that the so-called Kotlebist faction in Slovak politics has over time played down anti-Semitism and instead played up anti-ziganism, to use a high-falutin’ word, which perhaps is indeed driven by the fact that the paucity of Jews compared to Roma in present-day Slovakia makes the latter a more useful way to gather support.

  38. Stu Clayton says
    June 1, 2024 at 8:24 am

    Präsumtion
    I didn’t even know that word. It must be a technical term of philosophy.

    It’s a general bildungssprachliches word, along with the adjectival form präsumtiv, often found in legal phrasing: Präsumtion der Unschuld, präsumtiver Nachfolger. Also in diagnostic contexts: Zoonosen-Monitoring des BVL 2021 – präsumtive Bacillus cereus in Salat in Fertigpackungen.

    The English is “presumption” and “presumptive”. The only difference is that the German words are internally pee-less.

  39. Stu Clayton says
    June 1, 2024 at 8:36 am

    almost nobody is 0 or 6 on the Kinsey scale

    Ecce homo ! I grew up with black and white. I still don’t trust those color CVs. Insufficient resolution.

    The only statistic that counts with me is the coupling moment. Or rather counted, since now all the data has been collected and archived.

  40. David Eddyshaw says
    June 1, 2024 at 9:53 am

    I appear to score nul points on the Scale myself. I may appeal, however.

  41. jack morava says
    June 1, 2024 at 10:09 am

    My sort-of-Italianate wife (who learned Russian at Columbia) speaks it well enough to be mistaken for a Georgian…

  42. Stu Clayton says
    June 1, 2024 at 10:58 am

    I appear to score nul points on the Scale myself. I may appeal, however.

    You already do ! If I may say so, you have the appeal that the world expects from a mature ophthalmologist. Any bushiness of the eyebrows can be corrected, just like the eyes themselves.

  43. David Eddyshaw says
    June 1, 2024 at 11:41 am

    Thanks, Stu. I appreciate it.

  44. David Marjanović says
    June 1, 2024 at 12:31 pm

    Präsumtion der Unschuld

    Huh. I’ve only ever encountered Unschuldsvermutung (usually preceded by Es gilt die).

  45. Lars Mathiesen (he/him/his) says
    June 1, 2024 at 1:54 pm

    I always heard that as nil points back when they read all the scores. But then, French is probably the lessest of my languages (is that a word?) (This year, FYI if you somehow missed the unmissable drama that is ESC voting, they only let the foreign person say who gets 12 points from that country)

  46. Stu Clayton says
    June 4, 2024 at 1:38 pm

    But then, French is probably the lessest of my languages (is that a word?)

    Leastest.

  47. languagehat says
    June 4, 2024 at 1:42 pm

    Most least.

  48. Stu Clayton says
    June 4, 2024 at 1:48 pm

    Two words for the price of one ! An offer you can hardly refuse.

  49. mollymooly says
    June 4, 2024 at 5:50 pm

    Oxford/Lexico has nul points pronounced /ˌnjuːl ˈpwã/. I would say /ˌnʊl ˈpwã/. Which sounds closer to French depends on the English and French accents in question.

    Having “nil” makes no sense if you’ve Frenchified “points”. Of course “nul” also makes no sense, but in a funny way.

  50. AntC says
    June 5, 2024 at 12:58 am

    Of course “nul” also makes no sense, but in a funny way.

    Yes that’s my memory. Brits in Eurovision seem to make something of a speciality of scoring /ˌnʊl ˈpwã/. You could blame Brexit and/or Nigel Farage, but one time was 2003.

  51. Lars Mathiesen (he/him/his) says
    June 5, 2024 at 1:07 am

    Well, that’s probably why I never realized it was nul: Very few of the national presenters actually said it in a way that matched the pronunciation that I’d expect with my single year of school French. Also it was often over suboptimal phone lines. So without ever looking it up, I assumed it was nil. What should it be in idiomatic French?

    (I seem to remember that the host nations have usually been able to find one host with non-embarrassing French, but they didn’t repeat the point counts back).

  52. David Marjanović says
    June 5, 2024 at 9:08 am

    Aucun point ? Zéro points ?

    Definitely not *nil, though; that would be pour les nuls.

  53. mollymooly says
    June 5, 2024 at 3:10 pm

    Point de points

    Wikipedia:

    Grammatical French for “no points” is pas de points, zéro point or aucun point, but none of these phrases are used in the contest. Before the voting overhaul in 2016, no-point scores were not announced by the presenters. Following the change in the voting system, a country receiving no points from the public televote is simply announced as receiving “zero points”.

  54. David Marjanović says
    June 5, 2024 at 3:28 pm

    Point de points

    FTW.

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