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To: Tailback

The difference is Americans will help a foreign visitor with words or pronunciation.

In France, waitresses and shop keepers will often pretend not to understand unless your pronunciation is exact. However, I did have a non-English speaking driver that helped me immensely learning pronunciation for a speech. Many (business people) do understand English.


115 posted on 04/19/2015 12:20:20 PM PDT by ADSUM
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To: ADSUM

117 posted on 04/19/2015 12:27:35 PM PDT by dfwgator
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To: ADSUM

The Germans will do that also. To their credit, most Germans are happy when you make an attempt to speak their language. I remember the information booth girl at Frankfurt Airport. I was asking for the train to Nuremberg (American pronunciation) and she gave me directions to the U-Bahn to catch the train to Nurnberg (German pronunciations). I repeated back “OK Nurnberg” (German pronunciation) and she did a little head tilt and got a little smile on her face.

Parisiennes? Not so much. The French out in the country from what I’ve heard are cool. They hate Parisiennes like most rural Americans hate people from New York city. Upstate New Yorkers are awesome BTW.


119 posted on 04/19/2015 12:31:10 PM PDT by Tailback
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