Please note , this is in no way a racist topic against the french, but more of an understanding into their nature

having been here in Thailand for 6 years now, and encountering many different racists and ethnic groups, why do the French always stand out?

working within the tourist trade, i see so many different nationalities whom ALL speak English, but when it comes to the French, they only speak French ! ,

why is this? , when i see them speak to me or my staff, they always speak in French, as they do not know Thai or English, how are they able to holiday here if they can’t understand the 2 widely spoken languages in Thailand?

even the ones that can speak a bit of English seem to only want to speak in French !, they even email the company in French , when no other nationality does this ( it’s always English )

one French man i encounter yesterday ( who spoke only a tiny bit of English ) said he was never taught English at school?

it just amazes me , but maybe there is some French members who could explain this ( and yes i have asked to two French people i know that live here, and do speak English but they blame it on French nationalism as neither of their parents can speak English to )

I love it when a woman speaks French or with a French accent.

Dunno, the Japanese are worse when it comes to speaking English or even understanding it. Russians are pretty bad too.

Perhaps its not a french thing after all

Let's make sure this doesn't deteriorate into a French bashing thread.

France, and the French language, was, in the not too distant past, a major world power. The French language is widely spoken world-wide. One need go no further than Canada to experience this. Parts of South America, the Caribbean and Africa speak French. France is a large and major country in Europe and dominant force on the continent. Neighboring countries are French speaking.

Most people don't speak another language (at least functionally) unless they have to. The French haven't had to. At least until they ran into the OP!

Dunno, the Japanese are worse when it comes to speaking English or even understanding it. Russians are pretty bad too.

Perhaps its not a french thing after all

With the Russians I've seen around here the women handle the communication.

A couple weeks ago I was with an English friend in Tesco. A French family came up and the wife wanted to ask about a memory card for her camera. She asked - in French - if we spoke French. I replied "no" in my best French accent (which is basically non-existent). She then began to speak to us in French. After some hand gestures and a familiar word here and there we worked it out.

Let's make sure this doesn't deteriorate into a French bashing thread.

France, and the French language, was, in the not too distant past, a major world power. The French language is widely spoken world-wide. One need go no further than Canada to experience this. Parts of South America, the Caribbean and Africa speak French. France is a large and major country in Europe and dominant force on the continent. Neighboring countries are French speaking.

Most people don't speak another language (at least functionally) unless they have to. The French haven't had to. At least until they ran into the OP!

seems a good point and reply scott..

couldnt help but think of this clip

Many years ago I was driving with a friend from London to Italy.

Our car was rented in France.

We pulled up at a filling station and asked, in French, for fuel. The guy did not understand, would not understand.

My friend turned to me and said, in German, that we'd better try the next tanker.

The filling station attendant was immediately most apologetic, saying that he had thought we were English and did not want to serve us, but, now he saw we were German he would of course fill the tank.

We drove off.

We never stopped in France longer than necessary, although since then I have worked for Dumez, Campenon Bernard, SGE and Saunier Duval. It's a mutual hate-relationship that we both understand and use when it suits us.

Let's make sure this doesn't deteriorate into a French bashing thread.

France, and the French language, was, in the not too distant past, a major world power. The French language is widely spoken world-wide. One need go no further than Canada to experience this. Parts of South America, the Caribbean and Africa speak French. France is a large and major country in Europe and dominant force on the continent. Neighboring countries are French speaking.

Most people don't speak another language (at least functionally) unless they have to. The French haven't had to. At least until they ran into the OP!

Yes, at one time in our history, French was considered one of the principle lingua franca as a universal diplomatic conduit. But so was Arabic, Malay, and Mandarin.

The French.... God bless them... make it so nice to be English. Nobody else (other than the English and the French) could be quite so arrogant.

Interesting to consciously segregate the French in a comparative Western-cultural proposal of character.

Quite frankly, I'd be truly hard-pressed to find any difference between the major Euro-groups and their supposed qualities.

French, Americans, Germans, Brits, Aussies, Norwegians, etc - in content of how we perceive one another in Asia, it's pretty much the same......there might not be any higher culture of arrogance, disconnections, and ignorance than the Anglo-American {aka English-speaking cultures} world.

Dunno, the Japanese are worse when it comes to speaking English or even understanding it. Russians are pretty bad too.

Perhaps its not a french thing after all

Perceptions, perhaps.

Interesting to consciously segregate the French in a comparative Western-cultural proposal of character.

Quite frankly, I'd be truly hard-pressed to find any difference between the major Euro-groups and their supposed qualities.

French, Americans, Germans, Brits, Aussies, Norwegians, etc - in content of how we perceive one another in Asia, it's pretty much the same......there might not be any higher culture of arrogance, disconnections, and ignorance than the Anglo-American {aka English-speaking cultures} world.

If you can't 'consciously segregate the French', zzaa, I wonder that you have anything to say on this thread. And just what has 'how we perceive each other in Asia' got to do with anything?

I went to Paris once, once was enough.

The girl I was with could speak a bit of French and tried her best. We were in a queue to buy some tickets for something one day and for some reason the (seemingly) French guy in front of us was speaking to the girl behind the counter in English. When it came to our turn, she pretended to be unable to speak English even though we clearly heard her speaking it just moments before-hand.

So then the girl I was with tried French. Although not perfect, even I could understand what she was saying. But alas the (French) girl behind the counter then decided she couldn't understand French either. I've tried to think what we might have done to offend, but always come up with nothing. Perhaps our mistake was in being English.

It was not an isolated incident, we were treated so rudely throughout our stay that we left Paris and returned back to the UK early.

I happen to know some French guys in Bangkok and they are good guys. Great sense of humour and can give as good as they take (being French, they get a lot of banter flying their way). Oh, and their English is great. I told them about my experience in Paris and they told me that Parisians are disliked for their arrogance throughout their own country.

In my experience, which I admit is limited, it is not an inability to speak English. Rather, it is an unwillingness to do so.

Many of the smaller European countries really don't have much choice but to learn a second or third language. Communication would be very limited without English, French and German for many Europeans.

As far as the Japanese are concerned, I don't run into a lot of them, but the ones I have met/worked with seem to struggle with English. They usually understand well, but have trouble speaking. The Japanese, like the Thais, (and many others, especially in Asia) suffer from 'linguistic distance' from English. Everything from the forms of writing and alphabets, to the grammar are not even remotely close to English. This makes learning English or another European language more difficult.

There are differences in the educational systems for teaching languages as well.

French is not all that linguistically distant from English, but they have been able to get along without using English for quite a while. Japanese are similar. They have their own culture, movies and television shows. They are an island nation, somewhat isolated and I would guess that exposure to English is limited.

I have no excuse for the Russians off the top of my head. Maybe the recipe for making Vodka is written in Russian!

The Japanese, like the Thais, (and many others, especially in Asia) suffer from 'linguistic distance' from English.

i always find the Thai's to be very adapted to English, never been into a 7-11 where they dont speak english

I have no excuse for the Russians off the top of my head. Maybe the recipe for making Vodka is written in Russian!

Russia was also an empire. The USSR had something like 120 ethnic groups across maybe 12 time zones and all had to speak Russian. As most here remember, during Soviet times travel to other countries was practically forbidden and not many tourists who made it to the USSR were allowed to wander off the approved path. Of course the Cyrillic alphabet is very different from ours as well.

The Japanese, like the Thais, (and many others, especially in Asia) suffer from 'linguistic distance' from English.

i always find the Thai's to be very adapted to English, never been into a 7-11 where they dont speak english

Except for the odd seven outside of the broader BKK metro.

never been into a 7-11 where they dont speak english

I don't recall a 7-11 where they do speak English

Koheesti: Thanks. You articulated it much better than I could have, but the same principles apply.

As an elderly French priest said to me many years ago, Les sujets de sa majeste Brittanique, quand ils sont en France, doivent(?) parler Francais.

Pardon my French.

Of course the Cyrillic alphabet is very different from ours as well.

The Cyrillic version of morse code is a nightmare.

Koheesti: Thanks. You articulated it much better than I could have, but the same principles apply.

The Russians learn and speak German. Who says English must be number one?

Just a few years ago French and Russian were the languages useful for a trip through Laos. French spoken by the older generation and Russian by the kids.

I made also my observation about how tourists talk with locals.

Most people here don't understand much English. They just pretend to do so and act as good listeners. So it doesn't matter much if the Tourist talks French or any other language all the time. The Tourists want always the same and Thais are good at guessing it.

Of course the Cyrillic alphabet is very different from ours as well.

The Cyrillic version of morse code is a nightmare.

French morse code:

Le dot le dot le dot.

Le dash le dash le dash

I disagree with most of the esteemed members' visions and I suppose most of the same members don't speak any French.

France is #1 Inbound Tourism country in the world with some 80 million* tourists on a yearly basis and I dare to say that most of those tourists do NOT speak any French, yet they like this beautiful country, it's cities, people, cuisine, castles and history, otherwise France wouldn't be the #1 inbound tourist country in the world since many years.

SO: how are 80 million tourists communicating in France ? You tell me.

I think the OP's tourists from France he's meeting/seeing/dealing with in Thailand is not of the most educated kind since many educated French do speak English.

Note: maybe this answer some questions:

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

According to a survey, conducted by French market research institute IFOP for the weekly newspaper Dimanche Ouest France, 34 percent of French adults said they did not speak English. That means 66 percent spoke at least some English.

Twelve percent said they were fluent in English, six percent said they understood and spoke it well, and 48 percent said they " more or less" understood English but did not speak it fluently.

You will find that almost everyone in the hospitality industry (hotel clerks, waiters, etc) speaks enough English to do their job.

From: http://answers.yahoo...06212218AAbXBjN

LaoPo

Dunno, the Japanese are worse when it comes to speaking English or even understanding it. Russians are pretty bad too.

Perhaps its not a french thing after all

Perceptions, perhaps.

Mmm, yes perceptions gleaned from more than 20 years in the tourist industry in Thailand.

Actually, my disagreement was with Boater's idea that the French are somehow unique in that they don't speak much English, as in my experience dealing with tourists, many other nationalities do not either. Thought that was clear from my post but perhaps I was too succinct and it slipped past some.

Of course the Cyrillic alphabet is very different from ours as well.

The Cyrillic version of morse code is a nightmare.

French morse code:

Le dot le dot le dot.

Le dash le dash le dash

Russian morse code:

Dotski dotski dotski

Dashski dashski dahski

The French.... God bless them... make it so nice to be English. Nobody else (other than the English and the French) could be quite so arrogant.

You've not worked in Q8 (Kuwait) then?

Of course the Cyrillic alphabet is very different from ours as well.

The Cyrillic version of morse code is a nightmare.

French morse code:

Le dot le dot le dot.

Le dash le dash le dash

I disagree with most of the esteemed members' visions and I suppose most of the same members don't speak any French.

France is #1 Inbound Tourism country in the world with some 80 million* tourists on a yearly basis and I dare to say that most of those tourists do NOT speak any French, yet they like this beautiful country, it's cities, people, cuisine, castles and history, otherwise France wouldn't be the #1 inbound tourist country in the world since many years.

SO: how are 80 million tourists communicating in France ? You tell me.

I'm willing to bet that those numbers rely heavily on transit tourism or stopping over for a night on the way to somewhere else IOW - Northern Europeans travelling south to Spain, Italy, etc, and Southern Europeans (and Africans) travelling through to the UK. The Germans tend to spend more time in France and overstay their welcome.