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From: suze@terak.UUCP (Suzanne Barnett)
Newsgroups: net.travel
Subject: Re: Re: paris, france
Message-ID: <917@terak.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 20-Nov-85 11:44:22 EST
Article-I.D.: terak.917
Posted: Wed Nov 20 11:44:22 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Nov-85 05:49:16 EST
References: <874@ihlpa.UUCP> <876@terak.UUCP> <242@agrigene.UUCP>
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Organization: Calcomp Display Products Division, Scottsdale, AZ, USA
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> > > and if you didn't speak
> > > french (fluently) they wouldn't give you the time of day.
> > > Should i also expect this in paris (if not more so?).
> > More so. Outside of Paris (far outside, not suburbs) waiters
> > are friendlier and more willing to acknowledge languages other
> > than French. I wasn't impressed by food or restaurants in
> > Paris, but in other parts of France the food is superb.
> 
> But remember, we're talking about a foreign country.  Don't assume
> they will know English or have menus printed in English.  (How many
Between us we speak English, Italian, German and Spanish.
The problem wasn't that they didn't understand other
languages, but their attitude. As soon as they realized we
were not French, the waiters became very snotty. We didn't
expect to see English on the menus. In general we could read
the menus okay. Our pronounciation was poor, bnut since we
pointed out the items as we said them, it shouldn't have been
hard to understand what we wanted. Apparently it wasn't,
because we never got something we hadn't ordered. The problem
was getting waited on at all, and in a couple of cases, getting our
food once the order was given to the waiter or waitress.

> US resteraunts, even in big cities, can handle non-Engish speaking
> tourists?  And in 4 different languages?  France is surrounded by
> countries that speak other languages than English - e.g. Spanish,
> Italian, & German.)  If you are going for a visit and have enough
> time, take a class in the language.  If you will be visiting several
We lived in Germany; we went to Paris for the weekend. I'm
dardned if I'm going to learn a language for a weekend trip.
(That doesn't mean there aren't a lot of other good reasons
for learning a language, or that if the visit will be considerably
longer it isn't a good idea.)

> Don't rely on a phrase book, as pronounciations of words can be VERY
> different in different languages.  (E.g. in French there are many
> letters that just aren't pronounced and the rules can vary depending
> on the part of speach!)
I disagree. For short trips a phrase book is excellant because
it gives you the correct phrases for common things you are
likely to want to say. Most of them have information on how to
pronounce the various words. Anywhere except Paris I've had no
problem learning new words or pronounciations, my willingness
to learn seemed to favourably dispose the natives to help.
-- 
**************************************************************
Suzanne Barnett-Scott

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