A Pittsburgher in Paris: Parlez-vous Francais?

As we prepared for our trip to Paris we heard all kinds of warnings about The French People.

The French have a reputation for being unfriendly and in some cases downright hostile, especially towards tiresome American tourists. Well, we couldn’t promise that we wouldn’t be tiresome tourists, but we certainly didn’t have to dress like tiresome tourists.  After reading up on the acceptable dress of the country, we headed to the airport armed with our dark clothing and colorful scarves, and left our Steeler shirts and flip-flops behind.  

As it turns out, when interaction was necessary the people of Paris were actually very friendly.  When it was not they left you alone. They don’t chat with strangers, share personal details of their lives or ask you questions about your life unless they’re a pickpocket or a tour guide.  I presume everyday Parisians don’t really care about strangers’ lives.  Unlike New Yorkers who walk down the street looking angry, Parisians walk down the street looking bored.   

This is just exactly the way I want people to act!  I don’t care about strangers’ lives either. It made me want to move to Paris, language barriers be damned, or at least send some of the people at the gym there for a field trip so they could learn how not to talk to strangers.

Rumor also had it that the French expect you to attempt to speak French when you are in their country. I know, the nerve of these people, right?  If you give it the old college try, they will then be happy to speak to you in English.

I don’t want to brag, but I studied French in school for 13 consecutive years without ever mastering the language or even figuring out verb tenses, and I had forgotten everything I had learned in the many years since graduation. I brushed up courtesy of Duolingo which was surprisingly no more helpful than those four semesters of college French classes in teaching me the language.

As it turns out, we managed to communicate well enough while we were there.   We mastered some key words and phrases. Bonjour (hello).  Au revoir (good-bye).  S’il vous plait (please).  Merci (thank you).  Ou est la toilette? (where is the bathroom?)  You know, the important stuff. 

Perhaps the most useful question was one posed by Mr. Rip to two policemen in Montmartre after we wandered down the streets from Sacre Coeur after a walking tour trying to find our way back to the Moulin Rouge where the tour began. “Ou sommes nous?”  (“Where are we?”), he asked.

The policemen look puzzled even though it was a simple enough question delivered in flawless French. Finally, they used their crackerjack detective skills to assess the situation and pointed down the street and said, simply, “Moulin Rouge.”  I guess that’s where all the Montmartre walking tours start.

Mr. Rip was more adventurous than I was in using the language.  One night at dinner, he asked the waiter a question in French about one of the menu items.  The waiter responded to his question in fluent French.   We don’t really understand fluent French spoken by a native.  After that, Mr. Rip added the French phrase for “I am going to ask you a question in French but I will not understand your response” to his repertoire.

As it turned out, not only did French people speak to us in English after we said “Bonjour!” in our glaringly American accents, sometimes they just greeted us in English before we had a chance to speak because somehow they knew at first glance we were Americans.  We probably didn’t look bored enough to be French.