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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   2464 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 14, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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I've only been to France a couple of times for work, and of course IT professionals all spoke very decent English, but from the people in service (waiters, ticket clerks, etc.) it was very much hit or miss. Some spoke absolutely zero English and basically refused any attempt to bridging the language gap. Once I had to use ticket machine instead of the ticket booth because the clerk refused to understand anything (which is kinda weird in a railway station - they must have significant tourist traffic there) and once I had to go to another restaurant because they didn't have any non-French menu and refused any attempt to discuss the order in English (it was before Google Translate time of course). It wasn't too bad in general, I found my way around to food and transport fine eventually, but I got the impression that some people in France definitely don't want anything to do with English. In Germany I had an opposite experience - we once got lost on a train station and asked some German ladies (in English) about it and they gave us super-detailed explanations and refused to part with us until making sure we made to our train, and their English wasn't that great (better than my German for sure!) but they were extremely enthusiastic about using it. We felt a bit uncomfortable that we took much more of their time than we planned to.

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