[bolaft]

I'm getting tired of hearing always the same uninformed comments about the French language and how the French perceive it. We're not very good with English because of the terribly inefficient way it's taught in school, not because of any kind of "phobia". A Frenchman speaks on average 1.8 languages, which is slightly less than Germans (and much less than Swedes and Norwegians), but still more than Spaniards and Britons for example.

And French is not a "mere curiosity". It's the official language of 29 independent countries. It's also the second most employed language in diplomacy, being a working language of countless institutions, and the second most common mother-tongue in the EU. Not to mention that with the growing alphabetization of Africa, and its potential for economic and developmental growth, it could very well know a powerful rebirth in the near future.

It's true that French is not the easiest language to learn though, but if you don't find it very pretty that's your opinion, however it's really subjective.

[saiya-jin]

Yeah dude, I live in Geneva for last 5 years, which is probably more full of french people rather than native Swiss. And let me tell you, I see this phobia daily, by people speaking often moderately well english, but having extremely hard time convincing to speak in it, in any possible way. If I go to France, same effect becomes 5x more obvious (of course this is anecdotal measurement). Every single person I've spoken to says same. I mean, every single person. Also those who spent years living/studying in France (Paris, Lyon).

It doesn't matter how crappy your school english was (btw why do I keep hearing this excuse all the time?), in very few places it's stellar (neither was mine at home). We all sound a bit funny. So what? What makes difference between French and rest of the world is that any guy will try to speak English, even broken one, and will try to help anybody speaking it (ie in his own country). With English in France, story is consistently different.

Yeah, just 5 years of daily experience, only only mine and all expats I know (this is always a funny topic to talk about). Who knows, I could get it all wrong :)