Uh oh, I better go hide in the corner. You probably will not like me.
I used to be able to speak decent English.
I do like you !
I was talking about French people, not people in French speaking countries. The latter kind speak a much better French than French people, because the French went downhill only recently, like 15 years ago when mobile phones/text messages, and cheap broadband internet became wide spread and forums became plentiful.
French speaking countries are geographically and culturally independent from France. Their "version" of the French language is therefore not suffering from the problems we are having here. All theses countries are like little safes / museums that protect the language. May they continue to do so for a long time.
In particular all the French speaking countries in Africa speak excellent French, even the lowest layers of the population. They run circles around 98% of French people. Shame on us.
It may not be much better here, but likely different.
"grand-maman" has become "G-Mom" (pronounced
Gee-Momm).
The few people I know from African French speaking countries have a very clear pronunciation and a cadence that is not overly fast. Yes, I can understand them well.
As a bonus, these are the people who have the patience to help me practice. I did not speak any French 15 years ago...
They do sound very formal compared to the local French.
I dread to think that foreigners come to France thinking they will learn French properly, makes me shiver. Whatever French tehy acquire and bring back to their home land, is bound to be junk. It's sad but if someone said to me "I want to live in France to learn the language !! "I would tell him he is a fool and he better go live in Quebec or some ex African colony. Basically anywhere but France ! Sad but true.
That is only because you are discussing language, not culture. People do not come here for the culture...
I will stop now before we get too close to the politics on this one.
Internet suck this evening ! Down to a crawl, can't load AVG's pictures of his Metrix , can't load BD' GGTA hipster video, can't load any thing you people posted that not just text. I Need BD here to come fix the fucking French internet...
Hoping it will be back to normal when I get up tomorrow.
Sounds like you could fit in here. Our speed on a good day is enough for those things to barely work, so long as you are patient for the buffering to fill up before the image/video arrives.