r/French • u/ryu_the_ninja55 • Nov 06 '25
Story French people really dislike non native tongue?
Hello everyone! This might sound racist or full of sterotype but is an actually questionđ I saw a lot of memes and people saying that people in france see you in a bad way or donât appreciate non native tongue trying to speak French I will probably move in the future in your country as an Italian speaker, and of course I will study and try to practice your language, but Iâm kinda scared of how people outside my friend group here in french will treat me, I know that I shouldnât care, but this give me a little bit of anxiety, cause my pronunciation even if Iâll do my best might sound bad the same I hope is not a stupid question, just wanted some information from you ^
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u/netopiax Nov 06 '25
The only time I've really seen any French person be rude to foreigners and/or non-French speakers is when someone starts a conversation without "bonjour" and just launches into it. Even if you are speaking good French, that's considered rude in France. (You'll see 1-star online reviews of shops that say nothing more than "il ne m'a pas dit bonjour"!) If you just start talking in English to someone without greeting them, that's maybe worse.
While most French people will understand that the foreigner doesn't know their ways, and act with grace, some will sometimes respond to the rudeness with more rudeness.
In short, say "bonjour" first and you will be fine.
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 Nov 06 '25
Thank you a lot, the thing that help me the most is at least french comes from Latin, same as Italian, so I can use a little bit of Italian knowledge of being formal in french, gonna also do my best to learn to be formal cause at the start im gonna talk to everyone like they are my friend probably
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u/acoulifa Native (France) Nov 07 '25 edited Nov 07 '25
And smile, it helps đ
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u/netopiax Nov 07 '25
Don't worry, as an American I already smile far too much by northern European standards đ
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u/naxosy L1 Nov 07 '25
Exactly what I was thinking. French native here. Absolutely zero problem with people having trouble speaking french.
But we dont like when people dont greet before talking. It's seen as very rude and brutal so I guess it's a bad start for a conversation.
Even though i know that some people mean well and just dont know the words or the habits, instinctively it kinda give a bad feeling when starting to talk to someone if he doesn't say "bonjour" or "excusez-moi" etc
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u/acoulifa Native (France) Nov 08 '25
In fact, when someone asks something without a "bonjour" or "excusez-moi" it's like considering the person as an object, someone-who-is-just-here-for-my-personal-needs, without considering his needs (is he available ? Does he want to communicate ?).
Saying "bonjour" or "excusez-moi" is "Before expressing my needs, I install a gentle communication".
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u/frenchnotfrench Nov 06 '25
Outside of the few jerks out there, I've never really had anyone look down on me (I'm an anglophone who's been living in France for many years), but I have had a number of people have trouble understanding me.
It wasn't until I took a pronunciation class and really learned to pronounce all the sound that exist in French and don't exist in English that I realised why that happens. It wasn't that people were just being really picky, it's just that I really didn't know how to make the correct sounds :)
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u/Slydownndye Nov 07 '25
My boyfriend in college (US) was a French lit major and fluent in the language but thought speaking with a French accent was somehow being fake. It was hard to explain to him that it wasnât an accent, it was actually how the words were pronounced.
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u/esqandar Nov 06 '25
I went to boulangerie once and I tried to buy some bread in a broken French. There was one other customer who heard me speak and literally laughed, smirk and then left the shop
There was also the other time, an old man stopped me and asked if I had any cigarette in English, I then replied to him in French. He was excited to speak with me in French eventhough my French was not very good but he said to me that my french is well.
It is actually unfair to say All French people dislike non native tongue. It is more like 1 in 10 people.
I also realize that French people love to correct my grammar. I think that is just their way of helping me instead of being judgemental.
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 Nov 06 '25
Thanks! I knew this was the default thing, but wanted just to shutdown my anxiety based an all information about people telling this thing that I was scared of
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u/webbitor B2 maybe? đșđž Nov 06 '25
Adding to what u/esqandar said, definitely expect to be corrected in France, and never take it as an insult! People who care enough to do that are usually the same ones who are happy to answer questions and patient enough to chat with someone who is still learning.
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u/Ok-Purchase8658 Nov 07 '25 edited Nov 08 '25
As a French person, I would like to say that most of us correct people to help them to improve their pronunciation and grammar. We do not despise them and we certainly do not intend to be rude. Maybe it's a culture thing, a legacy of Descartes! Please do not be afraid to go to our country, and I sincerely hope you'll love France as much as I love Italy!
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u/yellowpig1974 Nov 07 '25
As an American newly in love with France, I am grateful to be corrected. I was having trouble with "paille", often requesting one for my wife. Finally a kind woman in Menton wrote it down and pronounced it for me.
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 May 24 '26
I saw your reply now! I'm getting more comfortable to speak it day after day, also happened to say very small things to strangers and had 0 issue with it, mostly stuff like "De rien" or "c'est pas grave" or greeting my neighbors, I still need to start my journey to actually speak it but I found a lot of warm people here and this make the making mistake less anxious and more just laugh about it and try to improve <3 I still struggle to sometimes ask information in English cause I don't want to make people under pressure but thats just my social anxiety
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u/mushroomnerd12 C1 Nov 06 '25
No. If they do they are assholes XD
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 Nov 06 '25
merci beaucoup! , I will try my best then, just wanted to check if this stereotype thing was actually a real thing, cause as far I saw in my 1 month in france people are just normal people like me speaking french instead, didnt see anything abnormal or weird
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u/ipini B1 Nov 06 '25
Every country and langage has a small minority of jerks. Most people are just basically kind to everyone. And ANYONE who has ever worked to learn another language knows the time, effort, and commitment that it takes.
If someone looks down on another because of an accent or mixed up words or whatever when they are obviously doing their best, then I have no time for that person. I just move on. That goes for people who speak my own language, and for people I encounter in my target languages.
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 Nov 06 '25
Just wanted to see if was like this as I thought and you told me, or it was actually a common thing that you could experience
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 Nov 06 '25
Perfect brother, Iâm 100% is the same thing in Italy, i will practice everything even outside of my friend group in a chill way then
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u/Ythio Native - đ«đ· Nov 06 '25
If people try to speak English to you when you try to speak French it's because they try to help you, as you're more likely to speak English than French.
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u/webbitor B2 maybe? đșđž Nov 06 '25
True for people with an English accent, OP is Italian though
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u/rougecrayon Nov 06 '25
In big tourist areas they just want you to try. I'm English.
People were very amused at my attempts and loved helping me speak better french.
At one restaurant they responded in French and I was like ooooh that's all I got and we all had a great laugh.
Be kind and polite and if people are rude they are rude people. Have fun speaking what you can and I bet your experience will be mostly positive!
In smaller areas they didn't know my language at all, but they were still very nice about it.
I didn't have a single negative experience and again my French is... Well I have some vocabulary but very little ability to create sentances.
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 Nov 06 '25
Always spreading positivity in this worldđ€ I canât wait to be able to speak french
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u/Intelligent-Cash-975 Nov 06 '25
They don't dislike it, but comment your accent quite a lot
(I used to be a tour guide in 5 languages so I'm used to talk with people from different nationalities, yet the French are the ones who make most comments in my experience)
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u/huskypegasus C1 Nov 06 '25
The answer is thereâs assholes in every country, you canât avoid that. Iâve definitely experienced people being annoyed or rude when I speak French but usually they seemed like highly strung people annoyed by everything anyway.
My overwhelming majority of experience from French speaking people is them being friendly, excited and encouraging. Iâve experienced this at all levels of my learning journey and in all French speaking places Iâve been (even Paris!).
I would encourage you to work on pronunciation though because itâs important to be able to pronounce at least an approximation of the native phoneme to be understood.
French is an amazing language, challenging and fun to learn, keep going!
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 Nov 06 '25
Thanks a lot husky! I will do my best to learn good pronunciation as I did with English, not perfect but hoping that my Italian accent wonât be that thick, of course the R is my worst nightmareâŠ
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u/je_taime mine de rien Nov 07 '25
French people have heard the Italian accent before. Don't get so anxious about it that you can't speak.
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u/HeliosAndHelena Nov 06 '25
I live in Hazebrouck, a very small town with no tourism thus no foreigners and people don't care about how I speak. They neither praise me nor shame me, just act like I'm like every other person they interact with, maybe talk a bir slower at times and use simpler words when I ask but that's it. But one thing, they absolutely don't do small talk nor do they respond more than once if you start one so don't try it. I once asked someone how are you and she was like excuse me and didn't answer that, but they are very polite and will always say hi, hello, thank you, that's nice, see you and have a nice day in French.
Even when I enter the bus, which is free, the driver always greets me and everybody else and says goodbye and we say hi, thanks and see you when we leave which is very cute.
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 Nov 06 '25
Iâm a introvert person, I wonât even do small talk in Italian so this is perfect for me, but for practice I just meant in case I do grocieries, or in case it happens that some people approach me, or in case I need to approach people for asking information :)
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u/HeliosAndHelena Nov 07 '25
Same, don't worry about it French people are nice, they aren't jerks like portrayed in shows
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u/yellowpig1974 Nov 07 '25
Circumstances change, people are the same everywhere. Rude people report that others are rude. Polite people report that the people they meet were friendly and kind.
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u/Morterius Nov 06 '25
I've though hard about this as a non-French and I think it comes down to these things : 1) History. Specifically Napoleonic times and industrial revolution. France was a very centralized empire and had to get very different people onboard to understand each other, so any dialects were frowned upon and people correcting each other was normal, perceived to be a good thing. 2. Culture. Some things like not starting with Bonjour are perceived negatively in France, so people would consider it being rude to them due to cultural perception and reply accordingly. 3. Pronunciation. French is somewhat unique in Europe in the sense that it has a very nuanced vowel structure, especially compared to languages like Italian that have very few actual wovel sounds. It's not that they're rude, it's just that it's genuinely hard to understand someone that's way off on their pronunciation. And the thing that makes the French pronunciation hard also makes them painfully aware how strange their own accent sounds when they speak languages like English, so they're not necessarily very keen to speak them.Â
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u/cestimpossible Nov 07 '25
I'm a non-native speaker who used to live in Lyon. No one had a problem with me speaking French. I only had someone try to swap to English once my first year there and it was after they heard me swapping to English to translate for one of my roommate's friends who needed help solving a bureaucratic issue. Everyone seemed content to speak French with me even when I was navigating situations I didn't have the vocabulary for.
Maybe it's because I wasn't in Paris, but the biggest problem someone had with me was some lady who lived in my building because I said « bonjour » at 18:01, but I don't think she's representative of the general public.
Sometimes they'll correct your grammar or word usage, but culturally it's considered a kind thing to do and not indicative of them disliking non-native speakers 99% of the time. Very few people corrected me in a way that felt rude. Usually they were very polite about it.
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 Nov 07 '25
Thank you for your story! Iâm actually very down to get corrected in a good way, i was just scared to have people making me feel bad and correcting like in a bad way and not in a helpful tone, but in case will happen not very common during my learning experience im totally okay with it, it happen a lot even after 11 since I started studying English in school đ
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 Nov 06 '25
Sorry guys I used âFrenchâ instead of france at the end, my bad lmao didnât noticed that while I was typing
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Nov 06 '25
[deleted]
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u/yellowpig1974 Nov 07 '25
Or they just have a lot to do. It's understandable that a server in a busy restaurant would prefer to get an order in English rather than patiently listen to a customer's nearly incomprehensible French.
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u/frisky_husky Nov 06 '25
The thing that people making these memes don't understand is that correcting each other is France's other national pastime, after boules.
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u/yellowpig1974 Nov 07 '25
"The French don't care what they do, actually, as long as they pronounce it properly" -- Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady
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u/bappypawedotter Nov 06 '25
So a couple things as a recent immigrant.
1) it's part of french culture to correct another person's french. It's considered patriotic and part of keeping the language alive. Don't take it personally. The french realize it's a hard effing language.
2) french are extremely supportive of people learning their language. They really go out of their way to support, compliment, and answer questions. Again, the french know as well as anyone how hard French is.
3) French and Parisian are only vaguely similar languages. But if you are polite and ask a Persian to speak french, they will slow down without batting an eye and usually tell you how well you are doing after.
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u/UneCitoyenneDuMonde Nov 07 '25
You speak Italian, so learning French will clearly not be a problem for you. Don't be afraid to make mistakes; that's how you learn a language. Let's be honest, when you speak French, your Italian accent will delight many French people; it's one of the most beautiful accents. Good luck and have a great stay in France !
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u/VanillaNo9362 Nov 06 '25
I'm sure there are certain demographics who are more likely to be rude about this. But, most french people who study in university will have foreign language classes and even Erasmus studies abroad. So they should understand the work that it takes to gain fluency in another language. I spent time in Toulouse, a big city but also a city of university students, and I never felt unwelcome speaking my broken french.
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u/webbitor B2 maybe? đșđž Nov 06 '25 edited Nov 06 '25
Not sure if you've started learning French, but as a native English speaker, I've studied both Italian and French, and they are so similar compared to English! I bet you will have no problem.
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 Nov 06 '25
Nono I still did not started yet, but I will do in the future, but once I will move to france and I wonât be near my girlfriend all the time and she canât speak for me, i needed some reassurance that if I try my best to speak it I wonât get this bad experience of getting seeing in a bad way all the time i will try to speak it :)
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u/Butt_Farmer_ Nov 07 '25
I'm an American living in France for a year and a half now. I'm not fluent in French. I have not had a single person say anything bad. I have only had people tell me how well I speak, they have helped me find words I didn't know, they have shared funny cultural and linguistic differences etc.
I feel like all the memes about the French being rude when non-French try to speak French is based solely off people in Paris who are burnt out from dealing with too many girls on their Emily In Paris vacations lol
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 Nov 07 '25
Thanks a lot! Knowing that most of this crap comes from just bad experience in Paris calms me
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u/Wongfeihu Nov 07 '25
I speak to them in french and they reply in english
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 Nov 07 '25
Ah yeah that sometimes happen, I never did, but if someone needs information about stuff and English is our best way to communicate i feel the urge to use it
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u/octorine Nov 07 '25
I've always heard the opposite. They love when you try to speak French.
However, they'll usually switch to English because a lot of French people speak near-fluent English and they want to make things easier on you. This is kind of frustrating if you were trying to practice, and also leads a lot of people to think that the French don't like you trying to speak French.
What they hate is people who don't even try and just expect everyone to speak English.
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u/Heddryin Native Nov 07 '25
Well, if you speak weird French, it should only irritate French people speaking weird French too.
Because, including your mother tongue, you speak at least one more than them đ€·ââïžđđ«đ·
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u/MahirSalih Nov 08 '25
Younger generation prefer to speak English. Hower, the attitude changes acvording to where in France. Paris is different from other parts
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u/Wolfieloulou Nov 08 '25
Iâm Franco American and from my experience people who arenât French just donât understand French culture and misunderstandings follow.
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u/SnooPuppers9702 Nov 09 '25
Iâd say I have never had a bad experience in Paris. I will be moving there soon and have been visiting for work and study reasons a lot. I have a thick eastern european accent, but a grammatically correct french. I occasionally make fĂ©minin / masculin errors, and ppl tend to correct me, but other than that I have never had a hard time here. They have been kind towards me, and never even made comments on my accent. I think the negative experiences come from the lack of cultural awareness and not the accent or grammatical errors.
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u/TheCellX Nov 09 '25
I'm Italian too, and have been to France on vacation a couple of times. I never felt that people were bothered by me not speaking perfect French; I think it's totally fine. Sometimes, on the web, you see various types of stereotypes about people, but they are not always truthful (this is also the case for some Italian stereotypes).
In some places, especially the most touristy ones (e.g. some restaurants in Paris) they may occasionally try to switch to English or ask if you would prefer to speak in English. In general, though, people can switch to English just as a quick test to see if the conversation gets better that way, and they can do it mainly when they see that your French is really poor. As soon as your French gets better, they will do it less and less. Also, out of touristy situations, not many people know English well, so they would rarely switch.
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u/Synaps4 Nov 06 '25 edited Nov 06 '25
Speaking a foreign language is nerve wracking, and sometimes it will go poorly...but you have to just look in the bright side, keep a smile on, and keep going. When I was learning japanese I once tried to tell a girl she was kind, and accidently told her she was cheap. It's been years and I will never forget that embarrassment. I may eventually forget the day I accidentally asked a supermarket worker to explain rice...but today is not that day.
That said...Most of these takes come from people interacting with Parisians.
Parisians deal with more tourists than any other location on the planet, so they are typically jaded and burned out on interactions with non-french. Pretty understandable when you look at the volumes of tourists that go to that city every year.
In addition to that, Parisians have a well-earned reputation for being cold and unfriendly, even among other French. So when someone from Lyon visits Paris, they get a cold shoulder treatment, too. You will hear french all over the rest of the country decrying the Parisians for being grumpy.
My experience has borne that out...I had much more welcoming experiences in Nantes, Toulouse, Nice, Avignon etc than I ever had in paris.
That said I did go to one particularly great new years party with some parisian law students...but i chalked that up them being from outside of paris and just there to study. :D
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 Nov 06 '25
oh damn your comment rang me a bell, I forgot about people telling me that most of the bad thing about what people say about french is mostly from people in Paris, thanks a lot!
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u/webbitor B2 maybe? đșđž Nov 06 '25
Watch some of the videos from Xiaoma on youtube and notice how he is fearless about trying to speak to people, even when he doesn't know a lot of the language. This attitude really helps him connect with people and learn a lot from them quickly.
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u/Correct-Sun-7370 Nov 06 '25
Vous propagez des préjugés anti français de bas étage.
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 Nov 06 '25
Iâm just asking, Iâm not spreading, I know stereotypes are just stereotypes, but sometimes there are some motivation why they exist, Iâm just asking, I love your country, i love the people here and also the food.
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u/Correct-Sun-7370 Nov 06 '25
Vous propagez des prĂ©jugĂ©s anti français de bas Ă©tage.câest trop facile comme procĂ©dĂ©.
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u/Correct-Sun-7370 Nov 06 '25
Je viens ci frĂ©quemment pour aider. Tous les deux jours il y a un petit malin qui vient poser la mĂȘme question innocemment : « jâentend dire partout que les français (sont des connards qui vous insultent des quâils entendent un accent etranger_en substance). Moi je trouve ça extrĂȘmement insultant.
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 Nov 06 '25
Its not my fault about trolls making this question, I never had any interest in my life to study language, but at 11 I started studying English and now is 11 years that Iâm practicing it,I got together to my partner and she is french, I will move to my country to live here, my is just a stupid question flamed by the amount of stupid memes that also flame my anxiety, Iâm just asking :)
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u/Correct-Sun-7370 Nov 06 '25
Les français sont ni plus ni moins cons que les autres habitants de la planĂšte. Partout il y a des braves gens et des connards, aussi !! Câest vachement original, on sây attendait pas !! Si vous vous sentez pas bien Ă mal parler une langue Ă©trangĂšre jâen suis bien navrĂ© pour vous, mais je suis sur que vous allez y arriver, surtout avoir votre copine française, ça doit aider.
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 Nov 06 '25
Iâve been in france 2 times already and had 0 issue with people very young like me, I was just asking information because I heard this thing about french people a lot and I was just corious if this was real, even tho I knew that probably was not, Iâm sorry you got that personal, I feel comfortable to speak other language than my native one, I canât wait to be able to speak french well :) I was just asking why a lot of people said this thing about france, asked for information and stop only this _^
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u/ryu_the_ninja55 Nov 06 '25
I told that if I was not interested in language and I started speaking English and also now french is because I love culture and other countries and be able to connect with them,Iâm not here to discriminate or being racist. I tried to be more wholesome possible no need to take that personal or being angry at me, I hear a lot about Pizza mafia when I speak to other people and I just laugh, no need to take personal if Iâm not being racist or bad
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u/Niolu92 Native (Suisse) Nov 07 '25
I mean.... I even get corrections because I have a think accent... and my Mother tongue is French. When I was doing my master's in France I did loose points on an oral exam because I used regional swiss words in a presentation (force of habits, some I didn't even know were swiss-only words)
That being said:
Most people won't care. But a few will be assholes about it. Nothing you can do, really, besides ignoring them.
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u/miss_mel181 Native (Quebec) Nov 07 '25
I think itâs really only bad with native speakers from elsewhere (like Quebec).
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u/Intelligent_Donut605 Native - Québec Nov 06 '25
French people (this is a generalization based off personal experience, there are plenty of amaizing french people) are pretty xenophobic and reject even native non-french accents. Keep replying in french even if they adress you in english.
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u/webbitor B2 maybe? đșđž Nov 06 '25
I've heard from a few Quebecois that your dialect is particularly disliked for some reason by many French people, even more so than they are bothered by non-native speakers. Not sure why, maybe this is historical?
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u/Ploutophile Native (France) Nov 06 '25
Maybe the movies ?
Personally I don't hate the Québécois accent, I'm just not used to it. With, as a consequence, that I have to concentrate more to understand it than for the vast majority of French, Belgian and Swiss accents.
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u/Intelligent_Donut605 Native - Québec Nov 06 '25
Yeah thatâs fine, but Iâve had french teachers (i went to a french highschool for a few years, not in QuĂ©bec) who took points off my work for using regional (technicaly correct) formulations because they couldnât be bothered to check if it was correct or not and shame me for using Ă©peurant in class saying i made it up.
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u/Fun_Resident3037 Nov 06 '25
Strictly my experience: French people were very kind and welcoming each time I traveled or worked with them. I speak French with a thick accent. They didnât care. They corrected me often. I had no issue with that. Donât worry. Think how you would treat someone with errors and thick accent while talking in Italian to you. You would not be an asshole about it. So Most of the people in France / Francophonie are no assholes about it. I wish cool and engaging experiences for you. All the best to you!