Way to encourage a stereotype

[AdminAssistant]

When you say French II, is it French as a 2nd language ? Anyway, I guess that if you don't really have to use the language, you can lose a lot quite quickly.

It was the second class I took. At my university, the basic courses are French I (basic language, culture, present/past tense), French II (verb forms, more grammer, etc.), and French III (conversational). I wasn't able to take French III, where the entire class is taught in French - as a result my listening comprehension is pretty poor. (There are other, more advanced, classes, of course.)

I've lost a LOT. I never did have a strong handle on all of the different verb forms and now I've completely forgotten them.

I love Ziva-isms! "Your hair looks like a porcu...swine, porcu...pig. The little animals with the spiky things!!"

[depechemodefan]

My best worst Amerrykin Toorist moment was one day, when I was chatting with a friend, walking down an avenue in Paris, a guy asked "Excuse me, are you French ?"

I answered, "Why, yes, I am."

And then, out of the blue : "Fuck you ! Fuck you people and fuck this country !"

My friend and I were struck speechless. As he strode away, I yelled : "If you don't like our country, please, feel free to leave !"

I once was with a tour group in Paris, and there were Australians with our group, but we were mostly from the U.S. Anyway, we're standing in front of the Sanmeritain (sp?) by the Louvre and this crazy homeless guy stalks in front of us, saying "fuck you americans! fuck you americans!" Of course the Aussies are saying "we arnt' Americans" and one of our group said to wone of the women, "maybe you should say 'not in your dreams.'

Oh, and those people at the Venetian...bunch of asses.

[protege]

and this crazy homeless guy stalks in front of us, saying "fuck you americans! fuck you americans!"

Being the bastard I am, it would have taken quite a bit for me *not* to say "someone's still pissed that we had to save their asses in the 1940s..." (And I know that it wasn't just the US, so don't flame me, OK?

We don't get many foreign tourists here in Pittsburgh. A few, mostly because of the universities (Carnegie Mellon being their main destination), but that's about it. It's not uncommon to hear Chinese being spoken in some areas of town, along with Russian, Japanese, et al.

[AdminAssistant]

A friend of mine went with a group to Florence for a month-long study abroad trip several summers ago (I'm thinking 2004). She was sitting around with 3 or 4 others from the group at a little pizzeria chatting away in English (and we're from the South, y'all, so it was obvious they were Americans and not British, Aussie, etc.)

A man (a local) approaches her and says, "Are you American?" They nod. The man laughs at them and yells, "Bush!" For the rest of their meal, the man and his friends would periodically point at them and yell, "Bush!" before bursting into laughter.

No matter what you think about a country's politics - not nice, not nice. If a British group were here, I wouldn't make snide comments about the Royal Family or the new PM. *sheesh*

[depechemodefan]

Me and my mom travel together a lot. We also had a neighbor who was from Mexico. She was very argumentative. But in a pinch she would be there for us. Also, she's a Jehovah Witness (important latter). Anyway, one time our vacation destination was Isreal. We were going with a church group, which wasn't our denomination. Other people from other denominations were going too; just the pastor of the church was getting warm bodies to go, so no matter the religion.

Anyway, me and mom are going and the neighbor wants to go. All she wanted to do was shop. Mom loves shopping but she rather see all the sights, and since my mom is really religious, she wants to see places Jesus was at. Of course the tour company want us to shop at shops they have business with, so we got shopping done. But at one place, we are looking at a shop and my mom's neighbor wanted to buy gold. The neighbor has my mom bargaining. The tour guide at one point said we are going to see this church (we are up on Gethsemane) and the tour guide told my mom and the neighbor they could catch up. So the church was close to the shop, and I keep on peeking out to the shop and I guess I miss when the bus driver loaded up my mom and her friend on the tour bus and took them down the hill. I guess the guide didn't want mom and her friend to walk by themselves. So mom miss some churches because of my mom's friend wanted to buy gold.

But this is the great blow-up: Next trip we go with an uncle and his wife to tour Europe, along with the neighbor. First city is London, and the tourist are on their own. I had planned out all our excursions. One stop was Westminster Abby. The neighbor asks what is it. I tell her it's like a church. She gets aggitated. She can't go into a church (because of her religion, being a Jehovah Witness). I tried to explain that it's mostly monuments and tombs, but no good. So she stays outside and we go in, pay 9 pounds, and stay only an hour. I didn't see the Poets corner, but we saw a good bit. We go outside and it's drizzling. But she isn't around. So we go around looking for her, don't see her, and we figured she might have went to the hotel when she finally showed up. She had two stories, one) was she went in Westminster Abby with another tourist group and two) this hispanic guy was opening a door of the Abby to take out garbage or something and he let her in. We were in a panic looking for her and she went in...to the place she said she couldn't go in. We didn't say anything to her, but when we were in Brussles she got angry at us because we went down to breakfast without her, considering we didn't know what room she was in.

Anyway, mostly she knew nothing of Europe. I don't even think she knew the name of the capitals of the countries we went to. She has a habit of wanting things and buying things but doens't know what to do with them. She just loves buying things, so when she wanted to go with us to these trips she just wanted to go because we were going. But hopefully she got somethign out of it...eh.

[Cyphr]

<snip>
Respectfully,
The Saner Half of the USA.

dont you mean the saner 1%? its sad but now a days americans are primarily jackasses who think everywhere shoudl be like america because WE stopped the nazis 40 years ago. i love beating them back into place and point out the fact that hitler commited military suicide with some of his tactics and treachery.

[Pagan]

Ziva: (to bartender) Uno mas, s'il vous plait!
Guy: You're mixing languages...
Ziva: And liquors

American tourists tend to be the most insulting in the UK - at least when other countries seem to think they can talk about our country abusively in front of us there is a good chance we really can't understand them.

I think it might have something to do with that whole Revolution business a few years back! (Of course, I've always found it curious that Wimbledon is right around the 4th of July! )

We once tried to give directions to an entire coach of French tourists where not a single one of them would try and speak any English, not even the guide or driver. (This is in England). We did our best in French.

Considering the historical animosity between England and France....I mean, hell, France offered to help Scotland just to agitate England!

BTW - I don't run into many people that have the same name as I do! Cool!

It was the second class I took. At my university, the basic courses are French I (basic language, culture, present/past tense), French II (verb forms, more grammer, etc.),

I love Ziva-isms! "Your hair looks like a porcu...swine, porcu...pig. The little animals with the spiky things!!"

NMSU's like that. Except that it branches off into other things right after French 201. I took the translation class, too, and that helped a lot. But, like you I've lost a lot. On the plus side, I can read a lot of Spanish now, too!

I love Ziva-isms, too. Especially how she just misses it. Kind of like Yogi Berra.

A few, mostly because of the universities (Carnegie Mellon being their main destination), but that's about it. It's not uncommon to hear Chinese being spoken in some areas of town, along with Russian, Japanese, et al.

At NMSU, there was, for some reason, a lot of Chinese grad students in physics. You're likely to hear a lot of Arab languages because of all of the arid lands research there.

[Jester]

We don't get many foreign tourists here in Pittsburgh.

Good lord, we get tourists and residents from all over here in Key West. And I do mean all over. Off the top of my head, I can honestly say I have met people from (deep breath) Ireland, England, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Uruguay, Mexico, Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Cuba, Haiti, Brazil, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, South Africa, Hungary, Switzerland, Belgium, the Bahamas, the Ukraine, Poland, Italy, and Ethiopia, just off the top of my head. Are some of them sucky? Yes. Are some of them cool? Yes. Is there any one group that is more sucky than most? Yes. But they are Americans from a particular city, not foreigners, and the I don't know anyone who lets that influence their view of other Americans. Hell, most people I know don't even let that affect they view new people they meet from that city!

dont you mean the saner 1%? its sad but now a days americans are primarily jackasses who think everywhere shoudl be like america because WE stopped the nazis 40 years ago. i love beating them back into place and point out the fact that hitler commited military suicide with some of his tactics and treachery.

While I am jaded and cynical and not always impressed with my fellow Americans as a group, I have to say that you are lowballing the figure of sane Americans, and overgeneralizing their attitudes badly.

Yes, a lot of them will talk about how "us Americans" stopped the Nazis when, in reality, it was the Allied forces who did so, none of whom was more important to the Nazis' defeat than the Red Army. Americans don't like to admit they needed the Soviets, but they absolutely did for that war. Hell, as a group, we Americans don't like to admit we ever need help with war, but we would not have even won our War for Independence from Britain without much foreign help.

So yeah, you can beat on the oversimplification of history some Americans will make. But that does not mean that 99% of them are rude clueless idiots who think that everything un-American is inferior. When you classify them as such, you fall into the same trap of the people you are mocking, that is, overgeneralizing.

I may not be proud of everything my country has done, or all the leaders it's elected, or every one of its citizens, but I will defend both the U.S. and reality from people who overgeneralize and oversimplify and stereotype what and who we are.

Considering the historical animosity between England and France....I mean, hell, France offered to help Scotland just to agitate England!

Also the reason France helped the U.S. in their battle, hell, BATTLES against the British! Whenever they could, France has taken pains to needle England and help its enemies, with some notable exceptions of course!

[Samaliel]

Yeah, England is our best enemy. We just love to hate them, and I think the feeling is quite requited. Funny things about English people : most of those I met in the UK were complete bastard to me, while most of those I met in France were rather nice, and some absolutely lovely. Welsh and Scottish people even more so.

Also, I don't know why so many of our tourists seem to be so adamant about not speaking anything but French. That whole "I don't care that English is the most used language for international communication, I'll keep speaking French even if it's the last thing I do !" attitude just baffles me.

[Victoria J]

Yeah, England is our best enemy. We just love to hate them, and I think the feeling is quite requited. .

I'd say that's true.

Also, I don't know why so many of our tourists seem to be so adamant about not speaking anything but French. That whole "I don't care that English is the most used language for international communication, I'll keep speaking French even if it's the last thing I do !" attitude just baffles me.

It's bloody annoying. The average French person seems to speak good English but refuse to, whereas the average English person actually can't speak French. We'd like to be good enough at French to deliberately refuse to speak it !

It makes absolutely no sense though to refuse to speak English when lost in England - which is what made that tour group so sucky. And if they really couldn't speak any English they need to reconsider their guides and drivers. We kept getting confused about left and right in French, we knew the words but kept forgetting which was which, they didn't even try. It seems pretty unlikely that a large coach load of French people visiting England didn't have one person who knew "left" and could have tried to reciprocate.

We did our best but wondered if we'd misdirected them. We found them being refused entry onto the Greenwich ferry across the Thames because the coach was too high - and directed them to the nearby tunnel. Afterwards we wondered if they were also too high for the tunnel.

Victoria J

[Samaliel]

It's bloody annoying. The average French person seems to speak good English but refuse to, whereas the average English person actually can't speak French. We'd like to be good enough at French to deliberately refuse to speak it !

Trust me, I wish you were proficient enough in the French language so I could deliberately refuse to speak English. :P Just kidding.

The sad thing is I actually was shocked and appalled by my classmates' level in English. You're studying computer engineering, for Zod's sake ! Most likely, docs will be in English. If you're lucky, you'll get to work in a worldwide company ! How can you think you'll get anywhere with THAT level of English ?

[protege]

I think it might have something to do with that whole Revolution business a few years back!

Nah, they're still pissed that some of their best tea found its way into Boston's harbor. I read somewhere that they're still trying to charge us for that...and every year, we tell them hell no

[jedimaster91]

I love Ziva-isms, too. Especially how she just misses it. Kind of like Yogi Berra.

Ziva-isms are awesome. They always make me smile.

[Victoria J]

Trust me, I wish you were proficient enough in the French language so I could deliberately refuse to speak English. :P Just kidding.

I was doing well for the first year I studied French, when my teacher was Spanish. Then we got a French teacher and it all fell to pieces, it just made me much more self conscious and embarrassed.

My mother managed to go into a post office in Morocco and ask in French for "falling over" instead of a stamp. Really puzzled people.

Language skills are the skill I would most like. Though I'm not sure I'd choose French, even without very negative memories about lessons growing up. I'd most like to be able to speak Spanish and Arabic, suitable for travelling in South America and in North Africa.

Victoria J

[CorDarei]

... My other favorite is the person who will ask at 15:55 where they can get alcohol and you have to explain to them that they can't because alcohol can't be sold after 1am...

since no one appears to have corrected you on this yet... 15:55 is only 3:55pm... so they should still be able to buy alcohol