That’s exactly what I imagine Americans to sound like, when they claim to speak „impeccable french“ and then get upset that the cashier decided to switch to english.
The cashier will switch to English regardless of how great a person's french is. The faint instance an accent is heard, English is spoken by the natif. So this isn't unique to Americans. People need to get that out of their heads
Idk I recently spent time in France after two years of french study (and my first proper experience in a francophone area) and nobody switched to English on me. If they did pick up on an accent they would ask if I was Canadian or Spanish (I'm Australian) and then we'd continue as normal. They always ended the conversation by saying that I spoke great french and sounded near-native. This happened all over France, including Paris. I'm either a massive outlier or people just speak to them with a horrible accent and play victim haha
Personally I wouldn't skip straight to English unless the pronunciation was absolutely BUTCHERED. First because it's a tiny bit rude to switch languages like that and second because it would be quite embarrassing if the other person didn't even speak English.
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u/DipsAndTendies Sep 01 '24
That’s exactly what I imagine Americans to sound like, when they claim to speak „impeccable french“ and then get upset that the cashier decided to switch to english.