rubifacient.bsky.social

20 October 2026 08:10

One time in Germany, I was buying some gloves and asked the same thing of the German cashier who, I promise you, spoke English. But he said, 'no' and I thought, "Ok, buddy. You had your chance. Now you get to listen to my broken German for five minutes." I could see it causing him physical pain.

Big Joel

bigjoel.bsky.social

20 October 2026 08:09

I will take this opportunity to brag about my proudest french moment. I went to a museum and the guy asked for my zip code, and I said, oh it doesn't matter, I'm from new york. and the guy was like, what? really?? this was the greatest moment in my life

Big Joel

bigjoel.bsky.social

20 October 2026 08:08

the tragedy of language learning is that it is never impressive. the best you can get is as good as a random 20 year old nobody thinks is all that special. and that will never ever happen lol

Big Joel

bigjoel.bsky.social

20 October 2026 08:08

and it occurred to me that this is the sole reward of french learning: Half following some french guy because you sound like you speak french enough that a frenchman finds the idea of using his broken english annoying. I will never get better than that

Big Joel

bigjoel.bsky.social

20 October 2026 08:08

once I was in a sort of small city in france, and I asked a hotel guy "bonjour, est-ce que vous parlez anglais?" (do you speak english) and he looked at me strangely and said "vous parlez francais" (you speak french), because he preferred to just keep speaking french