Another little casual-info writeup here, for the curious. This may vary a lot with what others with more intimacy/experience with France and the French have experienced, again this was my first time there. However having done quite a bit of anxious cramming on the basics of French and read a goodly number of website posts as to what was supposedly needed language-skill-wise to get along there, I found this, like a lot of other things, not what I expected and a lot contrary to what I'd read. In a nutshell, most of the cramming and anticipating was unnecessary.
The biggest takeaway for me, in a nutshell was "if you ain't totally fluent, you won't connect". Conversationally anyway. So there's no point, for a quick couple week's visit, in breaking your head over it. Along with doing a good job of forgetting a lot of the basic phrases I thought I was going to keep in mind, the instantly dismissive attitude of anyone who I tried a little French on, or English, when they detected I wasn't a French speaker put me off of trying it in a hurry. There was nothing hostile or even scornful about these French natives, they just didn't want to bother with it, which did line up with a few posts I'd read in French language site/emails. And yet in a number of instances I had to make myself understood, clearly, and get a clear answer. Google Translator to the rescue. Like I said earlier about G-maps, I don't find any shame in this at all, it is just an evolution in inter-world communications devices and comes in extremely handy. Trying to understand a fast-talking Frenchman/woman and then guess to look up the right response phrase in your phrasebook is just comical. One word I kept in mind and used often was "lentment" ("slowly"...the French equivalent of German "langsamer"). "Lentment, and into the phone s'il vous plait"...while pointing them at the translater/phone was something I did more than a couple times (like with the waiter in Hotel du Bost). They liked it, thought it was funny to see their words popping out in English. But more often I'd just compose the sentence carefully in English, get the French translation laid out on the screen, and hold it up to their face with a smile (like the clerk girl at the pharmacy). No one ever got offended at this, and in fact it gave me an opportunity over and over to try to memorize the translated French phrases. Sometimes I even remembered them! But the point is it got me along fine for three weeks in all kinds of situations.
Leaving out the unhelpful or maybe simply helpless guy behind the speaker in the toll booth at Aix-en-Provence, here is a string of examples of all the interaction I ever needed to do, and how much French needed to know, or didn't (EOI = end of interaction)
Market clerk: (something in French after I paid) Me:"American!" "do you want a receipt?" EOI
Market clerk: (something in French after I paid) Me:"En peu Francais" "do you need a bag?" EOI
Me to waitress: "Parle vous l'Anglais?" Her: "Oui, yes. Do you want something to drink?" EOI
Me to kid at gas station: "Parle vous l'Anglais?" Him: "No" Me: (flash the Google translator with question about what fuel I need, add sign language) Him: "Ah! ok..." ...walks over reads the gas flap, and points to the E10 pump. Me: "merci beacoup" EOI
Me: (to idle customer in gas station mini-mart) "le toilette?" while looking this way and that. Him: points to direction of bath door. EOI
Me: (to manager of Hotel du Bost) Complete translated question about getting clothes washed that Pierre had promised me...a complicate communication. Him: (after reading it) Smiles, "bring ici...for you tomorrow" I did, they had the clothes done by nightfall that day, a great thing. EOI
Me (to electronics clerk in the FNAC store) "Parle vous l'Anglais?" Him: (with a slightly bored sneer) "Yes, what can I help you with?" Me: "Got a speaker with line inputs?" Him: "Over here, cheapest starts at 200 euros, sorry...." EOI
Train clerk: "Ticket please (in French)" Me: hold up the CC and Euro bill Clerk: grabs the CC machine, rings it up..."Merci!" and runs off. EOI
Me to pharmacy clerk...translator as related above.
...and so on. I just never bothered trying to load anyone down with a bunch of wrongly pronounced rickety French and they liked it. After a few days it got to be a sort of entertainment exercise with me. I would throw out some French in the best accent I could on a sort of bantering challenge wavelength, i.e. "see what you can make of that French, mon ami haha!" I strictly avoided all phone calls that I guessed would have a French speaker only on the other end, except the dang Enterprise Rentacar helpdesk, and their rental office when I returned the car, because I knew they spoke English already. One thing that is contradictory is that the guys at the Enterprise lot, who both spoke decent English told me that English speaking is very common in France, because everyone has to take a second language. But their preferred language must be Spanish, or German, because the ready-English just didn't prove out on the ground.
So, unless you're just gaga over the effort of learning French and/or have a long-term reason to learn it (civil service or tour guide or live translator or espionage work in France), don't get wrapped around a pole about it. Your time would be more well spent learning about spots in the town, or French history, etc. and just trying your baby-French on them as a gag in non-serious situations, and use a translator for serious ones. And never be afraid to try it. I found the French to be a not-very-forthcoming people with information (again jibes with other web posts) and in fact I was a bit deflated about the communication wall for lack of the language, but they were never snarky about talking to a ignorant foreigner. It's probably your best defense! They only want your tourist money anyway, just like everywhere else. And who can blame them.
As a farewell to this whole experience in amazing France, I can't help but reprint one of the greatest anti-war poems, which I would have loved to have read and talked about with a history-wise Frenchman or woman, but circumstances didn't lend to it. Written by Christina Rossetti on the eve of, or during, the Franco-German war of 1870, it paints her love of and heartache for France's fate with a flaming brush. Probably better she died before she saw the "dregs" yet to come in the 20th century.
TO-DAY FOR ME
She sitteth still who used to dance,
She weepeth sore and more and more;—
Let us sit with thee weeping sore,
O fair France.
She trembleth as the days advance
Who used to be so light of heart:—
We in thy trembling bear a part,
Sister France.
Her eyes shine tearful as they glance:
"Who shall give back my slaughtered sons?
"Bind up," she saith,"my wounded ones."—
Alas, France!
She struggles in a deathly trance,
As in a dream her pulses stir,
She hears the nations calling her,
"France, France, France."
Thou people of the lifted lance,
Forbear her tears, forbear her blood:
Roll back, roll back, thy whelming flood,
Back from France.
Eye not her loveliness askance,
Forge not for her a galling chain:
Leave her at peace to bloom again,
Vine-clad France.
A time there is for change and chance,
A time for passing of the cup:
And One abides can yet bind up
Broken France.
A time there is for change and chance:
Who next shall drink the trembling cup,
Wring out its dregs and suck them up
After France?