I’m about to sound like the ignorant American I am, so I apologize in advance! We’re looking at a trip to Germany, and possibly Prague, and we’ve noticed that a lot of the hotel names are French and a couple hotels that aren’t named in French have replied to comments with things like “Bonjour! etc etc” What’s up with this? Is French just the most commonly spoken common language, even in Germany and Czechia? (I know that Germany and Czechia have their own languages, of course.) Or is it something else?
Could it be that the places you’re looking at are the most popular destinations of French tourists? 🤔
That’s certainly possible! I’m not sure how I would find that out. We’re just looking at the places with decent reviews on available sites in the US, like Expedia and TripAdvisor.
Maybe the owner is a french company?
I’m Geman and travel a lot. No Bonjours for me ever 😉.
Oh, that’s a decent theory! Interesting that you haven’t seen it as a German person, too.
Definitely not. While some people in Germany learn a bit of French as a third language in school, you’ll definitely be better off with English.
I never noticed hotel names being often French. It might come from an attempt to sound more exotic or luxurious within Germany. The comments might have just been French tourists. It’s the biggest neighbouring country after all.
This is great context, thank you! That would make sense about the comments. The hotel owners were responding to folks, but I admit I was reading through things quickly and could have missed someone identifying themselves that way before the hotel responded.
You’re American. Marketing data says that you like all things French and Italian.
Guess what happens next in this salesforce driven industry?
:)
East of Munich you’re best bet is German, but English is also spoken widely. West of Munich you’re more or less fine with English. In the northern countries we are used to the fact no one speaks our language so we all speak English, a lot of people French and a lot of German because it’s close to our own.
Italians try English. As do most Spanish. Try is the magic word here, it’s like your Spanish after high school or my French. :)
French don’t try. They speak French. Period. In hotels etc. (tourist spots) English is spoken by few employees. But they are there. :)
In the balkans the situation is mixed. Some parts English, some German, some French, some Russian. I get by with an English/German mix in Croatia. my German is better then my French… But not a lot). Here in the Netherlands my level of German is widely called “steenkolen Duits” (coal German) because it’s course, harsh, hard and dirty)
Anyway you’ll be fine. Have a great vacation.
French don’t try. They speak French.
This is not true anymore it’s the boomer generation that do this, most of the time people know a bit of English, which they will try even if you attempt to talk to them in French.
Unless you’re in Paris, but that’s just a general Parisian trait, based on a something hated for tourists.
I’ve traveled quite a bit to different places in France within the past few years, both large an small cities, and the vast majority of people i meet, even younger people (<30), have either so bad English skills that they are really hard to communicate with, or none at all. Meeting someone in France with proper English skill is definitely the exception rather than the rule IME.
Yeah skill wise it differs wildly, however the inflexible ‘we’re in France so you must speak French and i know not a single bit of English’ mentality is out. That’s what I thought you were on about.
Often they do try and most across all demographics know a little bit and are often eager to try. Even an old nun at a Christian thrift store tried taking to me in English.
My most jarring experience was with a waiter, he asked “English or French?” When I entered the restaurant, I answered “English please” and he just shook his head and said “no”…like, why would you ask then!?
20 years ago it would have been “we’re closed” in English and “bienvenue” in French.
I just left Paris a week ago and 100% of the service staff I came across were very friendly and almost all of them spoke passable to excellent English. I’d say “bonjour” and they’d start talking to me in English. As a tourist with only extremely basic French remembered from high school, it was really nice to experience how false the stereotypes were.
Yes, Bonjour is a magic word. La politesse/etiquette and respect for all people is very important in France. Here in NA when we enter a store the staff greets the customer and bows and scrapes for us, in France when entering a store the customer politely acknowledges and greets the staff with Bonjour - and not just in stores. And then there’s the other small phrases that goes a long way, like merci, pardon, s’il vous plait, au revoir, use monsieur/madame/mademoiselle, as in Excusez-moi, madame, etc.
Dress a little bit nicely when exploring helps, don’t walk while eating, etc.
When foreigners complain that the French are rude or snobbish it is often a misinterpretation; not adhering to simple etiquette, can be offensive or insulting and they will react to that demonstratively or “in kind”, more or less subtly…
I rather like La Politesse and being respectful to everyone.
Nope, it’s not just Paris, although Paris is worse than the rest of the country.
Compared to the level of English that people in other European countries speak, the French are probably among the worst.
I have been to France in 2000, 2010 and last year, and this last time I was unable to use French with waiters and cashiers in Paris. They realized my French was not exactly fluent and immediately switched to English. Very surprising, but at least in Paris youngish people seemed positively eager to use English instead of French. And the skills were passable, too - generally way better than my French.
The last time I was in France, which was around 2009, everyone answered me in English.
Even though French is my second language.
Large cities, big tourist spots? Yes. Go in land and it’s game over. I’ve been in cajarc (beautiful spot, really!) this year, it’s on one of the compostela routes so they get a lot of pelgrims from al over the world. 1 waiter spoke good enough English to have a conversation with. 1.
Here in the Netherlands my level of German is widely called “steenkolen Duits” (coal German) because it’s course, harsh, hard and dirty)
That’s actually not the etymology. Steenkolenduits (spelled without a space) is a riff on steenkolenengels, which was the basic/broken English spoken by dockworkers with sailors on incoming British coal ships (steenkolenboten).
Thank you for clearing it up
Yep, we try English. We are not very good at it (thanks Mussolini) and the situation is not gonna improve. But you’ll survive, even here. Last time I was in a hotel here a foreigner was communicating with the receptionist via Google Translate ;p
I’ve been to Italy multiple times (actually on a plane to leave for Milan right now). I never had any problem communicating while there.
Lucky you. Sometimes I have issues understanding other people’s incorrect Italian…
Mussolini came to power a hundred years ago. That’s one century. It takes a couple of years to learn English to a passable degree. How can Mussolini possibly be blamed for how badly Italians speak English today?
Mussolini’s nationalism led to movie dubbing. Still to this day we dub everything (tv series, documentaries, you name it). Since TV was and still is via steaming the main spreader of language, you can understand why we didn’t learn English the way other countries did.
I mean, I feel like I’ve been seen, but also called out. 😂 Thank you for all of this info!
Could it be that your (real) name is possibly of French origin, or at least it sounds French to them? Maybe they wrongly assume that you are of French origin, so they try to be more friendly.
Is French just the most commonly spoken common language, even in Germany and Czechia?
Not at the slightest. I suppose it’s just a marketing thing where french sounding names are supposed to be more appealing or tell something about the food or atmosphere at the hotel. And based on a very quick visit at booking.com I don’t see any french sounding hotels at Berlin, so I don’t know how many there actually are. I’m sure there’s some around like everywhere in the world, but I think majority is something else.
And there’s a lot of shared history between countries, so that can mix things up in various ways.
My daughter actually said something like that, that the French names probably just sound fancier, especially to Americans. That would jive with ladyofthrowaway’s post above, too.
If you can speak fluent english, you’ll be fine.
Oh yeah, we know that! Between the three of us we can do survivable German, Spanish, and French, as well. I think. 😂
German, French ans Englisch gets you very far in Europe. Spanish helps as well of course.
Shh, not too loud. Our plan to take over Europe is slowly unfolding
The French are illithid? That explains a lot :p
I’m from Czechia, and we use our own language. Hotels have some fancy names to attract tourist imho.
Interestingly, English has been the target of this quite a few times: https://youtube.com/watch?v=V347dTGZVl0
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I lived there for two years, and I think I met one french speaking expat during that time. Czech is the official language (surprise!), and “everyone” speaks it (apart from yours truly).
One thing I found interesting while living there was that it was usually a safe bet to assume everyone older than me knew russian as a second language, while everyone my age or younger spoke english.
I lived in Brno, which doesn’t have much tourism (just a bunch of expats), but in Prague you’ll have no problem with English, I’m sure.
As others have said, no, French isn’t particularly widely spoken in Germany or Czechia. My guess would be that France has a reputation for haute couture, so it’s not uncommon for restaurants, hotels, cafes. etc. to take on a little French flair in a similar way to how coffee shops like to become a little bit Italian!
Obviously for a big hotel it’s pretty likely that they will have French guests and quite a few French speaking staff, hotels are a bit like that - it’s not uncommon to hear the person at the front desk switching between 3 languages while interacting with guests of different nationalities, and most Europeans will speak their own language, at least some English, and probably some other European language. For example, I’m Scottish, and I speak English fluently, a little French (enough to deal with the day-to-day on holiday!) and a good bit of Norwegian.
I hope you have a lovely holiday, remember to respect local customs, and try to speak a little of the native language if you can - they’ll probably switch to English nearly immediately but they’ll appreciate the gesture!
Thank you! We’re really looking forward to it. It’s such a beautiful country, and the people seem lovely. My daughter has been learning German for a couple years, but I definitely need to work on mine before we go.
Ahem. You can use a french name to sound posh. Like bakeries all over the world do it. Other than that, I can guarantee you 90% of germans won’t speak french and despise the french people for not speaking english. So no. Most germans won’t speak french unless you find a way to force them. Cordialement… moi. Je suis Allemand.
(Edit: You can show me an example of a question and a german reply and maybe I can tell you what went wrong…)
Is French just the most commonly spoken common language, even in Germany and Czechia?
No. This title is likely taken by Turkish.
Or is it something else?
Many phrases from European languages are common knowledge across Europe. I’m about to go grab some coffee. When I walk in to the coffee shop, I’m free to say “Hello” in one of 10+ languages and no one will think anything of it. Why would I do that? Maybe because I’m in the mood. Ciao!
No. This title is likely taken by Turkish.
Not in Czechia.
When I walk in to the coffee shop, I’m free to say “Hello” in one of 10+ languages and no one will think anything of it. Why would I do that? Maybe because I’m in the mood. Ciao
X for doubt. Highly depends on where the shop is based. I would defo get weird looks if I would say Ciao at shops for ‘Hello’. But most people will still know what it means. And ‘Ciao’ for goodbye is actually quite popular in the German speaking countries. But yeah it’s not as random as you make it out to be imo.
Highly depends on where the shop is based.
True. I have mostly lived in touristy and immigrant-friendly places, and I’m OK with people not seeing me as a local.
So it’s more like you don’t care what people think, but people will still be like ‘wtf’ haha
Probably not in Berlin though, because nothing matters in Berlin.
people will still be like ‘wtf’ haha
People here (North Holland) are used to tourists and immigrants. A local could use “Hi”, “Hallo”, “Bonjour” or “Shalom” instead of Dutch-specific “Goeiemorgen”/other. If I say “Moin” or “Ciao” or “Hola”, people will understand and sometimes reply appropriately, but likely continue in English not Dutch. It’s something anyone would do for fun.
“hyvää huomenta” and “terve” on the other hand are not widely known to be a greeting. “tesekkuler” will not work as “merci”. I don’t do that.
Thanks for the local input, didn’t know that
This makes sense, too. I know we borrow a ton of words and phrases over here, especially from our neighboring countries and historically from, well, basically all of Europe.
Some, like tschüß, servus or ciao are informally used by some Czechs, others like guten tag, bon jour, dobro došli are understood, but not used unless in some joke way. It would be pretty weird to encounter any of them when talking to e. g. hotel staff, though, unless there’s an expectation you speak that language.
Bonjour
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They do it to sound cool. Interestingly, in Japan (often nonsensical) English often gets used as a decoration in a similar way: https://youtube.com/watch?v=V347dTGZVl0
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My lungs hurt from laughing. This is amazing!
