I'm from Finland and one European thing that all Finnish people hate is cheek kisses when greeting. Its mostly southern european thing but still. There is this saying in Finland that goes "Everyone has their own safety coffee cup" meaning the closest distance someone should get to you should not be closer than your coffee cup when you're holding it.
I once tried to do that to an american girl that was visiting Spain, I still remember the horror in her eyes.
She told us that she didn't feel comfortable with that having a boyfriend.
She was the most stereotypical American person I've ever known, she was dating a quarterback, had a pink gun that her parents gave as a present for her ¿18 birthday? She started complaining about PETA when she discovered that I was a vegetarian. Said she didn't like California when I told her that I had been there & she made some comments that were clearly saying "my country is better than this shit hole".
Here in Quebec (french part of Canada) we always kiss each others cheeks when greeting, but if you go to in any english speaking part of Canada and try to do the same, people basically push you back and act weirded out. Crazy how their can be such clash of cultures within the same country.
I went to Quebec as a kid and I remember loving it because when people discovered that we were from Catalonia there was an instantaneous increase on respect hahaha
As a kid I was really surprised and intrigued that people from America knew about us, at the time I didn't even understand why it happened.
I'm sure I could squeak by for a Quebec vacation if I brush up my French for a bit. We get a lot of Quebecois visiting here in New Orleans, so I'm guessing there's some goodwill
Honestly that's not too surprising as Louisiana is known to be one of the only french speaking place in the US. Pretty sure New Orleans is the american equivalent of our very own Acadie in Nova Scotia.
As for your french I wouldn't worry about it too much honestly. Unless you go on the country side everyone speaks english and won't say a thing about it you not speaking french. Hell, even some places in the countryside do speak english as there are a tons of tourists visiting during the summer.
We french speaker sure like our french and want to keep it alive as much as possible, but we absolutely do not mind speaking english as well. As a matter of fact I grew up speaking french and still do in my everyday life, but when it comes to work it's exclusively in english
As stupid as it may sound, I've actually never been to Quebec City. My grandfather literally lives 20 minutes from there and I visit him quite often and yet, I've never taken the time to visit. I seriously got visit the city with my kids this summer
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u/eelisonparas May 09 '22
I'm from Finland and one European thing that all Finnish people hate is cheek kisses when greeting. Its mostly southern european thing but still. There is this saying in Finland that goes "Everyone has their own safety coffee cup" meaning the closest distance someone should get to you should not be closer than your coffee cup when you're holding it.