Nobody spoke English and there was nothing to do

[AdoraLovesCake]

Sorry, this might sound like I am complaining when obviously in another country they won't speak much English.

I decided to go to France this summer as a single pregnant mum with a 1 year old and a 5 year old. Fortunately my friend and her 3 year old son decided to join us.

I booked in a place, by the beach in Northern France, I had been to when I was a young adult, I remember it being quite touristy but very kid friendly. Photos of the place looked like a touristy city where people would speak English.

I speak quite a lot of French and was teaching bits to my oldest daughter so she could ask for a crepe or say please and sorry and simple things like that, under the expectation that most people would speak English. My 1 year old can only speak a few words, so I am not going to teach her French. My friend speaks French well too, and her son also learnt please, thanks, sorry.

We arrived to find a really untouristy place. We unpacked and looked around the town for fun kids stuff. There was nothing. By this time I was exhausted, with an overexcited child and a screaming baby. So we hunted for a cafe or restaurant. Nothing. We went into a small bakery, asked in French for some stuff then asked in English, "Are there any children's playgrounds here?" The baker looked blank at us and soon there was about five French men shaking their heads and repeatedly telling us, "Me French"

So we left and went to the beach. No kids on the beach, just a couple and their dog. Thankfully they let the children stroke the dog. No places to buy ice cream, buckets, spades, balls, paddle boards or anything.

The next day we took the bus, still nobody spoke English and still, towns bare of tourists and kids, beaches bare of anyone and anything.

Thankfully the kids took it quite well, it could have been a whole lot worse. It's just that the research I did made it look good. Maybe I didn't do enough? Maybe I shouldn't have used my memory from 20 years ago? Maybe I should have taught my kids more French?

xxx Cora

What do you expect? Did you not research the place, look at Google maps, check TripAdvisor etc before booking? Relying on a memory from a while ago seems high risk.

Could NOT

Where did you go?

That's bizarre. We have holidayed in northern France often and have never come across that. Most people are happy if you try to speak French and many want to show off their knowledge of English! But whemn you go off the beaten path, fewer people do speak English - probably just the same in the UK...

I agree that google is your friend for next time, Also, French beaches tend not to have shops selling buckets and spades unles you're in a pretty touristy place. That's more a British thing...

I can recommend Dinard, Deauville or Ouistreham for the next time :)

There were two issues:

A failure to properly research ahead of time

A failure to problem solve once there.

You could have used Siri/google to translate your questions if you couldn't say it in French.

You could have ordered paddle boards etc via Amazon prime and had them there the next day if there was nowhere selling locally.

Holidays are often beset by challenges when you get there but you just need to be a bit more imaginative in your response. Children will play with anything on a beach. It doesn't have to be a bucket and spade.

My BFF has lived in France over 40 years. She is married to a French man. All her kids were educated there. She works as a translator. She has spoken a French for so long she occasionally forgets English words. And still some French people pretend they can't understand her spoken French.

This! I speak fluent French but the sheer determination of the locals not to understand me is exasperating.

Please can you name the place? I'm fascinated.

So you went to a non touristy town in a foreign country and complained that there was nothing to do and that people wouldn't couldn't understand you.
What do you want people to say?

FWIW I don't think coastal towns in N France are holiday destinations anyway. We've come a long way from when the Victorians used to frequent Honfleur and the like.

Ah my lovely I expect you'll get a bit of negativity here - I think you prob need a good cup of tea and a laugh about it - I know it's galling when you look forward to something for a while and it's cost a lot of money. But the worst holidays are the most memorable, I promise it'll be a funny story in a couple of years :)

I actually thought that French people learned English at a young age? Or did I get that wrong. I thought it was taught in schools.

I thought that was just the parisiens! Most other french people Ive encountered have been mostly fine!

You could have ordered paddle boards etc via Amazon prime and had them there the next day if there was nowhere selling locally.

You're seriously recommending paddle boarding to a heavily pregnant woman and very small children/babies, with no buoyancy aids, in an unfamiliar area with no lifeguards? Are you so keen to prove that OP was less resourceful than you that you just plucked the first suggestion out of the air?

Wow! It sounds as if it hasn't changed a jot since I last lived and worked in a village outside Bordeaux, which was nearly 40 years ago! Everything except the boulangerie-patisserie closed on Sundays, even in the cities. So weird when you've lived anywhere else with 24/7 opening hours. I'm not even sure Paris is much better on Sundays, though you'd think it would be. The last time I was in Paris, which was about 20 years ago, they were much better about speaking English than they had been - I used to speak fluent French and they would reply in English, which was actually quite annoying for me.

I don't think it is entirely fair of other posters to compare this with foreign coming to the UK and expecting everyone to speak their language. It is a fact that English is much more widely spoken than other languages and therefore expectations are different.

My husband is Dutch (and actually rather brilliant at picking up different languages) and he is much more critical than I would dare to be of people in other countries who don't have a functional level of English, at least if they fairly young and/or educated and/or working in a customer facing position. He just sees it as a fairly basic skill to be acquired after your first language and numeracy. He thinks native English speakers are lucky as they needn't prioritise learning a second language if they dont want to and can spend their time learning other other things!

Germany is just as bad for shops/restaurants closing. Probably worse.

You seemed to have the idea of a British seaside holiday not a french one. Also you can't asume people will speak English just because it is called a tourist area. French people don't come to London and expect people to speak French. Of course it makes things easier for us if people do speak English but it can't be an expectation.
It sounds though as though your daughter had a proper French experience rather than a British one in the sun and that sounds good

I went to the Cote d'Azur a few weeks ago. Their English was so, so and French ain't perfect but it definitely got us through. Can't wait to go back.

I'm calling chatGPT on this one.

Poor you! Better luck next time (with research :-D )

Your bakery experience made me think of this passage that I love from Bill Bryson’s “neither here nor there” book:

“I soon learned that everyone in Paris was like that. You would go into a bakery and be greeted by some vast sluglike creature with a look that told you you would never be friends. In halting French you would ask for a small loaf of bread. The woman would give you a long, cold stare and then put a dead beaver on the counter. “No, no,” you would say, hands aflutter, “not a dead beaver. A loaf of bread.” The sluglike creature would stare at you in patent disbelief, then turn to the other customers and address them in French at much too high a speed for you to follow, but the drift of which clearly was that this person here, this American tourist, had come in and asked for a dead beaver and she had given him a dead beaver and now he was saying that he didn’t want a dead beaver at all, he wanted a loaf of bread. The other customers would look at you as if you had just tried to fart in their handbags, and you would have no choice but to slink away and console yourself with the thought that in another four days you would be in Brussels and probably able to eat again.”

Bill Bryson, Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe

Unless youre in a touristy area France is not child friendly and you wont be welcomed.

It's that French love of ignorance and bullishness. I let my French family visit me. Funnily enough they're happy to speak French all the time with me in the UK when I'm doing things for them. I won't visit them any more in France as they act as though my French is non exsisitent.
I have, when they've pretended not to understand something simple just shrugged and walked away, it's amazing how many shop staff "suddenly" realise what you're saying in French.

I have encountered it and my h worse in England when tourists are trying to speak English.
I honestly think we are the worst country for expecting everyone to speak our language.

Ahahahhaa! I love France but the line between charming, wholesome and hostile is a thin one sometimes.

French people speak French. It's a thing.

A lot of smaller town in France are very dead in August as a lot of people take August off for holidays. Sundays are also very quiet even in larger towns and cities. We were in Perpignan this July and on Sunday I say at least 2/3 of the bars and restaurants did not open on Sunday.

I speak tolerably good French and visit a lot. I have never come across this supposed feigned inability to understand the English speaking French thing. I have been gently mocked for my accent before (we go to the South mainly and i learnt French from teachers who mainly came from the Nord pas de Calais region).

What I have found make the difference is more confidence. Mr Monkey speaks French less well than me but is often understood more - he is just a more coonfident person. I realised that I could be shy when speaking another language so was actually mumbling or being very quiet, which led to incomprehension.

That said in a tapas bar Perpignan my accent was clearly confusing to some as I ordered spiced lamb sausage (merguez) and was given grilled duck breast (magret) 😞

You were lucky. We accidentally rocked up to somewhere-Sur-Mer, expecting a bucket and spade haven.

We found mass campsite hell, the queue outside Spar went round the block and the kiosks along the front charged five euro for barely chilled cans of crap lemonade.

No breathing room anywhere, and a slightly menacing air.

Non merci.