How good is your French accent?

Heh, kinda cool! Definitely in its beginning stages, but I had to try it out as I'm probably a target market; studied French for ~10 years (middle school, high school, some university), and have spent a total of perhaps 6 months in France -- But I've not lived there permanently, and haven't really used the language in perhaps 10 years.

I'm at the point where I'd have a hard time following dialogue in a TV show (although, to be fair, that's always hard for foreigners), but am rarely identified as american by native french-speakers; they usually guess German or something similar (more plausible to know French well, but still with the harder-edged anglo accent; I'm clearly not an Italian or Spaniard... well, okay, I AM Italian, but do not speak Italian).

Anyway, what I mean to say is my background with the language is complicated, and my french is far from perfect. Typically I managed in the 80-100% range depending on words.

Anybody know the goal of the project?

I almost spit out my beer at "answered me back in English".

My favorite language story is from when I was studying in eastern France (Strasbourg). I went across the border to the train station in Kehl, Germany, as I reasoned that train tickets inside Germany (I was on my way to Berlin) would be vastly cheaper than trying to buy the same ticket with an origin in Strasbourg.

Anyway, I know a little bit of German, and suddenly I understood why foreign language classes always start you off with directions and tickets and timetables and so on. So I was all set with my basic train vocabulary. We went back and forth and conducted our business. I gave him my American passport at the end, he seamlessly transitioned to some pleasantry in English as we concluded, and I walked away with my train ticket.

Well, as I walked away, I was pondering his lack of surprise that I was American (which should not have been surprising; my crappy German is clearly not a Frenchman's crappy German), and I replayed the conversation in my head. As I got to the "smoking or non-smoking" part, I realized I could not recall the German word (rauchen, for those keeping score at home). Eventually it came to me, and I realized that he had actually said "smoking oder non" (oder being German for "or").. Well, of course, English with a German accent sounds like German to an English speaker...

And I suddenly realized that we had probably conducted virtually all of the transaction in English, and I had no clue. He probably switched to German-accented English as soon as I did a poor job of asking for a 2nd class ticket to Berlin arriving at this time on that date, and I didn't even realize it.

It'd be interesting to see accents from Northern, Southern France, Paris, Belgium, Switzerland and Quebec compared... I'd reckon there's more variation than people think.

Funny Story: I was traveling from Portugal back to the U.S. through Charles de Gaulle Airport and my Dad gave me 4 Euros. I went to this little bakery and the man behind the counter asked me what I wanted in French. I mustered up as much throat as I possibly could and said croissant which was apparently good enough for him to go off on this long answer to what I ordered. I looked at him blankly and said "Sorry man, that's the only word I know." He was not amused.

They probably enjoyed the chance to use their english with a native english speaker while appreciating that you initiated the interaction with consideration to them.

Here in Canada we have a french region, and if you walk into a mechanic's shop and say: “Hi! Does anybody speak english here? Can you fix my car?” They will help you, but if you make an attempt like: “Bon Jur. Can you fixé le car for moi?” They will be a lot more happy to accommodate you in English because you tried to bridge the gap. Maybe it's similar!