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Comment by abyssin | Hacker News Reader

I've always wondered if the difference in tone between French and English that I usually perceive on forums has something to do with French being my mother tongue. Indeed it usually feels like there's more snarkiness when people speak French, and the discussion quickly turns to a battle to know who's the smartest, all the while leaving the criteria of what defines being smart unanswered.

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> I've always wondered if the difference in tone between French and English that I usually perceive on forums has something to do with French being my mother tongue. Indeed it usually feels like there's more snarkiness when people speak French

I almost added a paragraph to my post about that because when I replied to the aforementioned thread to help the person with his VPS I thought my first draft was.. a bit too snarky :/.

I don't know if it's because of the way IT people usually write or if it's inherent to the french language. There's is something to be said about the passive voice that is more predominant in english (or so was I told when learning english). Eg: simple vous avez atteint la limite de certificat gratuit, donc oui vous avez fait le bourrin sachant que la limite est de 5 certificats pour un même domaine et par semaine. vs "Il y a une limite de 5 certificats gratuits par semaine pour un même domaine, donc quand le serveur LE en a délivré 5 il n'en donnera plus avant une semaine". It struck me because "vous avez fait le bourrin" implies the person intentionally behaved like a brute when it's likely his retries that triggered the limit and he was missing the information that there was such a limit. I also suppose he was trying to debug if he could even reach LE for renewal. I know I did that too when I first setup traefik automatic renewal :].

For what it's worth I don't feel the same way at all when talking orally with french IT people.

There also might be a 'forum' french culture where being snarky was rewarded. I feel the same vibe on french twitter.

There's a difference for sure, at least in my perception, but some of that is my own baggage. I'll give an example: I was using Symfony for a project, but found the tone of the Symfony website and tutorials, in the English texts, to be annoying and a little patronizing and a little self-aggrandizing. But one day I heard a youtube video with Symfony founder, and Frenchman, Fabien Potencier speaking. For the first time I understood his genuine enthusiasm. Up to then, I'd been "hearing" it wrong -- same text, different emphasis and intonation. Now when I read the text, I try to imagine M. Potencier saying it aloud, and it sounds almost dear.

I think that in general it's freeing to be outside of your native language, because you don't understand it well enough to catch all the possible subtexts, the hidden cruelties, the subtle status signals.

Could it be the cuisine? I have yet to eat anything that tastes as it should in France.

I know French cuisine is famous, but eating anything tasty in Paris without being a local is one hell of challenge.

> I know French cuisine is famous, but eating anything tasty in Paris without being a local is one hell of challenge.

I only ate once in a Paris restaurant and 10 minutes after sitting down I had the chef harassing me because the waitress couldn't understand my botched Italian when I tried to order a pizza.

She couldn't understand my Italian because she only spoke French.

But the whole menu was in Italian. I do not speak a word of Italian. So I just tried to read the words aloud with my best efforts.

"Why are you doing that ? What if everyone started ordering things in Italian ?" was shouting the chef when he came back.

I kid you not.

Anyway, that was the worst, I don't remember bad culinary experiences but I tend to stick to stuff I know I will like. I am not french though :].

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