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"French people for example tend to nitpick and want you to be really fluent." I humbly disagree.Moved to France only recently and started a company. Whenever I try and talk to locals in French they politely interrupt and ask if it was easier for me in English.

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I always heard they would switch to English for people, but they wanted people to make an attempt and not just start with English like it was assumed people understood it in France. It sounds like you made the attempt.

Could be younger generation maybe? I've had bad experience with 40+ in my line of work. But obviously not everyone.

It's a cultural difference – french culture prefers correctness over politeness, whereas in the US people prefer to "keep the peace" by not emphasizing mistakes.

It shows up a lot in engineering discussions if you have french colleagues too.

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