Bonjour! I don’t speak French.
“Bonjour hi!”
This phrase greets me everywhere I go in Montréal. I hear it at the grocery store, I hear it at the food court and at the pharmacy. The post office greets me this way and so does the nice man at the Depaneur down the street.
I like this. It gives me the option to either speak French (which, sadly still is very “not happening at all” for me) or I can jump on the “Hi”-part and speak English. However. When I first moved to Montréal I did my best to blend in. By this I mean that it was important to me to show Monties that I’m not one of those English speaking twats that don’t want to speak French. I wan’t to, I just am not able to do so yet. So I would reply:
“BONJOUR!” with a big white-ish smile on my face, upon which whoever had greeted me with their “Bonjour hi” would continue in French:
“Ça va?”
“I am great thank you, how are you??”
“Avez-vous votre Optimum carte?”
“Uhm… Errr… *cough* No?”
“Voulez-vous un sac?”
“Sac? Bag! No thanks! I have my back pack. I am from Norway you see… Merci… Non merci!” //insert nervous giggle//
I was for a while puzzled as to why they kept speaking French to me after I replied in English… I only said “Bonjour” not to hurt their feelings, and then they shower me with a lot of French gibberish! I mean… That’s just plain MEAN!
It has, after almost half a year, dawned on me that there are a whole group of Monties who understand French perfectly but are more comfortable speaking English. So they’ll say “Bonjour” to people to let them know “I’m cool. I’m cool. Speak French and I shall reply in English.”
To avoid this I now greet everyone with a big, fat “HI!” in stead to let them know “Dude… I’m like totally not comfortable speaking French. Thanks for understanding.”
It’s still important for me that they know I am also cool, so I walk away saying:
“Merci! Bonne journée!”
Cause you know… There’s no more talking after I leave.
