I’m about to sound like the ignorant American I am, so I apologize in advance! We’re looking at a trip to Germany, and possibly Prague, and we’ve noticed that a lot of the hotel names are French and a couple hotels that aren’t named in French have replied to comments with things like “Bonjour! etc etc” What’s up with this? Is French just the most commonly spoken common language, even in Germany and Czechia? (I know that Germany and Czechia have their own languages, of course.) Or is it something else?
Could it be that the places you’re looking at are the most popular destinations of French tourists? 🤔
That’s certainly possible! I’m not sure how I would find that out. We’re just looking at the places with decent reviews on available sites in the US, like Expedia and TripAdvisor.
Maybe the owner is a french company?
I’m Geman and travel a lot. No Bonjours for me ever 😉.
Oh, that’s a decent theory! Interesting that you haven’t seen it as a German person, too.
Definitely not. While some people in Germany learn a bit of French as a third language in school, you’ll definitely be better off with English.
I never noticed hotel names being often French. It might come from an attempt to sound more exotic or luxurious within Germany. The comments might have just been French tourists. It’s the biggest neighbouring country after all.
This is great context, thank you! That would make sense about the comments. The hotel owners were responding to folks, but I admit I was reading through things quickly and could have missed someone identifying themselves that way before the hotel responded.
Could it be that your (real) name is possibly of French origin, or at least it sounds French to them? Maybe they wrongly assume that you are of French origin, so they try to be more friendly.
You’re American. Marketing data says that you like all things French and Italian.
Guess what happens next in this salesforce driven industry?
:)
East of Munich you’re best bet is German, but English is also spoken widely. West of Munich you’re more or less fine with English. In the northern countries we are used to the fact no one speaks our language so we all speak English, a lot of people French and a lot of German because it’s close to our own.
Italians try English. As do most Spanish. Try is the magic word here, it’s like your Spanish after high school or my French. :)
French don’t try. They speak French. Period. In hotels etc. (tourist spots) English is spoken by few employees. But they are there. :)
In the balkans the situation is mixed. Some parts English, some German, some French, some Russian. I get by with an English/German mix in Croatia. my German is better then my French… But not a lot). Here in the Netherlands my level of German is widely called “steenkolen Duits” (coal German) because it’s course, harsh, hard and dirty)
Anyway you’ll be fine. Have a great vacation.
I have been to France in 2000, 2010 and last year, and this last time I was unable to use French with waiters and cashiers in Paris. They realized my French was not exactly fluent and immediately switched to English. Very surprising, but at least in Paris youngish people seemed positively eager to use English instead of French. And the skills were passable, too - generally way better than my French.
The last time I was in France, which was around 2009, everyone answered me in English.
Even though French is my second language.
Large cities, big tourist spots? Yes. Go in land and it’s game over. I’ve been in cajarc (beautiful spot, really!) this year, it’s on one of the compostela routes so they get a lot of pelgrims from al over the world. 1 waiter spoke good enough English to have a conversation with. 1.
Here in the Netherlands my level of German is widely called “steenkolen Duits” (coal German) because it’s course, harsh, hard and dirty)
That’s actually not the etymology. Steenkolenduits (spelled without a space) is a riff on steenkolenengels, which was the basic/broken English spoken by dockworkers with sailors on incoming British coal ships (steenkolenboten).
Thank you for clearing it up
I mean, I feel like I’ve been seen, but also called out. 😂 Thank you for all of this info!
Yep, we try English. We are not very good at it (thanks Mussolini) and the situation is not gonna improve. But you’ll survive, even here. Last time I was in a hotel here a foreigner was communicating with the receptionist via Google Translate ;p
I’ve been to Italy multiple times (actually on a plane to leave for Milan right now). I never had any problem communicating while there.
Lucky you. Sometimes I have issues understanding other people’s incorrect Italian…
Is French just the most commonly spoken common language, even in Germany and Czechia?
Not at the slightest. I suppose it’s just a marketing thing where french sounding names are supposed to be more appealing or tell something about the food or atmosphere at the hotel. And based on a very quick visit at booking.com I don’t see any french sounding hotels at Berlin, so I don’t know how many there actually are. I’m sure there’s some around like everywhere in the world, but I think majority is something else.
And there’s a lot of shared history between countries, so that can mix things up in various ways.
My daughter actually said something like that, that the French names probably just sound fancier, especially to Americans. That would jive with ladyofthrowaway’s post above, too.
I’m from Czechia, and we use our own language. Hotels have some fancy names to attract tourist imho.
Interestingly, English has been the target of this quite a few times: https://youtube.com/watch?v=V347dTGZVl0
Shh, not too loud. Our plan to take over Europe is slowly unfolding
I lived there for two years, and I think I met one french speaking expat during that time. Czech is the official language (surprise!), and “everyone” speaks it (apart from yours truly).
One thing I found interesting while living there was that it was usually a safe bet to assume everyone older than me knew russian as a second language, while everyone my age or younger spoke english.
I lived in Brno, which doesn’t have much tourism (just a bunch of expats), but in Prague you’ll have no problem with English, I’m sure.
Ahem. You can use a french name to sound posh. Like bakeries all over the world do it. Other than that, I can guarantee you 90% of germans won’t speak french and despise the french people for not speaking english. So no. Most germans won’t speak french unless you find a way to force them. Cordialement… moi. Je suis Allemand.
(Edit: You can show me an example of a question and a german reply and maybe I can tell you what went wrong…)
Bonjour
They do it to sound cool. Interestingly, in Japan (often nonsensical) English often gets used as a decoration in a similar way: https://youtube.com/watch?v=V347dTGZVl0
My lungs hurt from laughing. This is amazing!
