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[Yoink]

Experience suggests that latin american telenovelas are like crack cocaine for older mothers. You're a better son than I am for actually trying it, I just headed that shit off at the pass the moment I saw it creeping into conversations with my own mother.

You're telling me. She's up to episode 134 now... apparently this series goes for around 180.   
It's so bad that only very occasionally does the quality improve to the point that it briefly enters "so bad it's good" territory. Generally just when there's some really over-the-top ridiculous goof, like someone getting punched brutally for about five minutes straight on-screen, then being left with just one small, artistically-placed trickle of blood from a lip - which was obviously not water-soluble paint considering it's still there after a scene where he thoroughly washes his battered face.
Or the moment where someone walks up to an armed guard and asks to "take a look" at his shotgun, then when he inexplicably agrees and hands it over charges inside to take pot-shots at a cheating spouse. I don't think anyone's actually been shot in this show unless they were a nameless character introduced specifically for the purpose, either - the shot in question took out a ham on a nearby platter, presumably for comedic effect. Believe me, there are plenty of "dramatic" scenes involving people leveling guns at each other, too.

[ChairmanPoo]

The French people speak French 

Admiróse un portugués
de ver que en su tierna infancia
todos los niños en Francia
supiesen hablar francés.
«Arte diabólica es»,
dijo, torciendo el mostacho,
«que para hablar en gabacho
un fidalgo en Portugal
llega a viejo y lo habla mal;
y aquí lo parla un muchacho».


TL, DR: It still cracks me up when I find someone who is surprised that French people speak mostly French (I mean what the fuck were you expecting?)


BTW you were going to Japan right? Well, I have news for you.... 

[ChairmanPoo]

, though the program lead noted that the French tend to be like this.

Rotfl, yeah French people tend to speak French. 

[IcyTea31]

Ah, there's your problem. You think they're speaking French. Yeah, the language of the Four Moons is a bit tricky, but the Io dialect is really easy to learn. I'm sure you'll new friends will be much more talkative once you address them in the proper Jovian tongue.

[Kagus]

I thought it was fairly well known that the French consider French to be the only language worth speaking, and it's the rest of the world's problem that they lack the nobility and panache required to learn it.

[ChairmanPoo]

 
You realize that you're blaming the French for speaking in their language instead of yours.

I said it before: a lot of people here seem to have both a lack of command of foreign languages and unrealistic expectations about foreigner's command of their language. If you stick to tourist hubs and hotels you'll be fine, but elsewhere... you're pretty much on a crash course with reality.

[Loud Whispers]

wtf french speak french

[Greiger]

If I'm understanding right the problem is more the program was 'advertised' as being an English speaking program, and that everyone they would be interacting with day to day would be speaking fluent English.  Suddenly and unexpectedly interacting closely on a near constant basis with someone who speaks little to no English, after that would seem a bit frustrating. 

I know I would be unlikely to enter into some program where basic interaction with my fellows would be problematic.  Yes they are going to another country entirely and are expecting some language difficulty I'm sure, but there is a difference between going in expecting to have some moments of straightforward conversation at the start and end of the day, and having someone else you can easily converse with to share experiences with, and then suddenly finding out that you won't be getting any of that.

I don't know the french folks' situation, they may be in the same boat, maybe they were told the program is French only, and in their case got lucky and found another predominantly french speaker.  They may be complaining on french bay12 games about the crazy guy speaking english in the french only program.

tl;dr I think it is more a WTF at the program, and less a wtf at the people who only speak fluent french.

[Kagus]

Now, see, there's a difference between speaking your native language and snubbing the dude talking to you in a language you're capable of speaking, and instead going back to a language he doesn't understand in order to talk behind his back when you're in front of him. This happens to sound a bit like the second case, what with the "generally ignoring me" and "not listening" clauses.

And if these presumably educated Frenchmen who willingly joined an English-speaking volunteer organization actually lack the English skills to even say "I don't understand" when he says something that they don't know what to do with, then they're damn near as dumb as one of my old roommates in the army who we nearly managed to talk into joining the Légion étrangère... Despite his not speaking a single word of French.

[Yoink]

I think Naxza was mostly upset about their lack of cleanliness and housekeeping.
As far as I can tell, they're probably just pretending not to understand what he's on about because they're not keen on being nagged. Heck, if I were in their shoes I would probably do the same thing and pretend I only spoke Australian.

No idea where Poo's entirely unwarranted hostility came from, though. That's definitely worthy of this thread.
Chill, dude...     

[Arx]

Chairman, I dunno about you, but where I'm from the French are notorious for refusing to speak any language other than French, as far as possible, and especially English. There's a definite difference between not speaking good English and actively being a jerk about it, trust me. I live in a country where you need at least three languages to be probably able to fully converse with the average person on the street.

It's like the difference between not hearing what someone said and actively ignoring it. You seem to think they're, figuratively, doing the former, but it's pretty obvious they're doing the latter.

[TD1]

Yea, the French are language snobs.

[George_Chickens]

french
more like
shoot them all over a trench

[Teneb]

Damn surrender cheesemongers and their piss-poor hygene.

Seriously though, how can people stand living with their own filth (or hell, general filth) laying around? Discount those who literally cannot clean up their environment for whatever reason. _{(Being french is no a valid reason)}

[Akura]

Did you and your sister work in the same place?  Also at my job threatening a coworker is an automatic termination, and the policy is enforced.  I work for a large corporation tho.

Yes, and yes, something like that ought to be instant-fired, but disregarding whatever happened with my sister, job security is ridiculous here. A few weeks ago, my boss mentioned that several people were "on their last warnings"* about stealing stuff, and so far nothing has changed, nothing's been done about it.