Alizee's English?

[Naft]

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

That could very well be. She's probably smart enough to realize if at let's say the autograph session, she tries to converse in English and she makes some type of mistake, it will be all over Youtube the next day.

That, or the fact that she's proud of her heritage and culture, at least I seem be getting the signal that it is one of the reasons.

[jung_adore_ALIZEE]

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

Well at the end of the private autograph session last year, I asked aloud if we could film her saying hello to Alizee America and that had to be translated to her and that's not a very complicated question, English wise, and when I asked her to try on the AAm hat, that too had to be translated to her.

Also when ever we (the 4 reps of AAm) would say something to each other or to some of the other people in the room who spoke English, ala Instatubes, the media, and the Virgin Megastore mgr, she never once responded in anyway indicating she understood what was being said.

This made me smile .

Regards,

Jung

[Mon Maquis]

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

That could very well be. She's probably smart enough to realize if at let's say the autograph session, she tries to converse in English and she makes some type of mistake, it will be all over Youtube the next day.

Don't let Alizee fool you, she speaks English and if she did not speak it to you, then she must of not wanted to communicate with you.

[Scruffydog777]

Well as someone pointed out in another thread today, in such a situation as the autograph session, she might not want to engage in a conversation in Enlish with the fear that if she made some type of faux pas because she's not an expert at English, it would be all over Youtube the next day.

[DrSmith]

There is that stereotype that French people refuse to speak English. Maybe there's some truth in that.

<a href="http://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080717062214AAJe8Pg" target="_blank"><b>Why do most french people refuse to speak english?</b></a>

I'm French so I can answer. A lot of French people feel ashamed to speak English, because even if they can understand, they don't feel comfortable enough to speak. Plus, a funny thing is that even if most foreigners like the French accent, our accent is considered as a bit ridiculous to ourselves. I can speak enough English to answer a question in the street and I still find my self ackward when I speak English, it makes me feel a little embarassed. If you go to Germany, Sweden, Norway ..., most people speak very well English because their language look like English. In Spain, Italy or France, we don't speak very well most of the time and always assume that no one could understand our English.

[Deepwaters]

Originally Posted by Mon Maquis

Don't let Alizee fool you, she speaks English and if she did not speak it to you, then she must of not wanted to communicate with you.

She knows some English, but she's not fluent. I can tell that from her attempts with it in concert and from her efforts at written English. She makes a fair number of mistakes, although I generally know what she means. Also, as I said earlier, even people who can speak or write a foreign language may have trouble following it when it's spoken. My best guess about what happened at the autograph session is that Scruffy was speaking too quickly for her to be sure about understanding what he said. His American accent may also not have helped matters. I'm pretty sure that French people who study English in school learn the language as spoken in the UK.

And since she did communicate with us (in French), that last is clearly not the case.

[jung_adore_ALIZEE]

You really don't want to believe him that she speaks English do you?

Regards,

Jung

[Deepwaters]

Originally Posted by jung_adore_ALIZEE

You really don't want to believe him that she speaks English do you?

Actually, this is a solid disproof of your claims that he has some kind of inside knowledge. That she is not fluent in English is obvious to anyone who is a native English speaker. Perhaps the fact that it is obvious, is not so obvious to Mon Maquis, because he is NOT a native English speaker. Perhaps for that reason, he thought he could get away with that claim. He can't. His statement is clearly, obviously wrong. He doesn't know. Of course, anyone who knows Alizée well would know.

Therefore, he does NOT know Alizée well.

Alizée in writing English frequently messes up the word order. She has committed a number of mistakes in the past typical of someone who has studied a language but doesn't use it often enough to become really fluent (not unlike my own mistakes in French, actually). I've seen her incorrectly write a numeric expression, use incorrect language that is clearly a literal translation from the French, and make similar errors.

Alizée does not speak English fluently. That's obvious. If Mon Maquis says that she does, then he doesn't know as much about her as he claims to know.

[Scruffydog777]

Originally Posted by DrSmith

There is that stereotype that French people refuse to speak English. Maybe there's some truth in that.

Quote:
I'm French so I can answer. A lot of French people feel ashamed to speak English, because even if they can understand, they don't feel comfortable enough to speak. Plus, a funny thing is that even if most foreigners like the French accent, our accent is considered as a bit ridiculous to ourselves. I can speak enough English to answer a question in the street and I still find my self ackward when I speak English, it makes me feel a little embarassed. If you go to Germany, Sweden, Norway ..., most people speak very well English because their language look like English. In Spain, Italy or France, we don't speak very well most of the time and always assume that no one could understand our English.

Who was that quote from DrSmith? Was it from a post in this thread?

[DrSmith]

It's from Yahoo Answers. The link is in my post.