Your speaking facts

@@lexoticsjyl3229 what about their speaking facts?

I agree we must respect French culture and race. Many immigrants does not respect.

Respect!

So true.

@@harrisonlockett9632 What's dirty about it, you can change the duvet cover as much as you like and it does a good job protecting the duvet. Why would you even put two layers of protection in the first place? Next you'll tell me you only have sex with two condoms on.

Ça veut dire quoi top sheet?

The Netherlands here and we do it just like the French. We either have a duvet (in a cover, of course) or a top sheet + blanket. In fact, it's the same everywhere I've been to in Europe, so maybe the top sheet with the duvet is a typical New Zealand thing?

It seems that there is this old school bed dressing consisting from inner to outter layer: top sheet, wool blanket, duvet inside cover sheet (couette, edredon, etc... ?). I am french and I like to dress my bed old school, but my impression is, this way has quickly faded in the last decades, and most people only use a duvet in a cover sheet.

@@JaneFokster its that way in America too...top sheet and duvet.

That makes me want to visit France. Every nation should have that mentality.

@Dark Omen Maybe it is the case for you, doesn't mean it's the same for everyone

@Dark Omen bc I relate to the first comment. (to an extent)

@Dark Omen I don't get your point, what you just said is obvious. My previous message was just a "contre-exemple" (j'ai pas d'équivalent en Anglais :D)

@Dark Omen what was the point of yours ?

You have no idea how grateful I am for reading your message. I told my partner whos French, that we have to compromise, we need to meet each other in the middle. I was sick of his loud talking during the simplest of conversations. Even when he is explaining something his voice has to be raised..as someone from the u.k, we don't talk like that, and you can give an arrogant, rude impression of yourself being this way. Here I am wanting him to compromise, but I never speak to him when it's dinner time..he told me that French people do speak at dinner, but I never knew how important it was. I will definitely make more of an effort now. Better late then never.

@@BluePillowLDN On the other way, every time I've been in a British pub, I've been surprised at how loud and fiery beer talks were, even straight out of office around 6pm or so. And, it seems, the browner the ale, the louder the yells. :D We do that as well, of course, but over the cheese or the dessert, usually. (Anyway, that's somewhat less true for the younger generations, amongst whom beer takes over wine, "apéro" takes over meals, so they tend to be a mix of traditional French-eater-talker and Anglo-Saxon-drinker-talker.)

Fine answer ! That is exactly what I would have said. Part of the "art de vivre à la française" ;-)

I do agree that it is important to have deep conversations but I also think mixing the conversation with light-hearted ones is important. For Singaporeans, I don't speak for all of us but myself, time is very precious and you will see that we are constantly in a rush to go back to work etc. I think deep conversations usually happens for me with people I know well. But it will be great if I can have it with people I just met too :)

@@franck_mee i 100% agree 😂

Most French TV shows are stupid 😂 And another funny thing is that snobby French people always love to insult American TV and movies, yet your TV is full of American TV shows! And your movie theaters have lines down the block every time a new American movie comes out 😆 Also, I don't know any Americans who still watch TV, lol

LittleLulubee doesn’t seem like you watched this video and listened to what she was saying about French TV, anyway, I was talking about American TV, not movies, that’s a different thing. I prefer American movies than French movies. However the American TV really is dumb. Finally, Americans are probably more snobbish than French people. I live in the US, so I can compare. While Americans think their country is the best in the world and don’t have any insight on what it actually is, French people know what to criticize about themselves, in that respect, that shows humbleness, that most Americans lack.

I'm an American and I agree most of our TV shows are dumb & a complete waste of time to watch. :)

@@christianmarcel7766 it baffles me how many Americans say that America is the best country in the world and yet have never been out of their little town, let alone their state or the country. How can they be so certain when they haven't even experienced something else?

Amanda Claire can’t agree more with you!

I’m American and I don’t use top sheets. It’s weird to me.

Me too lol

moi j'ai vu un documentaire sur la nouvelle zelande. C'est plein d'orcs, d'elfes et de hobbits

Elsa Razborsek so used to the scaffolding covers that now when I’m in London for example, the city seems to constantly have building works.

We change the duvet cover every week and I use a mattress protector

You can also ask for the bill in the same time as the dessert or the coffee

diminish the risk on one side to increase the risk on the other side, it's all about balance

of course it's the same people who are doing both ...LOL

Omg I'm also so fed up with waiting for my bank account to update ! Sometimes you get fees if you spent in that order : let's say you have 10€ in your account, you +200€, then -120 euros, the recharging is somehow slower so you get fees because you went under 0, if your bank charges for that. Now I used Revolut and it is live. Transactions are within a second too.

The change took place well before the advent of Ikea. I had to go for the first time to Ikea in 2010, and I put a duvet and cover for over 25 years.

This man tell you the truth about sheets and blankets !

"I don't mind the least washing the top sheet" I meant, the quilt cover

UK here, we don't normally use top sheets, just wash the duvet cover. I have only a top sheet in summer if it gets hot, but have had the same one for years and haven't looked for one to buy for a long time, so don't know how easily available they are. I don't know anyone who uses sheets and blankets regularly anymore. A lot of people will put a folded blanket on top of the bed, but that's more decorative.

" Otherwise, just ask for the bill at the same time you order your coffee" I think that what most people do, and that may be why she find the waiting time long.

But a top sheet is good wJen you want just a little coverage and you don't want to get overheated. I like top sheets for that reason.

No, AC either..

Tip number 2: and if you're going to pay by card, say it when you ask for the bill. Otherwise, the waiter will waste more time coming twice.

Tip number 3 : ask, ask, ask. Then leave. Some people just don't want to be paid.

“Un café et l’addition s’il vous plaît !”

Lucie • they don’t give a hoot when you ask for it . They will generally make it a pint to make you wait as if it is to burden the client !

@@sharondamongeot1439 Well that's pretty much just in paris then. Which is why these videos about the "france culture shock" bother me since it's the paris culture shock. Really very different. :)

And it's also an occasion to put some art or advertising on...

I think it's a British / US thing. Everywhere in the commonwealth you will find top sheets from my experience ...HK before China took over, India, Kenya, Canada etc... top sheets are freely available and in use 😃😃

The aluminum thing is very widely spread right now, you see it on tv and on ads on the street. The natural movement however is a popular belief but some people still buy conventional products but they feel better when they don't. I would say it is because of UFC que choisir, many discussions and ratings on forums like AuFéminin, Doctissimo and Beauté test, where people rate what they know which tends to be about natural ingredients. Since the common population doesn't necessarily have a chemist background and are naturally sceptical about everything (as French people are!).

A sort of relief, it's not just me, haha. Coming back to the US, the customs agents make you feel like a traitor for even leaving!

Australia is like NZ: very strict. That said, my last arrival in Melbourne was easily my easiest, Jan 2020, I am sure they were watching but there was no officious rifling through my things that time. So many things sold in other countries as souvenirs, or just freely available there (wherever "there" is) are definitely banned here.

I used to sleep with top sheet all my youth until I turned 25 (I'm 40), with a cover instead of the duvet. The old fashioned way. Funny detail : many people called that the bed "à la française". Before that, as a teenager I noticed that my friends had already duvets, with no top sheets. My mom used to call it the bed "à la nordique", she wasn't a big fan. When I moved from her house to live my own life, I decided to buy a duvet for the cold winters, and bought also sheets to fit with. There were always two sheets sold together : the bed sheet and the sheet duvet cover. No top sheet. But I still use top sheets when spring is back, with a light cover. (Je suis Français bien sûr, mon anglais le montre assez ;-)

... and I realise that I should have used the word "Blanket" instead of "cover" two of the three times I used it. Argh !

It drives me mad, French people can't prioritize, it is applicable in many lifestyle choices.

French people are incoherent (I'm French too), but I think people care about health and environement as long as it does not involve their addiction. That's why they would avoid deodorant, bc they are a lot of brands now without aluminium, and avoid waves, bc it's easy, it's no sacrifice, but still be smoking 😂

No, not everyone smokes, in France. And it's rarely the ones who smoke who pay attention to what is harmful in their deodorant 😄😉

@@pikachuiswatchingyou isn't it everyone tho? In America I know a lot of peoples saving every dollar they can, comparing every prices at grocery store etc... yet they pay for a gym subscribtion every year that goes to waste ... Every human have a part of incoherant choices, you can't be 100% rational all the time 🤷‍♀️

@@TahoCmoi Yeah not everbody smokes but as I am in the 18-25 (yo) generation, it's easily more than 80% of smokers in my environement...

I'm french and i never smoked in my life, nobody has ever been offeded by that... they all says «lucky you»😉😉

I do not know about the rest of France but only Paris, but from my point of view the scaffolding thing is due to 2 different reasons: 1)- Paris is the most visited city in the world by tourist; 2)- They are a chauvinist country. They are so proud of themselves that they like to show off their magnificence. So, there is no room for real things like scaffolding. And another point related to this topic and one of the most shocking (I'm still not used to it) is the thousands of beggars and homeless people that you will encounter everywhere in Paris. French like to show off and are very well-known for their luxury industry, but you just need to go down to the metro, like Auber metro station for instance, to get a complete different but still real view of Paris. To me, this goes in line with their communication style: being extremely polite in the outside but then when in trouble, like nowadays with the “giletes jaunes,” becoming extremely violet. French politesse and good manners make them repress their real feelings and emotions most of the time so them when in trouble, they will reach a point of just bursting out with violence/rage and non-stop complaining. From a linguistic or semantic point of view, if I compare French to Spanish (both coming from Latin) most of the common words in French like “desole” are having an extreme meaning in Spanish. desole=desolado. In Spanish “desolado” means “being devastated”. The same goes with "envie" y "evidia o tener envidia". In English would be "being jelous", so "I'm being jelous= I want". And it’s both funny and weird to me that I need to use these words in French when in Spanish they got these connotations and meaning. I guess that´s why in Spain we tent to thing that Frenchies are not to be trusted and double-faced. Or that "politesse française" is just fake and not real or coming from your heart.

Me too, I'm having my tea while listening to you. Very pleasant to start the day :)

Well even with "classic" bank you can do an online "virement" 24/24 7/7. But for security concerns you cannot register a new external account into your account list and do a "virement" right away to it.

Chez CIC/Crédit Mutuel on peut tout à fait enregistrer un nouveau bénéficiaire à tout moment et effectuer un virement juste après. En revanche le virement n'apparaîtra sur le compte du bénéficiaire que le "temps que la transaction se passe", un jour ouvré généralement.

Marie Bambelle oui c’est une des plus rapides, avec 2 traitements des transactions par jour ouvré, contrairement à d’autres banques qui n’ont qu’un traitement de nuit & LBP qui en plus, n’a pas de traitement le lundi. Sinon les délais sont de 2 jours ouvrés (lundi à vendredi) pour les transactions SEPA (transactions en € dans les pays de la zone SEPA).

Yes you are right, we have sheets only when there are blankets on the bed (usually it’s the case at our grandparents’ for example) but I wash my duvet cover very frequently

In Germany, I was confused by the no flat sheet thing. In Italy, where I spend the vast majority of my time, sheets are still a thing. My Italian wife, however, had learned to only use a duvet in the UK. I had to insist that we go back to using a flat sheet!

Eilysanca I think the frequency for washing the duvet cover depends on your personal preferences in France. I do it weekly or every other week maximum (watching videos about hygiene and cleaning your house, they said that every other week was fine so I stick to it) yet I’ve known people who almost never washed their sheets which is definitely gross to me. I guess most people do wash them at least monthly. And the main reason why I tend to wash them more is so obvious: nothing better than sleeping in fresh sheets. The smell is soooo good and the texture I love

Same in the U.K., no top sheet!

We do use top sheet in Spain, if you still consider us as part of Europe :-)

Josefina Valenzuela i just moved to Argentina from the USA and it sounds like the USA is very similar to New Zealand with our meal times - I’m still adjusting to how late we eat dinner here compared to with my family in the US where we eat at around 5:30-6pm as well!

I’m curious on what tv shows are good.

Maaaal. Eso de no tener top sheets por ejemplo, cuando viajé a Escocia, me pareció re raro y hasta incómodo. Todos los locales cerraban a las 6, calculo que porque cenan muy temprano, entonces nos re cortaba el día a la mitad a nosotros! Estamos acostumbrados a que los locales cierren de 8 a 9 y cenar como a las 10

To be fair, as a French girl I say that often 😂 When someone tells you these things it's not to tell you that you look ugly (everyone has those days), it's to show that they care and want to make sure you're doing ok, that you're not too tired or sick or anything. 😊

Not Even French it happened to me once ! My boss told me I looked tired. I said I wasn’t, just not wearing makeup. He said I should wear makeup then 😂 Tima Br as a French woman, I would say it really depends on the person, some people actually care, some people pretend to care to know what’s going on in your life and gossip, but most people pretend to care to make you feel like crap.

Just a tip: turn your duvet cover inside out, put your arms inside of it all the way to the corners, then with your hands inside the cover take the corners of the duvet, reverse your cover over the duvet so that it's not inside-out, and bam! There you go, it's on in thirty seconds! Hope you understand my explanations, I'm more used to showing people!

Tima Br Thank you! I’m a learn-by-watching person (I don’t know the term in english) , but I did picture your explanation anyway. Next time I’ll try your technique 😊 30 seconds would be awesome! Hehe

With time (after more than 25 years of duvet with cover), I'm tired of struggling with the cover to introduce the duvet, it's not done well. I try to find a solution with my haberdashery (kind of zipper) but it gets drunk, so I wash more open my quilt and always wears pajamas (except for ...).

My way of doing it : kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bNSah62Qv8Xem6M.html The most useful hack I have discovered in a KZfaq video ! The one where you need to stand up doesn't work for me at all because I am only 1m50 tall 😂

That's a big debate actually. As a French girl I prefer showering before bed because I hate going to sleep with all the sweat and pollution and dirt of the day still on me. But I know my family find it weird, they all shower in the morning and so do a lot of people

I also shower in the evening, I think it's more hygienic (I'm E European)

Nah, it's 50/50. There's people who shower in the morning and others before going to bed. I personally prefer in the morning but I prefer to sleep so instead I shower before sleeping

Liau actually it’s more 40/40 with at least 10% having a shower less that 1 time a day, & 10% only when they feel dirty (which is after other people can smell that they’re dirty).

@@Jessica220183 😂😂😂😂😂❤️

Top sheet happens.

The thing I don't understand in Germany is why you guys have two conforters for a double bed instead of a large one for two people 😱

@@perthfanny3017 Because both persons sleep better if they do not spend the night fighting for the blanket;-)

@@barbara4410 😂🤣 the thing is you might get cold if the two of you hug!

@@perthfanny3017 True;-)The worst co-sleeper is my little nephew.He always steals my blanket and pushes me out of bed.,but my Schnuffelpuffel is my darling !

Thanks for the explanation! I believe that there are new EU regulations to be in place to avoid this kind of situations in the near future. I do hope they will also get rid of the use of "cheques". It is an anachronism! "Liberté, égalité et fraternité" Ulalà, Vive la France!

Maybe that’s because France is kind of in between northern and Southern Europe ? Also I think it depends where in France you live. I come from the south and I definitely feel like we can more relate to cultures like Italy or Spain than other French from the north

@@marlotteMC That´s a good point. I only know Paris so cannot really tell about the south of France.

Agree with how you describe France as a strange mix of places, but you've gotta be shitting me if you think Spanish bureaucracy is efficient!

@@samw8908 It was not me but a fiscal adviser I contacted on the phone who happens to be French and is currently living in Spain. Just a list of some examples to exemplify: 1)-Not having withholding taxes implemented until this year is a great example of complexity and inefficiency of French bureaucracy. In Spain it has been in place at least for more than 30 years. 2)-Another good example is the complexity of mutuelle coverage and reimbursement system. In Spain you have public social security and you are covered (so no need to pay) and then you can also get your private insurance if you want to and then will be provided with a card without needing to pay any single penny and needing to ask for reimbursement afterwards. 3)-Ameli website is also quite inefficient. You can receive messages from them with attachments via “messagerie” but cannot send any document yourself via Web and need to send everything on the post. 4)-Baking and sending money takes 2 days to add a new account and then 2 more to have the money sent whereas in Spain it takes max 1 day. 5)-And the worst of all, getting your social security number can take up to 1 year and it is not compulsory for a company to get it for a new employee. How comes???! In Spain, you cannot start working without it and you get this number the very same day when you registered at the Social Security Office. And normally it is for the company to register (not the employee) and especially if you are a foreigner just landing in France. 6)-Sick Leave process in France is another good example. All the paperwork that the employee needs to send to both CPAM and Employer, whereas in Spain you sent to your employer and then they send to Social Security. It is better coordinated since systems are connected and everything is done online. I’ve been off-sick and have been asked an endless amount of papers and still after 2 months I have not received the payment from CPAM yet. 7)-Impost in France is also a very good example. 1st year you arrive in France you cannot do your tax declaration online since one of the mandatory fields that you need to fill in be able to log in online is either your tax declaration reference from last year (that you do not have of course) or your tax number (that you get only after 1 year). Your tax declaration number is different from your ID number in France, whereas in Spain your tax number is the same as your ID number. You can do everything online and your “avis d’impost” is automatically generated as well as having the possibility of doing a fragmented payment is also automatically open without needing to fill-in another form to request it. Far less complex and more efficient! I made my tax-declaration as non- resident the first year since I started to work France in the middle of the fiscal year and could not do it online, so I needed to send it on the post and I got my “avis d’impost” after 6 months requesting me to pay the whole amount within 1 month, without providing any information on how to ask for a fractional payment. I needed to go to the impost office for non-residents and only when being there find out that there is a way and of course a form that you need to fill-in to be able to do so, that of course they did not send to me on an e-mail when I contacted them by e-mail to ask for information. My tax declaration was wrongly calculated and I fount out that in fact I was paying double since apparently there was one form missing that I was not provided when I went to the impost office last May to ask for all the forms and all the information for a non-resident type of declaration. So, I needed to start a formal complaint which has taken 2 months to just get a response from them, without notifying me the exact date when the money will be reimbursed into my bank account. In Spain, there is a legal period of 15 days max 1 month already stated for them to reply and to reimburse and any communication will include very specific and precise information on how and when it will be done. Communication I just got after 2 month’s waiting is just saying that yes they owed me money and I was right, but not specific information on how, when and how much exactly they are going to pay me back. It has been an absolute nightmare! In Spain you can do everything online and again in every communication that you would receive everything will be detailed. I got an endless list with more examples, but I think this is enough to illustrate my statement. So not shitting you but talking from experience. For sure there is bureaucracy in Spain but here in France is an absolute nightmare and has made my life really really hard

@Duff Clem Have you ever lived yourself in Spain? Whereabout? Can you give me some examples or elaborate pls? I am talking from my own experieces, which have been really painful in this respect. I am talking facts and I got the feeeling that you are just talking about sterotypes. And yes, we do have a problem with corruption but that is sth different from bureaucracy. You're talking about sth completly different mate!

Im with a French guy. It's been a very interesting learning experience so far lol. It's been a real eye opener seeing the difference between English and French culture. I've noticed that French people are definitely more relaxed about things, for example my partner was talking to an English guy and mentioned his wifes weight (not in a rude way) you could tell in the guys face that he was thinking "wtf is this guy talking about my girls weight for" the guy should of told my partner how he felt but..he didn't "shrugs". He genuinely wanted to help him give her some tips about weight loss. The only thing I dislike about French people is the unnecessary loud talking. If you raise your voice to me, you want to argue..it would be interesting to swap stories with you one day.

Just because people in banks don't work on Saturdays and Sundays, doesn't mean there can't be any transactions. It's all computers and software with zero actual manpower or labour. I love France so much but if the rest of world can find a way to have bank transactions on weekends, then so can France!

@@christopherdieudonne rest of the Word can oblige people to work on sunday. not french. to have move on your account, banks should be able to exchange money. Target, the intra-bank cash informatic system is close during WE

@@CELAK51 I'm not talking about forcing people to work on Sunday. I talking about using a modern banking computer system that functions on Sundays. I never said anything about having people work on sundays. Computer software is not people or labour.

I'm not customer of these banks, and I log only twice a month on my account so I never had the need of these services, but if I remember well, friends of mine justified their changes to online banks for this reason! Hope you will be satisfied 😅

Not Even French and you should know that when you pay with a credit card there always a 48hrs delay before you can see it on your account it’s because you can always call you bank and reject this payment in case of a stolen/lost card or if you’ve been hacked on the internet that kind of things

@@NotEvenFrench From my experience there are no banking transactions on Sundays and Mondays in France.

Hope to bump into you when I visit France 😊 It’s a big help, continue with the great content. Take care!

@@NotEvenFrench I've got loads more time to read books!

@@rickchollett I've seen French TV- it's garbage, too 😂

I got some basic Spanish videos in my channel if you are interested

Good luck with the french accent, I heard it's not easy to master... You should try to watch french movies or french voices with English subtitles for foreign production. Be careful about the Canadian french tho, it's too different from France french.

@@alzahelb6053 There is a difference? Here in Australia we don't have many sources. Free anyway. We already pay for Netflix but there is like nothing for foreign languages.

@@rebekahmeyers4405 Yeah, Canadian French mixed with English, they also kept some words from old french that we don't use anymore... I'm not sure how you can find sources in legal ways (because ofc you could also use a VPN to access Netflix fr or download torrents but that's not really legal so it depends of the legislation in Australia). Do you have a french teacher or are you learning by yourself ?

@@alzahelb6053 I learn by myself on an app called Duolingo😆

I think it really depend on the family, I'm french, and all my life I have used a top sheet, in my group of friend I'd say half use them, while the other half don't.

I had no idea German banks worked that way. In Spain, transactions show up immediately on your mobile app statement, no matter what day.

Even in Italy, the same thing, it takes a long time before you see all the transactions you did in the past.

I avoid it when it is possible but just because it "destroys" food ^^… (ahhhh le tout mou :D)

we doesn't :O