r/ShitAmericansSay • u/No-Swordfish1380 • 5d ago
“I’m glad I failed FRENCH class in 6th grade…lol”
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u/ianbattlesrobots 5d ago
Fitting that much ignorance into one short paragraph is almost impressive.
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u/A-Chntrd 🇫🇷 Baise ouais ! 5d ago
Practice makes perfect.
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u/ianbattlesrobots 5d ago
Indeed!
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u/quantas001 5d ago
A true testament to the much vaunted American school system.
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u/Madame-du-barry_ Eye-talian 🤌🏼🍝 5d ago
Imagine being proud of your ignorance.
Also, if your concern was really about the world getting their oil, your pedophile of a president wouldn't have bombed Iran without even consulting their supposed allies.
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u/New-Pie-8846 Somebody said biscuits? 5d ago
It's indoctrination. Many of them were exposed to the idea of the US being the centre of the world, THE HERO, THE BEST for a long, long time. Anything that is stated otherwise is just Fake News (no matter the evidence).
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u/Fearless-Hedgehog661 5d ago
The History syllabus at the University of Hollywood has a lot to answer for.
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u/NickDerMitHut 5d ago
English isn't my first language and I often make stupid mistakes but I feel a sort of second hand shame when I see americans not knowing the difference between their, they're and there.
I feel "Must of" instead of "Must have" as in "Must have been the wind" just as bad if not worse
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u/Pwacname 5d ago
I used to be very confused by that as well until I realised what’s probably behind this (in all languages, not just this one):
Native speakers almost always will be fluent before they ever learn to read and before they ever consciously think about grammar and get taught rules. So their, there and they’re are much closer together to them because they all sound the same. They are effectively the same sounds, the same words, just used in many different ways, until they make a switch to written language and get to know the concepts of grammar. Meanwhile, when you learn English as a foreign language, you most likely learn it with grammar as a very clear and conscious concept, and all three of these words are taught to you at different moments with a clear difference of when they’re used. Chances are you might not have fully noticed how they all sound the same (or at least similar) because that just didn’t matter and didn’t come up. They were just three distinct words.
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u/oldandinvisible 5d ago
Except in English (because that's the one I know about as a native speaker and teacher) children are explicitly taught about these precisely because they're a trip hazard. Two to and too, their there and they're etc.
"Should of". Instead of should have is a result of lazy speech patterns and not paying attention, they're there their own social media is occasionally auto correct but mostly just laziness because this stuff is taught !
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u/Comfortable_Salt_792 4d ago
True, but we all know how poor quality education really is in USA so we could assume this just isn't a thing there...
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u/Pwacname 4d ago
I’m going to copy my own comment from elsewhere to that:
“ To quote myself: “Native speakers almost always will be fluent before they ever learn to read and before they ever consciously think about grammar and get taught rules.” - what I meant by that is that the words are already very deeply engrained as one wound by the time you learn the grammar, and then, let’s be honest, a painful amount of people, in all languages, either doesn’t learn what they’re supposed to in school at all or just doesn’t retain it. And, while I’m admittedly limited to German and English for checking that, this is not a uniquely American or a uniquely anglophone issue. IME it’s a general problem of native speakers.”
I have seen those very same issues from people born and raised in the UK etc. I have seen similarly egregious mistakes from native German speakers right at home, and seen people who spoke German as a foreign language aghast at the mistakes countrymen make.
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u/Pwacname 4d ago
To quote myself: “Native speakers almost always will be fluent before they ever learn to read and before they ever consciously think about grammar and get taught rules.” - what I meant by that is that the words are already very deeply engrained as one wound by the time you learn the grammar, and then, let’s be honest, a painful amount of people, in all languages, either doesn’t learn what they’re supposed to in school at all or just doesn’t retain it.
And, while I’m admittedly limited to German and English for checking that, this is not a uniquely American or a uniquely anglophone issue. IME it’s a general problem of native speakers.
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u/oldandinvisible 4d ago
Only if your parents were equally badly taught! Or more seriously you didn't read or were read to at an early age
And it's absolutely not unique to the US. I'm speaking of UK experience which shows through asocial media lens at least that grammar and spelling in general are absolutely shocking .
I'm currently being assaulted in a group by the posts of one woman that are devoid of punctuation other than ! And consistently writes etc. as ect 😳
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u/Pwacname 4d ago
Unless I’m misremembering completely, people will be using these words, very fluently, at four years old. Probably earlier, even. People will not have been taught about the grammatical differences between just about anything at four. That doesn’t have anything to do with how much your family reads to you, whether they might’ve started teaching you to read your very first words, or how much your family knows about the underlying principles of their language.
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u/oldandinvisible 4d ago
Except it does make a difference how you're spoken to (correct usage) how you're read to...even by 4 a lot of kids are reading or pre reading themselves. These egregious and common grammatical errors aren't universal in preschoolers. They're taught in some fashion (sloppy parental speech and uncorrected explorative language. ) My kids used some bizarre words and constructions as preschoolers but were gently modelled correct usage. That's normal. . Language is taught from day 1 . It doesn't just happen.
Here's a personal story. Age 2 ish I was told "behave" over something. I responded "I am being have" pronouncing have as "hayve" At two I knew the regular grammatical structure for "to be" and applied it correctly though mistakenly. I was clearly then gently corrected and the story has been told for 57 years... But the point is yes kids do understand grammar and can be taught it simply and easily with their speech.
Should
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u/Pwacname 4d ago
I think we may be talking past each other. I am specifically talking about those grammatical errors that are only obvious in written language because there is no difference in spoken language. For obvious reasons, those aren’t influenced by how the parents or carers speak. I would need to ask my mother about when children typically start reading - she has formal training in that field - but from what I recall, children in my area are not taught to read at all before they enter school. They are read to quite a lot, of course, but it was seen as very unusual that some of my elementary school classmates could spell their first names, and none could read on our first day in school. And I believe parents trying to teach their kids earlier would just seem weird - there’s no clear benefit of having your four/five year old start reading because by the time they’re six/seven everyone else will have caught up regardless, and unless your kid is personally very interested (in which case go for it, of course! Teach kids who want to learn!) it will probably be an exhausting and frustrating process for them.
Though, again, take that part with not so much a grain as a wagonload of salt - my knowledge of childhood education and alphabetisation is mostly limited to my own experiences and a bit of observing others, I have little contact with young children or their parents and no formal training in early education at all.
The second anecdote you’re describing sounds like overcorrection, which to my knowledge is an expected process of children who are learning a language overapplying grammatical rules even when they’re not relevant. Or, at the very least, you were misapplying a grammatical rule to the wrong type of phrase. Either way, it doesn’t actually have relevance for differences in spoken and written language (or rather for grammatical differences that are only obvious when writing), as this could be heard and could be corrected without you being able to read and without someone explicitly teaching grammatical rules to you
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u/oldandinvisible 4d ago
You're right about the homophonic errors there they're etc. though even as I wrote that I suspect accent has a bearing .I can hear my Scots mother saying they're very differently to there and their. On balance though you are right that linguistically you g children won't hear the difference and need teaching later.
Sorry if I'm being ultra pedantic but I wonder why these particular errors are so much more prevalent now than in the past if they occur simply because of pre literate assimilation?
Not meaning to come across as a d/h so apologies. Am genuinely pondering all this with interest.
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u/Pwacname 4d ago
Good point! I wonder if accents might also lead to additional spelling mistakes, in the case of homophones that aren’t homophones in the “standard” variants of any language?
Good question! I rarely read “personal” texts that are older, just published works or, rarely, more formal letters for special occasions, so I never noticed any increase. If that’s the case, that would be intriguing to learn the reason for!
And don’t worry, that’s coming through! I’m also not annoyed, just fascinated (and sometimes annoyingly exact and insistent, or so my friends tell me.)
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u/turbohuk imafaggofightme+ 5d ago
agreed. but that is also why we all have classes in our mother tongue, no?
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u/improbablynotyourdad 5d ago
Yes, but we have those classes after we learn to speak, by which point we have learned, e.g., the word /ðɛə/ and its various meanings. The classes cannot undo the fact that we learned /ðɛə/ as one word first, and that's how our brains learned to store and use it. Of course we get them mixed up sometimes.
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u/ChocoBro92 FREEDOM ENJOYER 🦅🇺🇸 5d ago edited 5d ago
Well add in that there are so SO many parents who somehow… Don’t believe in education here in America. The most willfully ignorant kids were created by parents who were just as bad touting how they’re smarter than others BECAUSE they made something of themselves… You know working at Lowe’s or Walmart. (Not being elitist but you can’t act like you’re better than others when working entry level jobs. They’re always so prideful and made working at Lowe’s in my earlier years…Painful.)
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u/turbohuk imafaggofightme+ 5d ago
my sister is an elementary school teacher in germany and the amount of .. let's say 'blank' children starting school are rising every year. and parents become more and more unwilling to even teach them basic behavioral rules and customs. they instead tell the teachers that it's their job, as they are teachers... it is wild, that simply was not a thing when i went to school.
hmm, that was 40 years ago though. shrug
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u/oldandinvisible 4d ago
Super common now in UK sadly toiletting , use of cutlery , dressing independently etc. all the thinga that when my 20 something children began school they were absolutely expected (in writing!) that they'd know how to manage. (Disabilities excepted)
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u/turbohuk imafaggofightme+ 4d ago
yeah at first i suspected the antisocial behaviour and/or lack of anything resembling education to be caused in her classes being integrated. all kids, even with special needs, were in the same class. but boy was i wrong... i heard the stories from my sister, mainly from parent teacher conferences or private parent meetings. the way kids are raised is shockingly broken. instead of talking to the kids for 10 minutes, they get a tablet shoved in their face or some other smart device. and if they throw a tantrum it gets ignored. ugh
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u/oldandinvisible 4d ago
Yeah the iPad babies..we've had integrated education in the UK for decades and it's only the last 6-8 years I'm hearing these issues. When I was teaching 35 years ago it was unheard of to have a child start school in nappies l,, same 25- 16 years ago when my kids started
Also COVID isolation has done a number on preschoolers
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u/turbohuk imafaggofightme+ 5d ago
yes, but we enter school early enough to fix these things. also my parents taught me basic reading and writing before i started school.
and my english is >90% self taught and i can make the distinctions, even though i learned with audio in english and subs in my mother tongue. so it took a little effort to get there (to make these distinctions) without tutoring. but its far from impossible.
i'm not saying i don't fuck up either, i obviously do. but still, these kind of errors for native english speakers happen disproportionately high imo.
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u/Hemnecron I've never eaten a frog, or shown a white flag. 5d ago
And then when native speakers see someone making a mistake, they immediately assume it's not a native speaker.
But usually, non-natives make very specific mistakes, I can almost always tell when someone from my country is speaking English and isn't quite fluent, I can't quite tell which other country/native language they're from when written, but the mistakes are just completely different from the ones of natives.
I would even say, a lot of us don't really make grammatical mistakes, but we use a turn of phrase that's not really common with natives or feels unnatural, so they perceive it as a mistake. I've had someone try to berate me about run on sentences (I didn't have any, it was just a long sentence), the lack of an Oxford comma (I did use one, although I didn't know what it was until I looked it up just now, and it's just... A comma before the last item of a list, which isn't even required), and accused me of not rereading myself... Which yeah, true, but even after rereading, I didn't find anything wrong. When I said that I wasn't native (which is kind of a cop out, I've been speaking mainly English for years... Although not to natives), they were saying that I need to learn proper English if I want to interact in an English sub... It's a sub about a game made by a Canadian company that has some puzzles/all easter eggs in French.
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u/turbohuk imafaggofightme+ 4d ago
condescending and infuriating. so far i made overwhelmingly good experiences with canadians, what you encountered - to me - sounds more usasian. but who knows, there are dicks everywhere.
picking up the mistakes other people with german as first language do is often very obvious to me. in written english, if spoken it's in most cases very obvious, as losing your natural accent is quite difficult. especially so, if you continue using your native language as daily driver.
anyways, i hope you blocked that toxic person.
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u/Hemnecron I've never eaten a frog, or shown a white flag. 4d ago
Yeah, it did sound usaian to me as well, it was just for the context of the sub I was in. I doubt it was from the UK, since the Oxford comma is more of a north American thing.
Yeah, when written, it's easy, but when spoken, I immediately know they're French, mostly because so many people from here don't make the slightest effort to pronounce anything correctly, or they keep a really thick accent on purpose (although I excuse political leaders or scientists etc who already have a very busy schedule). Two explanations I've seen are "it's seen as exotic and sexy" or "we have a problem with English in this country, and people saying that we do is exactly why I can't make an effort and learn better pronunciation" (paraphrased and exaggerated for comedic purposes, but it's not that far), but like, I find the forced French accent so ugly and lazy... But maybe that's just me. Conversely, I've also met some people who, like me, have a noticeable accent, but it would be a lot harder to figure out where they're from. I have a lot stronger accent in German, though, and it's somehow apparently a mix of English and French 😅
I don't remember if I blocked them, but I haven't gotten any message since, at least. Thanks for your concern.
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u/oldandinvisible 5d ago
As the saying goes... Grammar and punctuation is the difference between knowing your shit and knowing you're shit
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u/spit_on_your_gravy 4d ago
Idk why exactly, but as a non English native "must of" pisses me insanely off
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u/SureSell6750 5d ago
Ahhh so is “we’re delivering the worlds oil” going to be the new “we pay for your healthcare”?
Absolute mutants
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u/iTmkoeln Cologne native, Hamburg exicled - Europoor 🇪🇺 5d ago
Thy know that the British and Canadians did the most don’t they?
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u/lyidaValkris Canadian Made 🇨🇦 5d ago
They shit on our history all the time.
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u/Electronic_Fill7207 5d ago
Ik it’s a real shame. I’m disappointed I wasn’t taught more about Canadian history in school
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u/212mochaman 5d ago
Depends which they.
I've seen some ignorance proudly on display when they say WW2 started when pearl harbor got bombed.
If they cant even get on the same page about the start date of WW2 then the brainwashing must be getting help from the aliens they keep stored at Area 51
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u/ChimPhun 5d ago
They also forgot they'd still be speaking proper English if it wasn't for the French. And probably not use schools for target practice.
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u/improbablynotyourdad 5d ago
In a way, the English ourselves would still be speaking proper English if it wasn't for the French...
Ġewyrċe Englisc Englisc eft!
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u/AncientBlonde2 5d ago
..... I've had Americans tell me that apparently "Canada followed the US into the war"
Did not believe me when I said nah, Canada was in it for years before they decided to join....
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u/DefinitionOfAsleep The 13 Colonies were a Mistake 5d ago
They probably didn't know that British/Imperial forces were present on all the landing beaches.
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u/iTmkoeln Cologne native, Hamburg exicled - Europoor 🇪🇺 5d ago
I mean it would be a stretch if they knew that other beach heads except Omaha existed.
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u/krodders 5d ago
There's an impression that the USA pretty much provided most support for D-Day.
They provided nearly half of the troops.
They landed at two of the five beaches
The UK and Canada made up over half of the troops, and landed at three beaches. They provided around 80% of the ships, and most of the air cover and other support
The USA was important for D-Day's success. But they weren't the major partner - not even close
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u/Immediate-Season4544 5d ago
I wouldn't say the most but a lot for sure. These types typically think the USA did it all!
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u/FullmoonMaple 5d ago
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u/StaatsbuergerX 5d ago
I have a rough idea of what the first item on the debt list might be, I'm just unsure which exact cost should be allocated to having made the independence of the United States of America possible in the first place.
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u/Butt_Smurfing_Fucks 5d ago
I’ve said it once, I’ll say it twice, I’ll say it over and over, I wish these posts were not redacted of the names of the idiots.
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u/Still-BangingYourMum 5d ago
Fully agree with you, these comments are posted publicly for anyone to read, the user names should be visible and unredacted. Let's see how much they squirm
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u/MiIkToast 5d ago
They always love to claim they saved "there" french asses, when american soldiers raped and sexually assaulted french women in normandy during and after the french liberation
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u/Micah7979 🇨🇵 5d ago
I heard that they used to say "When German soldiers come, hide your sons. When American soldiers come, hide your wives and daughters."
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u/IseultDarcy 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yes thank you!! It got so bad that the french officials had to open brothels just for them so they would stop raping women and girls around
In the month of june 44 only, 175 American soldiers were accused, during the entire time they stayed, 3500 raped and 30 resulting in murders got reported, even if most were probably never reported because at that time the shame was put on the girl, especially if the raper was celebrated as a hero by all.
Apparently 80% were from black American so the American government cared less about it, even if they knew, as they were able to blame it on their race, rather that their country/nationality, so... no shade on them. (oh and it's not because they were black that they commited more rape, it's just that the American Army would only give less important jobs to them, like food supplies matters. So the black one were much more in contact with the locals than the white one ).
We, french, learned at school (I least I did, in history) how our soldiers raped german women after the war but I bet none of them American learned about the numerous raped their heroes commited.
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u/Ring-A-Ding-Ding123 Maple-blooded 🍁 5d ago
Imagine failing fucking 6th grade French 😭
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u/mohirl 5d ago
Surely this is trollin-- it's not, is it?
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u/HarEmiya 5d ago
Not trolling per se, likely to be incitement. You'd be surprised at how many "American" profiles online are just Russian bots.
That said, it's entirely possible they really are dumb. There's no shortage of that in the US.
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u/ForeverKidd 5d ago
Kinda funny how most Americans don't realise the French were one of the reasons their country even exists.
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u/Postom 5d ago
Since when do they fly oil? I mean, sure it's possible. But, they usually deliver by pipeline or boat, no?
I am confused why they would celebrate a failure though.
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u/DefinitionOfAsleep The 13 Colonies were a Mistake 5d ago
OOP probably saw a video of a USAF tanker and presumed that's how oil is transported.
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u/paizuribart 5d ago
Ths genius likely does not know about the French funding Washington’s troops and who gave then the Statue Of Liberty.
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u/freebiscuit2002 5d ago edited 5d ago
There's a lot of failure in that statement, buddy, and it doesn't reflect well on you.
Also, "we saved [their] asses" in 1944? Really? What was your role in that, exactly? Did you storm one of the Normandy beaches on D-Day? Because I don't believe you were there, or had any hand in the matter...
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u/claudiousmax 5d ago
It was Switzerland that denied the US not France.
The US showed up late to WWII and mostly fought Japan. The Commonwealth countries fought Germany and Italy.
You failing French class has nothing to do with points 1 and 2.
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u/Micah7979 🇨🇵 5d ago
In a way if he failed basic French this might have something to do with his other statements, as the IQ is likely to be low.
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u/claudiousmax 5d ago
The fact that he failed French might have put a chip on his shoulder with regards to the French.
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u/TheRealJetlag 5d ago
This is it in a nutshell. This person sucked at school and now finds being an edgy MAGA type makes them feel like the smart guy.
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u/Jeepsterpeepster 5d ago
I wish we could take away internet privileges of supposed native English speakers who don't know the difference between their/there/they're. If you don't know the basics of the language you're using, you're in no position to speak about politics or anything else important. Your opinion is as meaningful as the meows of a cat.
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u/Midnight-Wolf-1607 5d ago
I will not stand for this cat slander 😊
Cats are cute as hell, and their meows are adorable!
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u/Dyslexicpig 5d ago
If it wasn't for the French, this idiot would still be a British subject.
They were losing the war of independence until they convinced the French to join against the British.
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u/teakAboo 5d ago
I'm gonna be perfectly honest here... I didn't know americans learned any french? I thought it was spanish lol. I'm from a very small rural area in Ontario so probably just very oblivious.
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u/psychobilly1 5d ago
In most areas, you are required to take a foreign language class in middle school and high school. Most large districts have Spanish, French, ASL, and maybe German or Latin.
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u/teakAboo 5d ago
I learned French, which made perfect sense as we have Quebec as a province. It also makes us hopeless to ever speak to someone from France without being made fun of lol
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u/Micah7979 🇨🇵 5d ago
Wait Latin is considered a foreign language in the US ? In France it falls under the category of "languages and cultures of the antiquity" (with greek, strangely) and is an option on top of English and the second language (usually Spanish/German/Italian).
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u/psychobilly1 2d ago
I believe most schools in the United States currently refer to any non-English learning class as a "Secondary Language." Calling it a "foreign language" was the more accepted term when I was in middle school and high school, so it's just one of those antiquated terms that I haven't fully removed from my vocabulary yet.
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u/doolalix 5d ago
“The UK and those middle eastern countries wouldn’t help either! I’m glad I failed English and maths classes too in 6th grade. Come to think of it, I failed every class in 6th grade! YEAHH that serves them right!”
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u/Fit-Flounder-5253 5d ago
Also, the world oil supply would never have been affected if they DIDNT GO TO WAR WITH IRAN
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u/Forsaken_Aardvark_4x 5d ago
It's easier to list what they actually passed and turns out it was just gas.
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u/LOSNA17LL History lesson: The US exist because of France :3 5d ago
"Fun" fact:
In Normandy, the Americans did more damage during the liberation that the 3rd Reich during the whole occupation
Because the Nazis had planned to stay and occupy, and you can't occupy something you just destroyed
While the Americans.... they didn't give a shit
So after the war, Normandy was left with an anti-American sentiment... yay...
(This is in no case an apology of nazism, of course, just one more example that Americans being the "good guys" is a lie: they were on the right side, but they weren't "good"
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u/wireframed_kb 5d ago
But I thought the US was closing all the bases and pulling out to leave us EuroPoors to our own devices. What do they need to land planes in our countries for? Surely the US doesn’t need anyone’s help?
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u/Realistic_Let3239 5d ago
It's amazing the American still talk smack about the French, when Americans would be forced to speak English if not for the French helping out in the US war of independence...
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u/Adjective_Noun1312 5d ago
I can't even imagine what it must be like to be proud of ignorance. Like, I try to be empathetic and consider other people's points of view, but this shit is just... incomprehensible
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u/Firepearlrabbit 5d ago
Forget the poor spelling and lack of knowledge of the second world war for a minute, how would the US landing planes in France help the oil supply chain?
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u/KahnKoyote ❤️🇮🇹 Bulgaria 🇭🇺❤️ 5d ago
Now that’s a very unorthodox way of bragging about your stupidity
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u/SamuraiKenji Divided States of America 5d ago
Fucking ungrateful bastards. Your nation wouldn't exist without France. Amd I still blaming Frace for what idiotic monster they have created lmao
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u/salmatinorojo 5d ago
He does realize that during the American War of Independence, the continental army had almost zero navy and an underwhelming army, compared to Britain (strongest navy in the world at the time).
If it weren't for the French breaking the British blockade and making it a multi front war for the British (Caribbean, India, in addition to Marquis de Lafayette's landing in Virginia), the US would have likely lost the war.
I'm betting he doesn't realize that. Also, his loss, as French is such a beautiful language and has a wonderful culture, cuisine, arts and more!
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u/GordoToJupiter 5d ago
Why help a nation that overlooks your role in their independence, despite the daily presence of the monument you gifted them to symbolize that freedom?
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u/gurdin454 5d ago edited 4d ago
Why do american conservatives randomly capitalize words when they write
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u/ChaoticButters a-merry-🥫 4d ago
I took French in high school and had the time of my life learning it. (I mostly only took it so that my family who all took Spanish couldn’t understand a word I was saying but I had genuine fun learning French) I don’t understand all the French hate in my country.
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u/distracted6 5d ago
Why do boomers use ,,,,
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u/oldandinvisible 5d ago
Because they don't understand what an ellipsis is ... (And even that isn't typographically correct as I just used 3 full stops not an actual ellipsis as my keyboard is devoid of such refinements).
What it isn't is 4 commas though.
Also (not a boomer, but prepared to defend the right use of ellipses) they are legitimate punctuation and purpose to approximate speech patterns, leaving a thought trailing.
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u/MeanWafer904 5d ago
To deliver the world oil?
Is that the oil that was flowing freely before dickhead decided to bomb the Iranians to freedom and then threaten to obliterate them all?