French frustrations: the pitfalls of being outsiders in Paris

After ten years in Paris, we're still encountering regular pitfalls and frustrations. This week, we examine a few of them.

Bonjour folks,

After ten years in Paris, my wife Lina and I couldn't be happier. We have two little Parisian children, a small business and we still pinch ourselves when we remember that we call Paris home.

All that considered, we are, admittedly, also square pegs in rounds holes. Being a Swede and an Australian with a podcast as a company, while speaking non-native French, certainly raises eyebrows.

On this week’s podcast, we discuss the frustrations we continue to experience a decade after moving to this beautiful city. Feel free to use it as a warning if you’re thinking to do the same, or perhaps as a cultural insight into the French mentality.

And, of course, it goes without saying that the positives of living in Paris more than outweigh the negatives. We are simply venting our frustrations, like all true Parisians.

The podcast episode

Listen below, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find the episode on iTunes or Spotify or via my website here. And as a fun extra the end of the episode Marie Segura, from My Private Paris, tells us about a touring the Musée d'Orsay when it's not open to the public.

Keep on scrolling to find out about the mishaps we discussed, as well as some photos by our photographer

Augusta Sagnelli

. Sure, the pics don’t relate to this week’s show, but they’re still lovely to look at.

Language confusion

You may think you’ve mastered this beautiful language, but, any run-of-the-mill interaction in French can turn into a humbling experience for a non-native speaker. Case in point, my miscommunication whilst ordering two oat milk cappuccinos (deux cappuccinos au lait d’avoine) at a local coffee shop.

I’ve ordered plenty of coffees in my time here, so you might expect this exchange to be frictionless, but it shows that French can still trip up a practised speaker. Find out how this embarrassing interaction played out by listening to the podcast here. And send in your own embarrassing mistakes so I can gather them for a new podcast soon!

Easy as ABC…right?

A top tip for newcomers to France: learn the numbers and the alphabet like the back of your hand. Don’t allow the relative similarity of the letters lull you into a false sense of security. Two commonly confused letters for anglophones are g and j, which can cause no end of headaches when your surname is Gee…

And while it’s relatively easy to learn how to count to 100, you really need to have every number from 69-99 locked in for rapid-fire phone number sharing, which for some reason never seems to get easier.

Paper on a pedestal

France has yet to move into the digital age in many, many ways. Paper is still completely indispensable here. When you have children in Paris, the Town Hall supplies you with nine (yes, nine) birth certificates to be used for access to various services, including crèches (day cares).

And then, when you have to inexplicably convert the paper to a digital version to send back to the Town Hall, all hell breaks loose. Compared to other European countries, such as Sweden, it seems like France is still in the middle ages.

You can’t be conflict averse

The French mentality is that non actually means ‘convince me’. This is a distinctly unique attitude and one to which we, as a Swede and an Australian, are not accustomed. We were made acutely aware of this difference recently during a challenging dishwasher experience and definitely got penalised for not digging in our heels and taking non as an answer. Listen to the episode, but spoiler alert: we had 2 dishwashers for 2 weeks.

Anyhow, that’s enough of an episode summary. Please go and check out this week’s podcast episode. In these days of micro content, TikTok, and endless scrolling, a podcast episode at a casual pace might just be exactly what you need today.

A reminder: You can find the episode on iTunes or Spotify or via my website here where we’ve linked every single Earful episode of all time.

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Talk soon! Oliver