In English writing, we try to not use the same word twice in a sentence. Do most other languages do the same?

I'm sure you're a very nice person, and that there are plenty of nice French people. I suppose I've just had a string of bad luck. But almost all of the French people I've met )while perhaps not snooty in general), were very condescending towards Americans. This is just from my first hand experience.

  • Yesterday: I'm in a hostel in Taiwan. The hostel-guests are chilling in the "lobby". There's an older Austrian dude, myself, and a French girl about my age. I really like linguistics so I asked them about interesting linguistic tidbits about French and German, and tried to converse with them in what little I knew of their languages. Austrian guy was receptive and gave constructive criticism. French girl literally rolled her eyes at me whenever I mispronounced a word (and not the contemporary definition of "literally"). She also kept trying to steer the conversation towards talking about politics, and tried to "pin" Trump on me, as if he's my responsibility. I denounced him like 3 times and she kept trying to insinuate that he is wholly represnetive of all Americans. "Well he was elected for a reason"

  • last semester: Friend had French roommate. He was just an ass. Not much of a story.

  • 4 years ago: in Cannes or Avignon (can't remember). My friend, nicest soul on the planet (we had to coach him how to say "no" to street vendors because he was too polite and kept buying all their shit). He wanted to try and order McDonald's to be delivered to our hotel. He was learning French. He called, and he made (or tried his hardest to make) his order in French. They hung up on him. He was pretty damn hurt.

  • most other times I've interacted with French people (usually at Uni, I'm not super well-travelled but we have a lot of international students) they seem apprehensive, like they're waiting for me to start talking about how much I love guns and hate vaccines.

/r/linguistics Thread Parent