If the OP is not a bored troll than it is a child...

Tough crowd.

This is very likely a post from somebody who is planning to travel to Brussels and learning some French, which she thought she'd try out for fun when posing the question. I bet she won't make that mistake again. I hope it doesn't stop her from trying to speak French in Belgium, where I trust she will receive a warmer reception.

<b><i>I hope it doesn't stop her from trying to speak French in Belgium, where I trust she will receive a warmer reception.&lt;/i?&lt;/b?

She would have a very good chance of receiving a chilly reception if she speaks French in the Flanders region of Belgium.</i></b>

i am learning french. right now. my verbal agility is very limited, and my question was for a class project. thanks for your encouragement -.-

christina, try your luck at http://forum.wordreference.com/ . And please use the &quot;shift&quot; key!

I am deeply offended by the harsh critiscim you have endowed upon this harmless post by a young student of French. _Christina_, a very bright student, was simply hoping to enrich her knowledge of a foreign place and to find a French-speaking individual with whom she could practice her French. If you ARE a French-speaker(and if you are NOT, I do not know why you entered the conversation in the first place), I am sure that you have committed grammatical offenses in your second langauge in the past... but I'm hoping that those that you communicated with were understanding and willing to help, rather than harshly critical and condescending. We realize that this is an English-language site, but as it is a well-known forum on the WORLD WIDE web, we were hoping to find like-minded individuals who would be willing to give us travel advice and humor us by allowing us to practice our French in the process. Thank you to those who were willing to do so. We will take our inquiries elsewhere in the future.

Pauvre Christina, les gens ici peuvent &ecirc;tre parfois un peu 'difficile'.

Je vous f&eacute;licite pour votre effort, et je vous encourage de continuer vos &eacute;tudes de la langue.

Bon courage!

M.

P.S. Je n'ai jamais visiter, mais il y a sur ce site des gens qui ont &ecirc;crit sur leurs vacances &agrave; Bruxelles, avec beaucoup d'information.

mme_x - are you Christina's French teacher? Not that your intentions are bad, but misguided if you instructed your students to use a website like Fodor's to practice their beginning French lessons. There must be plenty of other social networking sites you could research and recommend, frequented by children all over the globe, other than an English-speak site devoted to serious travel advice. Without explanation of Christina's original post, no one should be expected to provide a meaningful reply. Dommage, mais bonne chance!

_mme_x_, you are too easily offended, and I hope Christina is not as easily upset as you seem to be.

She tried to buy meat in a fishmonger's, that's all. Most of the responses to which you seem to have taken exception were of the &quot;Huh? What's that about?&quot; nature. I am pleased that she was sufficiently forthright to clear up the confusion, and hope she is not discouraged by her experience here.

Yes, I am Christina's French teacher, and I do applaud her effort. It was not my intention to use this forum as a means of &quot;social networking.&quot; They are planning trips abroad to francophone countries and are doing research, and had hoped to come to the &quot;experts&quot; for advice. Please excuse me for encouraging them to do so in French... the intention was for those who speak French (perhaps natives of their destination) to reply.

I do not think I am alone in thinking some of the responses to her post were a bit rude. We will not be using this forum in the future, and I do apologize for any confusion that this may have caused.

Please do not be discouraged about using the Fodor's message boards. This is a wonderful resource for finding information about all sorts of travel. It is just not the usual thing for questions to be posed in languages other than English. There is some use of other languages, but only in a context in which people clearly understand what is being done.

People in this type of community end up following certain written or unwritten conventions, and it is not always clear to the newcomer what those conventions are. That is why it is a good idea to read for a while to get a feeling for the place before posting.

That said, there is always a possibility of misunderstandings. People take things as rude that weren't meant that way. Also, there are always a few things that might actually be rude. It's good to try to maintain a sense of humor about them, although that isn't always easy.

Christina, you seem to have a good attitude in your explanation, thanks for sticking with us.

MMe,

Please tell her not to give up. Post in English, and ask for some french in the answers.

Pas de probl&egrave;me avec cette id&eacute;e!

This is an English site, so posters exclusively post in English, so a question in French would tend to &quot;clang&quot; a bit.

There are french speakers here, so if we can help...

Also tell her that the useage of English on this board by some posters isn't exactly perfect, either.

_mme_x_: IF christina had said something like &quot;I am learning French and want to practice. Here is my question (and then change into French) . . . . . .&quot;

She would have gotten ENTIRELY different responses. As it was it looked very much like a troll - especially since she registered and just to post this. I was one of the few who was taken in because I don't speak French and didn't have a clue how bad the grammar was.

For you to register to jump on Fodorites - who are among the most helpful folks you will find anywhere on the web - is really not on . . . . .

It would have been MUCH better for christina to come back and say something like &quot;Sorry - I am learning French and though I'd try it out. Does anyone have the answers to my questions?&quot;

I think your actions are worse than christina's.

Bonsoir mme x et christina, je viens de lire ce post et je suis d&eacute;sol&eacute;e de ce qui vous arrive.
Je pense aussi que ce n'est pas le bon endroit pour &eacute;crire en fran&ccedil;ais car trop peu de Fodorites le parle couramment et sans fautes et il y a tr&egrave;s peu de fran&ccedil;ais. Pourquoi ne pas essayer plut&ocirc;t des sites fran&ccedil;ais directement?
Il y a une version fran&ccedil;aise de Tripadvisor, voir aussi Voyageforum, routard, petit fut&eacute;, auf&eacute;minin... L&agrave; je pense que christina pourra faire des progr&egrave;s (et avoir des r&eacute;ponses)beaucoup facilement.

Je vous souhaite bonne chance &agrave; toutes les deux et j'esp&egrave;re que vous ne garderez pas une vision trop n&eacute;gative de Fodors, qui est une vraie mine d'information mais anglophone uniquement m&ecirc;me si les membres s'essaient au fran&ccedil;ais de temps en temps (trop rarement &agrave; mon go&ucirc;t!)
Cordialement
Corinne

Well said, Corinne.

I live next to a pre-teen boy...last week there were three girls hanging around my property( doing cartwheels)..They rang my doorbell and when asked what they needed stated they were told by their teacher to introduce themselves to the neighbors(yeah, right I'm sure)The next day they were back again asking foolish questions of my spouse...and you guessed it the next day as well....spring is here ....if she wants to have fun practicing... well let her...it's better than a chat room

Merci pour la liste des sites fran&ccedil;ais, Coco.

Madame X should inform herself before handing out assignments.

www.tripadvisor.com has a forum in French where her pupils can practice - unless they get shot down by the native French speakers.

&lt;We will not be using this forum in the future&gt;

That will be your loss because there is a wealth of excellent travel information here. Just ask your questions in English. If everyone who was studying or spoke a 2nd language used or practiced it here, well the forum would be a pretty confusing place.