French Frustrations: The pitfalls of being outsiders in Paris

The Earful Tower: Paris

Oliver Gee

Arts, Paris, Society & Culture, Travel, Places & Travel, France

4.8 • 749 Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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

BUT... we are also square pegs in rounds holes. Being a Swede and an Australian with a podcast company, while speaking questionable French, raises eyebrows.

Here are a handful of things that have become frustrating for us as a result, so you can hopefully use it as a warning if you’re thinking to do the same, or perhaps as a cultural insight into the French mentality.

Featured: Language blunders, tips on where to focus your own language learning, how paper is on a pedestal, and being conflict averse in a "convince me" country.

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.

In fact, this whole season of The Earful Tower is brought to you by My Private Paris, which is an award-winning travel company creating deluxe itineraries for Paris and beyond. See what they offer here and be sure to let them know that you came from The Earful Tower.

Enjoying what we’re doing here at The Earful Tower and keen to see more? Become a Patreon member here to support it and to discover our exciting extras.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Gidey everybody out there in listenerland. My name is Oliver G. This is the Earful Tau podcast.
0:05.7	Co-host today, my wife, Felina Norni G.
0:09.1	Felina.
0:10.1	Did I say Falina?
0:12.1	Hi, everyone.
0:13.6	I'm glad you're in a good mood because we're going to talk about frustrations and it's easy to get down.
0:20.1	And if you bring sparkling positivity to it
0:23.8	we'll get through this well one has to one must yes one must so this uh before anything
0:29.8	this show is brought to you by my private Paris they do tours of Paris and beyond and
0:35.0	at the end of this episode you'll hear Marie Segura from my private Paris,
0:41.1	talking about getting into the Musei d'Orsee before ours.
0:45.8	Well, that sounds like the opposite of frustration to me.
0:48.7	Exactly.
0:49.6	They do that as part of their tour as they get in there and see the pieces there before it's open to the public.
0:55.2	Kind of cool. Hang around for that at the end. But back to the French frustrations. This is a kind of
0:59.8	delicate topic because it's hard not to sound like we're ungrateful foreigners.
1:04.7	You know what it sound like a winch pot? Just say it.
1:07.1	But I figure 10 years in and 8 years of podcasting were allowed to do a little bit of French frustrations.
1:12.3	Yeah, we're eligible.
1:13.5	And the idea here is that you can kind of use it as a warning.
1:19.1	Like if you're thinking to do the same thing that we've done, or if you just want some sort of cultural insights into the French mentality.
1:25.2	Oh, if you just want to grumble a bit.
	...

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