I think the French think that are bad at English because the majority of them do, in fact, suck at it. The stuff I hear coming out of my students mouths is just abominable. But like 'Pierre' said, it's not really their fault though, the French school system is just so focused on reading & writing, not on speaking. Plus, French teachers don't really have a tendancy to go around telling their students the rock at something - they're more likely to tell them what they're doing wrong, so that doesn't help their confidence either.I hold the majority of my classes in English (though I switch to French for disciplining), and in the beginning, the kids begged me to speak in French because they're not used to hearing English 100% of the time. They also tell me that their other English classes are mostly written, whereas I mostly try to make mine mostly oral (really though, it's only because I'm so bad at English grammar, LOL).Re: the judges - I think that's one of the big differences between the US & France. In France, people are guilty until proven innocent, whereas in the US, people are innocent until proven guilty. And as for the case of all the people who were falsely accused - I had one of the children of one of the accused couples in class, and that incident totally ruined their lives. The parents ended up divorcing because of all the stress & pressure they were under and the mother 'escaped' to Bretagne because even after they were proven innocent, people still stared at them where ever they went, and kids were repeating stuff they'd heard from their parents to her kids, etc. The daughter I had in my class was really "perturbé", and you could see she'd been through a lot, even though she was only 10. The whole thing was quite sad.

Warning: sweeping generalizations abound in this comment as well as an enormous lack of any sort of precise dates or information...Well in Leah en France's Bretagne, I learned from seminars at the IUFM that France did actually used to suck at languages...a lot. They were ranked near to last and I think this stigma has just stuck with them ever since. They are not huge fans of not being anything but the best and they got majorly discouraged. I mean, the Nordic countries, The Netherlands and a few other countries are awesome at languages, especially English. Of course, the English language in these places is a lot more present pretty much from the time these people are born, which is not the case in France. But, still...I think many Frenchies are pretty decent at writing and reading but when it comes to Oral Comprehension and ESPECIALLY Oral Expression, they can kind of suck it. This is due to the fact that there is just so much focus on CE and EE(Written Comprehension and Expression) and not enough on the Oral part. They have been through many different teaching methods throughout the last bit of time here in France, but the majority have focused on the Written and not the Oral, unfortunately. It doesn't really surprise me that they focus on this when you consider many of the strict ways they go about teaching...write on your graph paper, this many squares over from the margin and this many down. Remember to undeline with your ruler in red! They love to get all the verb forms correct and have excellent grammar, but oral is just not seen as important. Also, sometimes they have such a huge fear of their speaking not being perfect, that they don't want to even try. It's seriously dommage.PS-I hope some of that jumble made sense!

Hm... i wonder who that young judge might be...Anyway, it's not that we think that we suck at English, it's just that we DO suck at English and languages in general. Unlike the Scandinavians, we don't travel much as generations of "gens bien-pensants" have brainwashed us saying that France has everything, so why go elsewhere and learn other things? Waste of time, that's what we end up thinking.PS1: I love how Tracey keeps on interrupting Pierrick everytime he's about to say something a bit naughty. They're both priceless! They just have to be on the show more often, I loved the episode! And you have to invite me again too (like you have a choice) so that I can prove that I'm a real Frenchman by tongue-kissing all of you and still manage to pout and smell like garlic at the same time. PS2: Did you realize that iTunes has added "Explicit" next to your podcast? You naughty naughty girls...

"In France, people are guilty until proven innocent, whereas in the US, people are innocent until proven guilty"I'd like to know where does that one come from ? I've heard it so many times but never managed to know what was the "source". Funiest thing is I heard exactly the same thing, from a french, about the US justice system...

When I was in high school French we all picked a name in French to go along with the idea that when we entered the classroom we were in France, complete with French names. When I taught English in elementary schools last year, I had all the kids choose English names. I didn't allow doubles in the same classroom, which meant I didn't have 5 Beyonces and 6 Tonys (as in Tony Parker). I learned everyone's name in English and the French names for those who acted out. And as for why the French speak it so poorly, it certaintly doesn't help that the English teachers that teach the kids when they're the youngest are the least skilled. It's the high school and university level teachers that spend years learning English, but when the kids ears are the best able to pick up new sounds, they're taught by teachers who learned as much English as they did science or music.

When I started English at school, we all had to pick an English sounding name too. As there was already another kid with the same name as mine and he was before me in the alphabetical order, he got Michael. And as "I" says above, we couldn't have the same name so the teacher decided my name would be Cuthbert... I had no idea this was a name. This didn't make me popular exactly.