Lester Mosley wrote:
    >
    > Huh? the coins were easy to learn quickly. they are based on size.
    > just like good ole american currency...

Well, not really - the metal content/color has something to do with it,
too. Twenty cent and five cent coins are the same size and shape, but
the five is copper colored and the twenty is brass colored. Same thing
with the two cent and ten cent coins (two is copper, ten is brass). The
one and two euro coins are alike but different, too - I don't have any
on hand so I'm not sure which is which, but one has a silver colored
outer rim and a gold colored center, the other is just the opposite.

I'm sure that when one uses a currency every day, one quickly learns to
distinguish without thinking about it, but it's not all that easy! (And
even though I've used American coins all my life, I occasionally pull
out a nickel thinking it's a quarter, or the other way around - don't
you?)

David Gascon wrote in message news:...
    > me wrote:
[snip]
    > > i.e. if your french is so bad that she'd prefer to speak in
    > > english with you, she was gonna whether you liked it or not.
    > > You wanna practice your french, hire a tutor.
    >
    > My French isn't that bad, unless you're in a big hurry. {;-)

I had the referenced conversation at the end of a 9 day "group"
tour that was pretty much the end of group tours for me. She
was tired and a bit frazzled. We got to talking about the whole
language issue mostly because of the large amount of translating
she had to do. Try translating a menu sometime, not one dish
but the whole darn thing. Anywho, I asked if she preferred
guests that spoke at least some french. Her explaination
was to what I referred, that it was almost more frustrating
to deal with poor french speakers than nonspeakers because
they insisted on speaking french poorly, and most specifically
VERY slowly. She had drank a couple of glasses of wine that
evening with dinner and went on to do one heck of a funny imitation
of a slow french speaking american asking some really meaningless
question because they wanted to "practice their french". She had
waited tables in Paris for a while and related an exchange between
herself and a lady that asked if she could order in their meal
in french to "practice". Her retort was "not if you want to
eat it this evening" (or so she reported. We're all funnier in
the retelling than in the actual circumstances).

"Lester Mosley" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > Huh? the coins were easy to learn quickly. they are based on size.

While the coins are quite understandable, it does take some time to get them
down on an intuitive level. I can reach into my pocket and select 45 cents
in one action. With a foreign currency it's more like:

"This one is worth 25, that leaves 20, this one is worth 10, that leaves
another 10, drat I don't have another 10, is there some other way I can do
it? No, is there some combination I can give that results in minimum change?
And so on..." Meanwhile, if it's the damn Monoprix (*), the cashier is
already mixing the next person's groceries with mine

I find it takes me about a week to switch to the intuitive level.

    > just like good ole american currency...

Errm, take a good look at a nickel & a dime...

(*) A Paris supermarket chain that is actually quite nice but a bit
intimidating until you get the system figured out.

    > Well, not really - the metal content/color has something to do with it,
    > too. Twenty cent and five cent coins are the same size and shape, but
    > the five is copper colored and the twenty is brass colored. Same thing
    > with the two cent and ten cent coins (two is copper, ten is brass). The
    > one and two euro coins are alike but different, too - I don't have any
    > on hand so I'm not sure which is which, but one has a silver colored
    > outer rim and a gold colored center, the other is just the opposite.
    >
    > I'm sure that when one uses a currency every day, one quickly learns to
    > distinguish without thinking about it, but it's not all that easy! (And
    > even though I've used American coins all my life, I occasionally pull
    > out a nickel thinking it's a quarter, or the other way around - don't
    > you?)

This just proves that you are naïve tourists.

We locals deal exclusively in electronic money. I don't think I could
recognise the currency value without looking...

Lester Mosley wrote:

    > Huh? the coins were easy to learn quickly. they are based on size.
    > just like good ole american currency...

    > the most expensive ones, the 1 and 2 euro have a center piece. and the
    > others go down in size...

Being "based on size" is not enough for quick and automatic usage. For
example, if you have one smallish copper-colored coin, it may not be
immediately obvious whether it is 2 or 5 cents -- and the same with a
10 or 20 cent coin.

That denominations may be different can also slow down the usage of
coins.

For example, in the US, there are 1c, 5c, 10c, 25c, and sometimes 50c
and 100c coins. In the euro zone there are 1c, 2c, 5c, 10c, 20c, 50c,
100c, and 200c coins. In my experience, the difference between 25c
and 20c coins is the hardest to deal with (YMMV).


--
greg byshenk - [email protected] - Leiden, NL
hate spam?

    > > Absolutely. When you start your conversation with "Bonjour,
    > > Madame. Parlez-vous Anglaise?" _anyone_ will be more inclined to give
    > > you the benefit-of-the-doubt. And if you're an American, they seem to
    > > be able to spot the accent regardless which part you're from, and will
    > > gladly slip into English to prevent further damage to the lingua
    > > franca :-)
    > Sometimes a problem, if you'd like to practice your French.

Depends where you are. In Paris (and possibly other big cities), things are
a bit rushed, and there's definitely less patience with people stumbling
through their phrase book (that would be me) and generally speaking awful
French (Je parlez Francais come une vache espagnole).

In the countryside, it's a different situation. The pace is slower, and
people seem happy that you're trying to speak their native language.
Ironically, you'll also be more likely to come across people who are a bit
annoyed that you don't speak more French (such situations actually seem rare
in Paris).

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
http://www.ChainReactionBicycles.com

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:

    > Depends where you are. In Paris (and possibly other big cities), things are
    > a bit rushed, and there's definitely less patience with people stumbling
    > through their phrase book (that would be me) and generally speaking awful
    > French (Je parlez Francais come une vache espagnole).

Well, I'm certainly not fluent in French (I think my accent is fairly
good, but if I don't know the words or the correct grammar, pronouncing
it well isn't much use). However, my experience with Parisians has been
that, if you show any inclination to try to speak their language, they
will patiently let you struggle, unless you ask for help. I don't
consider that "rude", since I've had people there go far out of their
way to be helpful, but unless I ask if they speak English, they'll just
keep trying to help me improve my French!

It was in Brussels (among francophones) that I had trouble being allowed
to speak French - I'd say something in French, and invariably be
answered in English!

Terry Richards wrote in message
news[email protected] rthlink.net...
    > Errm, take a good look at a nickel & a dime...

And the notes are impossible! Whoever dreamed up a system of same
size/colour for all denominations!

Surreyman