Comment dit-on "Arrogant jerk" en francais?

The battle of the languages has been happening since humans began, and probably even before that. Sometimes it can be awkward, sometimes funny, and sometimes someone crosses the line.

Living in Montreal as an Anglo can be slightly difficult, there's always this guilt about not speaking french. What makes it worse is that most of the Quebecois speak both french and english. However, Montrealers are very tolerent of Anglos who are learning french, they are understanding, patient and kind.......well at least until last night.

Alex and I were at a party at this friends place. We were all having a great time. 90% of the people there were french but most spoke english. Being from New Zealand I do have a sound excuse for not being fluent in french, we're sooooo not french down under. However whenever I mention that im doing a major in french everyone gets really excited. The more drinks I had the more I spoke in french, I guess you just care less about what people think when you've had a few cocktails. But it's still really hard to try and speak a language that you're not comfortable in, to a room full of people that speak it. Anyways, Alexs best friend Simon doesn't speak English. So later in the night we started having a conversation in french, I managed to conjugate the verbs I could remember, I think he understood most of what I was saying. We talked about how lovely everyone is in montreal, and about my family, you know, all the things I've covered in chapters one and two. I was really enjoying talking to simon because he's a shy guy and I was glad to have the opportunity to get to know him a bit more.

All was going well until another guy joined the covnersation. He asked me where I'm from, I told him, I also said I'd just started a major in french, and then I went back to talking to Simon. Then this guy stops me and tells me Im saying the sentence wrong, I ask him to help correct me. Then he starts going on about how bad my french was. I was a little taken back because no one in Montreal has ever mocked me for trying to speak French. But I guess the guy wasn't done because he starts grabbing at my hands and tells me to stop using my hand gestures because it's taking away from the French. Ok, now I'm offended and feeling a little like crying.

Luckily Alex showed up at that point, I told him the guy was mocking my french and alex starts asking what his problem is. Then a few other people join the group as the guy's mocking my hand gestures. I explain, in french, that I use my hands to speak in english, im an actress, my hands are my job, and that when you don't speak well in a language then hand gestures are a great way at aiding you. Well he wont let it go. Everyone around was getting a little angry at this guy for his attitude, especially Alex. Someone started pointing out that the guy was using hand gestures himself as he was mocking my own. Now I want everyone to know that this was the first person to be like this, Montrealers are usually really sweet and understanding, and in this case, were really supportive of me as this guy continually tried to pull me down. For those of you that know me you know that I only take so much attacking and then I pounce back. After the guy had mocked me as much as I could take I looked at him and asked him how dare he be so judgemental, Im from a country far away where we don't speak french, Im here, in Montreal, trying, learning to speak french, I come to a party and put myself in a vulnerable position and he dares to attack me, if he wants his language to be preserved he better start thinking about how he treats people who want to learn it. Then I told him that if he were to go to Australia or New Zealand then he'd be eaten alive with an attitude like that. I also said that his english would not survive where I'm from, I told him we speak alot faster with our own slang and he would not get far.

I think he got what was coming to him, everyone pretty much told him he was being a jerk. I just think it was so unneccesary to mock someone who's trying. I really love the french language and hope to live here for a long time, I may be an anglo, I may not fully understand the language yet, but Im trying, I want to learn and thats more than most monreal born anglos are doing. so next time someone wants to try attack my for trying something new just remember that the tables can be flipped really easily.