I've been taking French classes this year. I think French culture is really cool, I'm also have French ancestry from my mother's side of the family. My friends tend to say that taking French as a forging language is completely stupid and that the French are pansies. I don't like it when other people make fun of the French. Americans for some reason just love making fun of them most likely because they surrendered to Germany in WW2. My main argument to that is this...
America has no room to make fun. France is right next to Germany and would've constantly been attacked by them. The German tanks also had radios which the French tanks (although more powerful) did not. After WW1 most of the French population was dead, thousands upon thousands were killed. America has no idea what it's like to share a neighborhood with its enemy we're nice and safe across the Atlantic Ocean therefore how can you blame the French government for surrendering? Their defenses were passed, their tanks were being wiped out and the enemy was battle hardened while they were enjoying peace.
Contrary to the belief is that the French people just surrendered, that's not entirely true. Through out the war there was a resistant group that fought the Germans and without their help English and American paratroopers would’ve lost more than they did because they didn't have a good feel of the terrain. In fact the French resistance helped out more so because by the end of the war the Germans stationed in French towns were having to deal with the resistance that the Americans were able to come get through without and German resistance. There were some accounts by American paratroopers that the resistance ended up taking out most German units in the cities, and once the Paratroopers arrived the town would be abandoned by the Germans.
Not only that but The French helped the Americans out during the Revolution. Without their help the Americans wouldn't have been able to continue fighting the British.
So I just don't see why so many Americans and other people tend to look down at the French. A lot of English language is derived from French, so we probably would've had a completely different vocabulary had the French not influenced it. I know there are some instances where you could say that the French made stupid mistakes but doesn’t every country do that?
Is there a reason why so many people think the French are so low? If you do think that then why exactly do you?

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