I spend several months a year in French and have visited France every year for over 50 years. My French is good enough to know how bad it is! In the market one day a stall holder answered me in English after I had addressed her in French. When I asked her how she knew I was was English, she replied thet she didn't, but that she could tell that I wasn't Frenchand as a European I'd be able to speak English even if it was not my first language. Therein lies the problem: over the years I have noticed that more and more French want to practise their English on me. As an ex-teacher I decided that it would be easier to teach all my French friends to speak English than to improve my French. My plan is working well and seems to have worked on all 50+million of them.