BBC: This is the nation that has national art complaints

*Emily Monaco to BBC, translate with Periscope cuts.

Very often a conversation in France starts with a sigh and a complaint: the weather is bad, grapes and grapes were worse; politicians are incompetent and stupid. When I first came to France, more than a decade ago as a 19-year-old American, I was disturbed by this constant hail of complaints. Why, I guess, were the French always in such a bad mood? But when I finally had the courage to ask a French friend, he said, "They're not complainers. These are the Raleurs.

In France, there are a few words for “to complain about”: There is “the platform”, used for the old usual complaint; it is “porter plainte”, for the most formal complaint. And then there's “âler”: the complaint just to have fun with it.

“Râleris is informal, even when it is said in a sad way,” Dr. Gemma King, senior French legalist at Australian National University and editor on a blog. “You can complain (in the form of râler) about doing something you still do, while the order of the gate means that you won't do it. ”

When I was still in the application phase to get permission to stay in France, and France's substatement was still a distant dream, I joked that I would know that I had become French before I was confirmed because I would have uncontrollable to complain and groan. As a preparation for that day, I would complain to anyone who would listen: The soup is very cold, the salad is very hot, I complained about a neighbor who did not greet me, and so on.

But as my friends laughed at my attempts to complain like a Frenchman, it was as if you could see a child who still does not understand the language he claims to be talking to someone on the phone. It is a delicate art that I still needed to perfect.

For Americans, saying something negative sounds like you want to end the conversation. In France, these comments are perceived as “a form to invite people to say their opinion”. Says Julie Barlow, a journalist.

North Americans, she says, are not as comfortable with confrontations or criticism as the French are. Raler... complaints about fun... “take place as something more intelligent than just being optimistic about things”.

Anna Pollony, a French-Hungarian-American writer and head of a department for creative writing at the Paris Institute for Critical Thinking, pointed out that this distinction lies at the root of fear shared by many Americans: that of being perceived as “contest”.

“There is no word for that thing (to be a loser) in France,” she said. In order to be a loser, the world around you must think about the terms of winning. And I'm not sure this is the form of how people see social interactions (here. ”

In France, conversations can be compared to “duelet”, according to Barlow, and the opening blow can be a complaint of a demonstrated intellect, “something that makes people look critical and the Tunive”.

According to one survey, 48 percent of French people turned out to be most complaining about their government. Personal things, meanwhile, are very low on the list of things France's citizens file, complaint.

“I think the French are optimistic and positive about their lives, but tend to be too harsh with their country,” said Barlow. “Don't go to a party and say a good word about France; people will mock you. ”

After many years of residence in France, I had finally understood how to build a certain intimacy with the local people; I had not known that I should complain so much. /Periscope