I agree. The French are clever (and very nice people). They know you’ve just learnt that one phrase in order to unlock their English: you have to work a bit harder. They want to see a bit of pain first.
French mathematics is famous for being written as prose and by extension for being much more instructive than an English equivalent (provided that said mathematics was discovered by a French person).
This is very relevant to my interests. My French doesn't go past "haltingly read newspapers" and "acquire food, shelter, and directions in a French-speaking region", so would any of this prose-heavy mathematics be available in English translation? Are there any particular authors you have in mind?
I can't speak French, so my comment is based on what other mathematicians tell me.
Unfortunately, Grothendieck, Galois and as far as I know, Bourbaki is not fully translated. And unless someone actually spends many years doing it, a lot of it never will be.
I also think Russian is useful, especially to read some old texts from the cold war era. But a lot of the books are translated (but not the papers). Kolmogorov's books and probably quite a few others were translated not very long after they were written.
But, to be honest, I think knowing French and Russian is more of a personal pursuit than a necessity to access the mathematiacs. Galois wrote down very little and his memoirs (written by someone else) should be the interesting historically. Grothendieck should also be interesting, especially to see his unrelenting commitment to translate everything to category theory. However, for almost any topic, somewhere, in English, there would be a good source. Bourbaki was never really "completed" and I am not sure whether it's useful to read those texts (rather than the stuff that was inspired by them).
I can recommend Lawvere's books, especially Conceptual Mathematics since it's even accessible for high school students. My main interest is in category theory and set theory, so it may well not be what you are interested in.
I've also seen really useful stuff in the internet era, like Category Theory for Programmers by Bartosz Milewski.
Exactly this. There is a crossover point where their pain of listening to your horrible French exceeds their enjoyment of watching you suffer, and that's when they let you off the hook.
In Paris in the summer this crossover point is higher since I think they're pissed they are stuck in the city for the summer dealing with tourists rather than frolicking in the countryside.
Nice... probably should be "Comma Apple Two" though :)
PS. To clarify for others - It's a bastardized version of "Comment tu t'appelle?" which means "What's your name?" or more precisely "How do you call yourself?"
“Parlez-vous Anglais” will get you nowhere, but “Pas de palais, pas de palais” is how you earn a nightful of drinks by a French guy.
Seriously, don’t learn boring words, we already know someone doesn’t speak French. Learn movie quotes and you’ll kickstart a discussion. Learn awesome movie quotes and you’ll have something to discuss about.
