Voted Best Answer
Dec 01, 2010 - 09:09 AM
You're right that the most polite way to ask for something in French would be the conditional tense: Je voudrais/I would like, and Je pourrais/I could, or Could I... Very similar to English in that way.
However, not to make things too difficult at the beginning, we chose to teach the simple present forms first: Je veux/I want and Je peux/I can or Can I...
In my native Frenchie opinion, it is not VERY impolite to say that, and even less so when people notice it's a foreigner speaking. Having said that, we do in fact introduce the more polite forms at the very beginning of French 3 (I think in session 2 or 3).
However, not to make things too difficult at the beginning, we chose to teach the simple present forms first: Je veux/I want and Je peux/I can or Can I...
In my native Frenchie opinion, it is not VERY impolite to say that, and even less so when people notice it's a foreigner speaking. Having said that, we do in fact introduce the more polite forms at the very beginning of French 3 (I think in session 2 or 3).