Hi everyone. I'm Jennifer from English with Jennifer. If you've been following me,
then you know that I recently traveled to Paris. It was a wonderful trip overall. I'm here back in
Massachusetts, and as you can see, I'm at my desk. There's something I'd like to share with you.
Well, if you'd followed me, you know that there were a couple of problems that came up during the
trip. And well, the first one has been resolved. It was with Lufthansa. When we arrived in Paris,
we did not receive our luggage, and it was delayed. It wasn't lost. It was delayed.
It was back in Frankfurt. It took time to reach us in Paris. Even when it was in Paris,
I waited three days to receive my suitcase, and my children had to wait five days to receive
theirs. During that time, we did incur some expenses. We had to buy toiletries,
some clothing. And today here back at home, I was able to submit my receipts and a request
for reimbursement, so fingers crossed and perhaps I will be reimbursed. But of course,
the important thing is that we did receive our luggage before our trip ended. And I'm
happy to say that once we came back to Boston, our luggage arrived as well, so we were able to
leave the airport with our suitcases here in Boston. Now the second thing that came up was
a fine in the Paris Metro. And I accept that when you break a rule, there's a consequence. It still
is upsetting a little bit because it was something that could have been avoided if we had known about
the rule that we ended up breaking. So this is not about anger. It's not about venting. I've
I had my moments later at the hotel to complain to sympathetic hotel staff, who listened to me,
and they told me their stories about being find as well. But what I decided to do, actually at the
urging of one of the hotel staff members, was to write. And it's really not about complaining. It's
more about making a suggestion at this point. I want to be constructive. This is not about being
critical, but being constructive because I really believe that I am not alone in this experience.
In fact, I saw this happen to other tourists, and I believe that it's something that could be
avoided. It could be reduced if, you know, further action were taken by the RATP. That's the Paris
metropolitan transport system or something like that...transport system or transit system. The
RATP. And I want to emphasize, by the way, that the majority of workers were very kind, helpful,
patient. A lot of them spoke English, and even when they didn't, they were so patient as I tried
with my limited French to explain things that I needed, so they were there ready to help. It was,
overall, a very positive experience, but we did get fined our final night because we didn't
have a valid ticket. So, I had one. My son had one. My daughter had one, but on the way out,
she had thrown it away. There's trash bins in the metro, and she threw her ticket away. And
as we were exiting, they checked for tickets. She didn't have one, and they were so no-nonsense. It
was like, "Cash or credit card? You pay a fine. 50 euros." So, we did. I believe that other tourists
have been....not believe...I know have been fined for this, are probably being fined even today,
and will continue to be fined for this violation because we're simply not aware. So again, I want
to be constructive and offer a suggestion. So, what we're going to look at together is an email
that I drafted. In fact, I sent it off already via the RATP website, and just to be sure that
someone receives it, I also submitted it via private message on Facebook. So, it's my hope
that someone will receive the suggestion and take it into consideration. My goal right now
is to share it with you because perhaps it will be useful for you to see how I approached this.
How did I organize it and what kind of wording did I use to offer my suggestion? Let's take a look.
Okay. Let's look at the overall organization. First, we have a greeting.
I wrote a lot, so it's broken into paragraphs. I always suggest that.
Closing. Signature. You can tell by the closing this is a formal email: Best regards. However,
I did not use the highest level of formality. I could have used "Dear Sir or Madam." I don't know
who's going to be reading this; however, in most business correspondence today, "hello" is fine.
It's acceptable. It's polite. It's certainly more concise, so I believe that "hello" works
in this situation just fine. I also decided to open up immediately -- state my purpose: What's
my intention? Why am I writing this? I give some background information, and I start with a little
bit of positive before I get to the main issue. I explained the issue in detail. Right around here
is where I start to make a call to action. It's a suggestion. I repeat that request at the end,
so that's the basic approach I used. Again, you'll see a level of formality here. I use no
contractions. I use polite language like "I would like to." Okay. Let's read through. Hello. I would
like to offer a suggestion based on my recent trip to Paris from the 15th to the 21st of August 2023.
A quick note here is if I were writing to an American company, I would have used
month-day-year. Since my reader is in Europe, I decided to use the more common format in Europe,
which is day or yeah, day-month-year. So, I'm trying to meet them halfway here. From
the 15th through the 21st of August. Okay. My two teenage children and I navigated the Paris
Metro for the first time. On the whole, our experience was positive. Metro workers were
patient when helping us purchase the necessary tickets. Over the course of our seven-day stay,
we bought a combination of tickets, including Paris Visite and single-use tickets. However,
while safety rules are clearly visible to metro users, the rules of ticket usage are not. No one
explained the need to have tickets upon exiting a station. We learned the hard way. On the evening
of the 20 August 2023 -- again I'm using that more more common format in Europe -- while exiting at
Alma-Marceau (that's a station), we were stopped by security and requested to present our tickets.
It was our final night in Paris, and we had bought single-use tickets.
I had retained my ticket, as had my son, but my daughter had just thrown hers away in a trash
can in the metro. Since she could not present a valid ticket, she was immediately fined 50
euros. We had to present my daughter's passport for the ticket to be written up. I paid the fine
by cash and received a receipt, and here since I looked at the online form, by the way, there's
no option to upload or make an attachment, so I'm writing some of the details from the ticket here.
Later on the way back into the station, we saw more tourists being stopped and fined for the
same reason, which gave the strong impression that tourists are targeted for this infraction.
While we recognize that we violated a rule of the RATP, we wish to emphasize that we were not
aware that the rule existed. I later spoke with a metro cashier at Porte de Clichy (that's another
station), and she pointed to a set of rules in small print at the far end of the lobby.
I suspect that few tourists see those rules; we certainly did not. What tourists see is
the information posted around the ticket counter regarding pricing.
We also see information posted around the ticket machines, on the platforms, and in the trains. If
you wish to inform all passengers of the rules, then I strongly recommend posting the rules along
with a visual aid (e.g., meaning "for example" -- a hand holding a ticket) at every ticket machine
with the reminder in French and other common languages of visiting tourists: "Hold on to your
validated ticket at all times." Or "Please retain your validated ticket until you exit the metro."
Paris is a favorite tourist destination, and thousands of us enjoy visiting your wonderful
city. Unfortunately, the experience of being fined for a rule that we were not aware of affects our
impression of Paris and the quality of our stay. If you wish for tourists to follow the rules,
the RATP must take greater measures to educate us. Fining passengers who are often unaware of
the rules is not the best means. Thankfully, we had plenty of other encounters with kind
Parisians inside and outside of the metro that offset this negative experience, but
it is unnecessary to make this a common experience among tourists, who arrive with the wish to enjoy
and appreciate the beauty of your city. I hope you will take my suggestion into consideration to
improve the service and experience of the RATP. Thank you for your attention. Best regards, me.
That's all for now. Please remember to like and share the video if you found the lesson useful. As
always, thanks for watching and happy studies! Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,
and Patreon. And don't forget to subscribe here on YouTube. Turn on those notifications.