It's a little weird when a person stops you on a street corner in Pittsburgh to ask, "Quelle heure est-il?" As if you're supposed to know French. But a few people actually did, answering that it was 11:35 or almost noon. A few handled the same question in Spanish, German, Portugese, Italian, Russian and Hindi.

"I think definitely we did better than they did in Chicago," said Deanna Baird, whose idea it was for Pittsburgh-area teachers to take to the streets for the cause of foreign language education. It has been done in Chicago, Omaha and a few other cities as a light-hearted endeavor in a national push to get the subject in the public's consciousness for the Year of Languages, as 2005 has been designated by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

About 200 shoppers took the "pop quiz" yesterday afternoon at the corner of Penn Avenue and 20th Street. The Strip District location was chosen for the likelihood that a fair number of people would be at least attuned to languages, since many are speakers of other languages and most are there shopping for ingredients of foreign cuisines.

Baird, who teaches German at Upper St. Clair High School, said the teachers haven't decided whether to try this again, and in other neighborhoods. "Maybe," she said, "when the weather's warmer."

On their clipboards, the teachers recorded the results of each of their encounters. One category was "No Response," a second was "Response in English" -- such as, "Uh, uh, uh ..." -- and the third was "Correct Response."

A total of 202 people were polled. There were 72 non-responders, 64 answers in English and 66 accurate answers in the language.

"We're giving it a C," Baird said.

Some of the ambushed pedestrians pushed slowly through the cluster that had formed around he teachers, with funny expressions, as if to say, these people are probably harmless as long as I stay calm and just keep walking. Some reared back and laughed. Two people got starchy and said archly, "I speak English" -- emphasis on the I, as if English is, of course, the best language of them all.

"But only two hostile people in 45 minutes," said Baird. "That's pretty good."

"I heard people, after they passed, saying things to each other like, 'I used to know some French,'" said Thekla Fall, who administers the foreign language program for Pittsburgh schools.

Several students, both high school and college, took part. Hanna Rennhoff, a master's student in Spanish and German at the University of Pittsburgh, said several people stopped, excited to engage in their foreign language, even if it wasn't one represented by a teacher. "One spoke Armenian," she said, "and someone spoke Hebrew."

Emily Ouellette was strolling along with her parents when she was asked, "Que hora es?" by a Spanish teacher. And voila, though a little rusty, she answered the question and became one of the 66 correct respondents of the day.

"I spent a year in Ecuador two years ago teaching ESL [English as a second language]."

The biggest surprise of the day, though, was that the attendant of the parking lot right behind where the teachers clustered speaks five languages. Fersson Vegas, with a Spanish father, a French mother and a childhood spent partly in Brazil, also speaks Italian and English. He was multiply ambushed; the serendipity was just too much fun, and after several teachers had dispersed, a few stayed remained to converse with him.

"It's not enough to speak the languages," he said, lamenting his lot. "I say to people who want to hire me as a valet, 'Did you look at my resume?' But it doesn't matter. You have to have a degree that says you do."