nooj wrote: ... As for French, I can speak from my experience and based on the experience of other French learners I have personally met and the dozens I have interacted with online when I say that learners OFTEN do not expose themselves to French other than that of France. I did not say all learners (and I challenge you to find the post where I said that all learners are like this!), for example the Australian woman who chose to go to Quebec and chose to learn Quebec French.
nooj wrote: ... This is an attitudinal problem more than anything, and I suspect it is at the root of why French people have more trouble understanding Quebec people than the other way around, because the Quebecois are more exposed to European French through media than vice versa. It is a self-enforced restriction in other words. How many varieties of French do you hear on French national television or on French radio? Heck, how many varieties of French French do you hear? I can tell you, not many... Now what about a variety that is more different than Belgian French is from French French, such as Quebec French? Only exposing yourself to a variety from Europe might make it difficult to access material from Quebec - what does c'est plate mean? Why are these people adding -tu to their yes-no questions? This can lead to two reactions: discouragement and disengagement from this material, or the desire to learn more about this variety...
Nooj, in my opinion, you are
over-stating the differences between Quebec French and the other variants of the French language, most particularly in terms of pronunciation and structure with that spoken in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
Over the past thirty years, I have encountered literally hundreds upon hundreds of immigrants to Quebec from France, Lebanon, Switzerland, Algeria, Haiti, and the greater Francophonie, employed in government, in the professions, in business, in retail, and in commercial positions at every imaginable level (irrespective of the time that has passed since their arrival, the “first generation adult non-Québécois Francophones” can be identified immediately by their accents).
Whatever their origins and their current line of work, I have often engaged these linguistic cousins in a brief conservation by first remarking on their charming accent, by pointing out my own accent despite my 30-year presence in the province, and then by asking them how long they’ve been here, what prompted their decision to immigrate, how they adjusted to the climate and the culture and, finally, what linguistic difficulties they experienced either upon their arrival or subsequently.
Without exception, these Francophone cousins all found that Québécois French, despite the differences in pronunciation from their own variant, was
perfectly understandable to them. They added that most idiomatic expressions unique to Quebec were quite transparent as to their meaning but that, occasionally, some of these required a bit of explanation. They often noted that the Québécois sense of humour (something which I would describe as being more American in flavour) differed from that of their homeland but that the Québécois manner of cursing (which is most often exemplified by blasphemous utterances) required some acclimation. In other words, in normal conversation, Francophone immigrants to Quebec find
no significant differences between “their variant” and the “Québécois variant”.
When I pressed my interlocutors on the differences in pronunciation, very often, they commented that they found the Québécois accent quite charming but that it posed absolutely no barrier to comprehension. Well into the conversation, some of them inquired as to how I was able to distinguish their accent from that of the Québécois locals (they mistakenly believed that they had lost their accent), particularly given that I speak with a noticeable accent myself, saying something like “to my ears, you sound like a Québécois, but then again, there’s something about your pronunciation that is slightly off, not always, just a syllable here-and-there.” Ya, tell me about it!
nooj wrote: ... the Quebecois are more exposed to European French through media than vice versa...
While this is true, it ignores the fact that the average Québécois is more likely to watch either locally-produced French-language films and TV programmes or dubbed versions of American products. French-language media "Made in Quebec" are omnipresent and they are quite self-sufficient. The presence and influence of European French-language TV programming, films, magazines and other publications are actually quite marginal and they respond to the tastes of a very specific, cosmopolitain clientele. In other words, the average Québécois has surprisingly little exposure to French-language media from outside of the province; however, this does not impair their ability to understand non-Québécois Francophones.
EDITED:
Tinkering, just tinkering.
