Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

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CaroleR
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby CaroleR » Sat Oct 29, 2022 2:03 am

DaveAgain wrote:
CaroleR wrote:Québécismes
un courailleur = a womanizer – Per Usito: Personne à la recherche d'aventures amoureuse
Looking that up in Wiktionary led to some new-to-me information on -ailler and -aille endings.

Oh, thanks for the links. Very interesting, and new-to-me information too. It's funny because the original usage was «il était un courailleux dans le temps» and I just looked up «un courailleux.» Google Translate defined it as "a brave" and DeepL as "a strawberry," neither of which made sense. Usito had «courailleur, courailleuse», followed by «Au Québec, on emploie parfois la variante masculine courailleux dans un discours très familier.» They also mention that it's a pejorative. You know, the more I learn about this language, the more nuanced and complex it becomes. Two and a half years ago, when I started trying to improve my French, I thought it would take about a year to become relatively fluent. :lol: Oh, the naivety!
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CaroleR
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby CaroleR » Sat Oct 29, 2022 2:30 am

Le Baron wrote:I listen to some of those podcasts from Radio Canada (Ohdio) now and again. I listened to a recent series about a woman trying to pass on her French language/cultural heritage to her children in Saskatchewan. In the face of strong competition from English.

Generally on the radio, in factual programming at least, they're speaking pretty ordinary French, but with varying degrees of accent (which is sometimes an indicator of the region). I have had the rude awakening though, with regard to how people in Quebec sound in real-life.

Efforts to preserve and maintain language and culture is common in Canada, sadly. For indigenous people, as well. It's very political here, so I won't go into it too much. But Quebec fights very hard to preserve both language and culture in a sea of English. At least there French is the majority. In the rest of Canada, it's much more difficult, as with the case of the woman in Saskatchewan.

Someone else here (sorry I don't remember who) had a similar experience to you, vis-a-vis understanding professional broadcasters speaking "ordinary" French, and then hearing regular québécois French. Sadly, what I learned in school was TV-announcer French and couldn't understand a word outside of the classroom. I probably would have done well in France, though.
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PeterMollenburg
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sat Oct 29, 2022 5:10 am

CaroleR wrote:Two and a half years ago, when I started trying to improve my French, I thought it would take about a year to become relatively fluent. :lol: Oh, the naivety!


Oh yes. I know this feeling all too well myself :) Me naïve? Never! :lol:

Good luck with improving your French, CaroleR!

Edit:
Regional/relaxed/rural québécois was a shock for me when I heard it spoken (via media, not face to face).
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby Iversen » Sat Oct 29, 2022 12:05 pm

I have visited Québec twice: in 1993 and again 2014. The first time I visited Québec ville and Montréal in the French speaking part of Canada, and then I spent the rest of the time in Toronto, Ottawa and Niagara where people speak English. Actually a third or so also speak English in Montréal, and therefore you find mixed messages like "Hotdog Steamé" - but if you speak French to people you are not very likely to get an answer in English ...and if it happened then you shouldn't switch language to suit them: people living in Montréal are supposed to understand French, and otherwise it's their problem.

The second time I stuck to Québec and Nouveau-Brunswick, and that trip was purely monolingual. I remember a guided tour at the Village Acadien in Nouveau-Brunswick as the most extreme experience from a linguistic point of view, but even there I didn't really feel challenged - of course there are words and expressions you don't understand, but the same could happen if a French guide somewhere in the Hexagone tried to explain me something about rural life in the olden days in ordinary Standard French. So all in all I must say that Québecqois hasn't been a problem for me, and I'm happy that there still is a vibrant community of non Standard Francophones around. By the way: I have also spoken French to people in Northern and Western Africa and in the Caribbean, and they all were quite comprehensible.
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby CDR » Sat Oct 29, 2022 12:36 pm

As a Canadian who spent too long in the US and missed out on essential French education as a consequence, you remind me of my national duty to get around to studying French at some point!

I have never heard of the Par Ici books before, I checked their samples and wow, the text is selectable in the PDF! Thanks for sharing!
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CaroleR
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby CaroleR » Sat Oct 29, 2022 2:36 pm

PeterMollenburg wrote:
CaroleR wrote:Two and a half years ago, when I started trying to improve my French, I thought it would take about a year to become relatively fluent. :lol: Oh, the naivety!


Oh yes. I know this feeling all too well myself :) Me naïve? Never! :lol:

Good luck with improving your French, CaroleR!

Edit:
Regional/relaxed/rural québécois was a shock for me when I heard it spoken (via media, not face to face).

Learning a new language? How hard can that be? :lol:

Yes, many are fooled by media French as it tends to be close to or equivalent to standard French. Rural québécois is a cheval d'une autre couleur. Pardon my franglais.

Thanks for the good wishes PeterMollenburg. I enjoy reading your log.
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CaroleR
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby CaroleR » Sat Oct 29, 2022 3:19 pm

Iversen wrote:I have visited Québec twice: in 1993 and again 2014. The first time I visited Québec ville and Montréal in the French speaking part of Canada, and then I spent the rest of the time in Toronto, Ottawa and Niagara where people speak English. Actually a third or so also speak English in Montréal, and therefore you find mixed messages like "Hotdog Steamé" - but if you speak French to people you are not very likely to get an answer in English ...and if it happened then you shouldn't switch language to suit them: people living in Montréal are supposed to understand French, and otherwise it's their problem.

The second time I stuck to Québec and Nouveau-Brunswick, and that trip was purely monolingual. I remember a guided tour at the Village Acadien in Nouveau-Brunswick as the most extreme experience from a linguistic point of view, but even there I didn't really feel challenged - of course there are words and expressions you don't understand, but the same could happen if a French guide somewhere in the Hexagone tried to explain me something about rural life in the olden days in ordinary Standard French. So all in all I must say that Québecqois hasn't been a problem for me, and I'm happy that there still is a vibrant community of non Standard Francophones around. By the way: I have also spoken French to people in Northern and Western Africa and in the Caribbean, and they all were quite comprehensible.


Too funny that you discovered our "Hotdog Steamés." Did you try the "pizza all-dressed"? :lol: The thing about Montreal is, you can live your entire life there without speaking French. I was born there and grew up outside the city. I lived in English communities, went to English schools and worked for English companies, including a university. During my time in the city itself, about 25 years, the city had a dividing line between English and French. Maybe it still does. The dividing line was boul Saint-Laurent (aka The Main). English in the west and French in the east. Rarely did the twain meet. In the 70s, the Parti Québécois, a separatist party, came into power and many things changed. The east-west dividing line was still there, but many English people and companies moved to English-speaking parts of the country, usually Toronto. I won't debate whether or not people living there are supposed to understand French, but Montreal has always prided itself on being a cosmopolitain city and you can find speakers of many languages there. (I'm suddenly feeling homesick ...)

Interesting that you were able to do a monoligual trip in New Brunswick. The province is the only one that's bilingual, technically. But you could have done a monolingual English trip there also. It's good to know you were able to understand everyone. Some of the people speak Acadian and/or Chiac, which can be tricky to understand. For me, anyway. I hope you enjoyed your visits.
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby Iversen » Sat Oct 29, 2022 3:57 pm

I stuck to the Northern coast of Nouveau-Brunswick, where the auld Francophone Acadians still dominate - and maybe I found the dialect of the guide at the Village so interesting because he actually spoke Acadian and/or Chiac, Ah dunno - but I'm quite good at grasping things which I haven't actually studied. Further South people were brutally exiled to Louisiana if they refused to bow to the Brits and their king, and the place ended up as one more Anglophone area under the name of New Brunswick.

I have also visited Louisiana, and the only person I met there who could speak French had learned it as an adult, so maybe the cooking survived, but you probably have to venture far out in the Bayou to meet any native speakers of French.

F5010b05_Village Acadien.jpg

2014.jpg
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby CaroleR » Sat Oct 29, 2022 4:11 pm

CDR wrote:As a Canadian who spent too long in the US and missed out on essential French education as a consequence, you remind me of my national duty to get around to studying French at some point!

I have never heard of the Par Ici books before, I checked their samples and wow, the text is selectable in the PDF! Thanks for sharing!

In spite of how long it's taking me to improve my French, I will admit that 8 years of French in school gave me a decent base. (I'll never forget that "la plume de ma tante est sur la table." :D ) It enabled me to zip through the first level of Par Ici and most of the second. Caveat emptor if you do decide to buy it: In my opinion, the physical books are necessary. The text has lots of exercises in it, as does the workbook, obviously. The textbook answers are in the back of the book and the workbook answers are downloadable in a PDF. The audio files are downloadable also but, and it's a big but, they are not compressed into one file. The 5-6 level has ~90 files and they have to be downloaded separately, if you can believe it. But you can always listen online, so there's that. (The textbook has transcripts of the audio files and that's been really useful.) Having said all that, the series is the only one I could find for North-American French and I recommend it for that reason. It's also good for showing the mode-de-vie, i.e. certain things that we do differently compared to Europe, for example. If you decide to get the books, I'd love to know what you think as you devote yourself to our national duty. :lol:

If anyone else is interested, here's the link to the series: (hopefully I can post links now)
https://methode-parici.com/en/
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CaroleR
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby CaroleR » Sat Oct 29, 2022 9:24 pm

Iversen wrote:I stuck to the Northern coast of Nouveau-Brunswick, where the auld Francophone Acadians still dominate - and maybe I found the dialect of the guide at the Village so interesting because he actually spoke Acadian and/or Chiac, Ah dunno - but I'm quite good at grasping things which I haven't actually studied. Further South people were brutally exiled to Louisiana if they refused to bow to the Brits and their king, and the place ended up as one more Anglophone area under the name of New Brunswick.

I have also visited Louisiana, and the only person I met there who could speak French had learned it as an adult, so maybe the cooking survived, but you probably have to venture far out in the Bayou to meet any native speakers of French.


Thanks for the photo and map. The image shows a scene that's quite familiar to me. It looks very Quebec, with the wooden barrels and the big fireplace.

I've been to New Brunswick many times, although mostly on my way to Nova Scotia. I've never been to the northern parts, though. I'm envious that you were able to understand the Acadian/Chiac speaker. I'd love to get inside your mind and discover how to become good at grasping things I haven't studied. The number of languages you speak is phenomenal, and here I am, having difficulty learning one. I'll have to go and mine your log, looking for tips.

"The expulsion of the Acadians," also known as "The Great Upheaval," was a very dark and shameful time in our history. The cruelty was beyond measure. Of those who made it to safety in the southern US states, it seems as though most weren't able to maintain their unique culture and thus became part of the great melting pot. As you say, you probably have to go into the Bayou to find native French speakers. It's very sad. There's a song by Daniel Lanois called "The Maker," from his album "Acadie." It always makes me feel like he's singing about them and about those who feel as though they're not accepted in the place where they were born. Comme moi, par exemple. It makes me cry every time I hear it. You can see a video of it here. There's a little blurb that mentions that it was recorded in New Orleans. The actual video is on the right, not the one on the top left.
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/daniel-lanois/the-maker

Note: the blurb on that site mentions biblical imagery: the fields of Abraham, etc. Lanois was probably referencing The Plains of Abraham, the battlefields where the British defeated the French near Quebec City. The site belonged to a man named Abraham. Every Quebec schoolchild learns about this battle. As far as I know, it's not a biblical reference, although I could be wrong. And it could be both, now that I'm thinking about it.
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