Les choses sur le Canada

[tomgosse]

Pourquoi devriez-vous visiter le Canada. Mignon !

[tomgosse]

Another American talks about Canada, and ten reasons why he wants to live there.

[James29]

These make me long for the good old days of Canadian Bacon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44bT3S3Rx5I

[tomgosse]

Benny Lewis and his guest discuss the differences. I'm not sure I agree with every thing she says about English versus French in Montréal. I think it is easier for a monolingual French speaker to find employment than for a monolingual English speaker.

[emk]

Pourquoi devriez-vous visiter le Canada. Mignon !

Oh, this is absolutely adorable! I need to show this to my kids. One of the challenges of bilingual parenting is convincing kids that other kids their own age also speak two languages, so videos like this are great.

Benny Lewis and his guest discuss the differences. I'm not sure I agree with every thing she says about English versus French in Montréal. I think it is easier for a monolingual French speaker to find employment than for a monolingual English speaker.

I've heard that, in Montréal, about 10% of job listings will accept a monolingual English speaker, and maybe 40 or 50% will accept a monolingual French speaker. (Of course, things change drastically outside Montréal.) But I don't remember where I saw these numbers, so take them with a grain of salt.

As far as I can tell, Montréal really is a bilingual city. I've listened to monolingual francophones complaining about how you really need to speak English to get a good job, and I've heard monolingual anglophones complaining about the immense difficulty of finding work. And as far as I can tell, they're both right—your options are much better if you're at least B1 and preferably B2 in the other language. In general, a great many people in Montréal seem to be proud of their ability to switch seamlessly between languages and to put people at ease over linguistic issues. The ultimate solution to the question of "English or French?" seems to have been to "Both, please."

I bookmarked the following comment because it captured this attitude well:

While not impossible to find work as a unilingual anglophone in Montreal, I would say many doors will be closed to her. I try to think of the anglos I know who fit this category... the few that I know either work as a specialist in the biotech/telecommunications industry, as a software specialist or managed to get a position at an English-language institution in the city. The latter jobs I believe are quite competitive.

Most anglos I know in this city (myself included) are now bilingual, a radical transformation from the English-speaking community of 30 (even 15) years ago in Montreal. I'd hypothesize that anglophones really wised up, desirous to keep open as many doors for themselves and their kids as possible, especially after two consecutive Parti Quebecois govts and the 1995 referendum. In discussions with friends, it seems that numerous anglophones feel that French (and Quebecois slang) even has become a part of OUR identity, as we switch back & forth and think regularly in both languages. (Maybe we should be called franglophones?)

Weirdly, Montréal is one of the few places where I feel linguistically "normal". Among anglophones, I have to remind myself that no, I really shouldn't recommend awesome untranslated French books. Among francophones, I usually feel like a very imperfect French speaker, struggling to express myself as well as I could in English. But in Montréal, it's like, "OK, so you're an English speaker who mostly gets by in French, but not as comfortably. There are tens of thousands of people like you here. And then there's a bunch of French speakers who are in the opposite situation. This is the default state of life here." There was the time a couple years ago when I apologized to a flawlessly bilingual emergency room doctor outside Montréal, and said, "Yeah, I should just switch completely to English, but I'm stuck halfway in French mode," and she laughed and said, "You're in Montréal; it's perfectly normal" as if using my L2 while hooked up to an EKG was the most natural thing in the world.

So that's always been my impression of Montréal, at least as an outsider: It's no longer completely bilingual in the old sense of being divided into a francophone part and an anglophone part. Instead, it has become bilingual in the sense that a huge fraction of the population aspires to switch between the languages with ease, aiming for an ideal of individual bilingualism.

[PsiField]

I've been living in Montreal for around 2 months and I'd say you're spot on.

[aabram]

I lived in Montreal briefly and to me as non-French speaking person, it definitely is francophone city. Bilingual in a sense that yes, they do speak English, but not even remotely in a sense that Frech and English are treated equally. Not speaking French in the beginning I felt like I was treated with... not exactly contempt but with an attitude of something like "oh great, yet another anglo who hasn't bothered to learn our language". I didn't have problems renting a flat or in the bank and shopkeepers were polite to your face, but there was that strong undercurrent of expectation of speaking French by default. My (not so) favourite picture is this one, where somebody has posted bilingual poster for lost cat only to have English crossed out and "Fr ici" written over it.

So yeah, Montreal is one of those places that made me feel inadequate for not speaking local lingo. Can't say it makes me warm and fuzzy inside.

[tomgosse]

I lived in Montreal briefly and to me as non-French speaking person, it definitely is francophone city. Bilingual in a sense that yes, they do speak English, but not even remotely in a sense that Frech and English are treated equally. Not speaking French in the beginning I felt like I was treated with... not exactly contempt but with an attitude of something like "oh great, yet another anglo who hasn't bothered to learn our language". I didn't have problems renting a flat or in the bank and shopkeepers were polite to your face, but there was that strong undercurrent of expectation of speaking French by default. My (not so) favourite picture is this one, where somebody has posted bilingual poster for lost cat only to have English crossed out and "Fr ici" written over it.

So yeah, Montreal is one of those places that made me feel inadequate for not speaking local lingo. Can't say it makes me warm and fuzzy inside.

I lived in Montréal in the 1960's. It was both the best time and worst time of my life. Part of me wishes I never left. I have a real love of Canada and especially Montréal and I'm saddened over the language politics in Québec. I'm not choosing sides and I don't want to get into a political discussion. I'm just saddened by things like that poster.

Sometimes this quote sums up the situation in Québec: "Canada could have enjoyed: English government, French culture, and American know-how. Instead it ended up with: English know-how, French government, and American culture."

-- John R. Columbo, "Oh Canada", 1965

[aabram]

I'm not choosing sides either, just reporting of my experience. Montreal is the only place I've lived in Canada so no doubt it shadows my perception of Canada as a whole as well. The language situation there seems really schizophrenic. Ottawa parliament shooting occurred while I was there and I remember watching Harper give a speech on TV on the occasion and saw him switching back and forth between English and French mid-speech. That is most ridiculous political correctness and worst of both worlds. If I'm anglo and don't speak French I don't get the whole speech and if I'm franco without English I also don't get the whole speech. Sure, there was synchronised translation but that just adds another level of riduculousness on top.

That being said, Canada does have some beautiful nature and lovely countryside

[garyb]

I've not been there myself, but from a purely linguistic perspective from what I've seen, Montreal doesn't seem like the best place to learn French. And this is nothing to do with Canadian versus European French. I've met quite a few people (and not just native English speakers) who learnt French there, sometimes to quite an advanced level. Every one of them had developed a habit where if they don't know a French word, instead of making any effort to explain their way around it they just immediately say the English equivalent. I suppose this due to the bilingual environment: they'll be understood anyway and it's more efficient than fumbling around. But it doesn't work so well when they speak to someone from France (for example) who doesn't know much English! I've witnessed a few conversations like that: the French native just got confused, and the learner couldn't help because of they just never developed the ability to work around vocabulary gaps.

On the other hand, these people all told me that the Francophones there are very encouraging towards learners and aren't likely to switch to English, because of the linguistic pride. Maybe a more monolingual area of Quebec would be the best of both worlds.