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I am often surprised at the high level of English fluency in Northern European nations like the Netherlands and Denmark. Why does English fluency lag in Quebec? Is it because English, being a Germanic language, is more difficult for Romance-language speakers to learn?
I am often surprised at the high level of English fluency in Northern European nations like the Netherlands and Denmark. Why does English fluency lag in Quebec? Is it because English, being a Germanic language, is more difficult for Romance-language speakers to learn?
Learning english in other countries is seen as a way to do well in the world, since english is the language of business. For a lot of Quebeckers, english is almost seen as the enemy to their culture since they are surrounded by millions of english speakers there is a certain truth to that. However when in the city of Montreal you are unlikely to find anyone who doesn't speak english and french. It is probably generational as well.
I'm sure some from Quebec will answer this better though.
It at least doesn't lag in Quebec compared to most non-English speaking areas in the world. Northern Europe is more the exception than the norm.
French being less closely related to English than the Germanic languages of Northern Europe are probably do play a pretty large effect. The other would be the large amount of popular media produced in French (in general and a pretty large amount in Quebecois French specifically) produced in comparison to the amount produced in Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, or Norwegian is pretty large.
It at least doesn't lag in Quebec compared to most non-English speaking areas in the world. Northern Europe is more the exception than the norm.
French being less closely related to English than the Germanic languages of Northern Europe are probably do play a pretty large effect. The other would be the large amount of popular media produced in French (in general and a pretty large amount in Quebecois French specifically) produced in comparison to the amount produced in Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, or Norwegian is pretty large
True! The Quebecois certainly speak more English than the French do. That said, there's definitely a political element to this, and the fact that the government's stated goal and official message is that they don't want Francophones to learn English, which is why they're not allowed to go to English public schools and the amount and quality of English instruction seems to lag what they get in Europe. For example, German speakers, who outnumber French speakers in Europe, in my experience seem to speak better english than most Quebecois outside of Montreal, despite having fewer opportunities to practice it.
True! The Quebecois certainly speak more English than the French do. That said, there's definitely a political element to this, and the fact that the government's stated goal and official message is that they don't want Francophones to learn English, which is why they're not allowed to go to English public schools and the amount and quality of English instruction seems to lag what they get in Europe. For example, German speakers, who outnumber French speakers in Europe, in my experience seem to speak better english than most Quebecois outside of Montreal, despite having fewer opportunities to practice it.
Are you sure that's what the government's stated goal and official message is? From what I've read, I don't think they are against Francophones learning English, but they want non-Anglophone and non-Francophone immigrants in Quebec to have French as the language of instruction rather than English.
Are you sure that's what the government's stated goal and official message is? From what I've read, I don't think they are against Francophones learning English, but they want non-Anglophone and non-Francophone immigrants in Quebec to have French as the language of instruction rather than English.
That, and it's forbidden for a Francophone to send their child to an English public school, specifically and for no other reason than that the government says it fears those students might abandon French and decide to assimilate into the English speaking culture. It's not couched in other terms with that being the real reason underneath, it's quite publicly the offical reason.
I am often surprised at the high level of English fluency in Northern European nations like the Netherlands and Denmark. Why does English fluency lag in Quebec? Is it because English, being a Germanic language, is more difficult for Romance-language speakers to learn?
Same reason why I am not fluent in French here in B.C. in fact an American and Canadians living in the North West U.S. would be hard to tell part and my French is as good a person from Colorado, Utah or Western Washington is in Spanish.
Same reason why I am not fluent in French here in B.C. in fact an American and Canadians living in the North West U.S. would be hard to tell part and my French is as good a person from Colorado, Utah or Western Washington is in Spanish.
French and Spanish do not play the same role in the world that English does, they are not the defacto lingua franca of global interactions which is why your average joe in Sweden can speak English but no French.
That said, BC is a jurisdiction in a bilingual country and not knowing French limits your ability to move around within your own country and deal with your fellow citizens in some job capacities. It doesn't matter if you live and die in BC, but being in a country where a quarter of the people are Francophones and where the language has a historical legitimacy with the French as Canada's first Europeans means that the role it plays and its importance is different fromt he role of Spanish in the United States.
I am not really sure that it is really mostly about government policy as it is about other factors. If you talk to most people in Scandinavia for example they will tell you that English teaching in schools there would not be sufficient to reach high levels of fluency. People mostly learn English from watching subtitled US movies and TV shows. Since their languages are too small and limited in geography to justify expensive dubbing. Whereas the global market for French dubbed programming is huge in comparison, and therefore in a place like Quebec most imported cultural stuff is dubbed.
Also it may be small in population but as I have often pointed out the French-friendly area of northeastern North America is huge.
From end to end it stretches for over 2000 km, or roughly the same distance from Brest, France (tip of Brittany) to Brest in Belarus! Within this large area of northeastern North America, you don't need English to get by.
And also, contrary to popular opinion, unilingual francophones do travel*. First of all, usually there is someone in their family who speaks English or other languages. Or if there isn't they just get by like you and I get by when we are abroad and we run into people with whom we have no spoken language in common.
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uebec iCanada is has two offical laungaes
