I know it was meant to be humour.

Try Swiss-Roman, it's French but spoken more slowly and clearly, very easy once you get used to the numbers.

Knowing your attitude to metric, it comes as no surprise to find you prefering quatre-vingts-dix to the prosaic Swiss nonante.

I am the same. I took french from age 12 - 17 in school and it was Parisian french. Gatineauese french is pretty brutal, IMHO. I've been to Paris and the south of France and could understand rudimentary french. I can follow in basic terms what the french TV newscaster is saying (however, with that You Tube clip I may not be listening to her very much).

My children are fluently bi-lingual and they found it easier in Paris than Gatineau to converse with other children.

I believe that the french spoken in QC is grounded in french from the 1700/1800's and it was peasant french at the time. Sprinkle in some Americanisms and you have QC french.

I read somewhere that modern Quebec French has been shown from literature to be close to what was spoken in France centuries ago. Apparently, a French person transported from that time to now would understand Quebeckers better than he would modern-day Frenchmen.

That woman could keep me transfixed for hours just by reading a railway timetable in Swahili. She has got to be one of the most beautiful women ever.

It's the lyricism, innit, the romance of the lanquage is in its complicated hyphenation.

If you come to New Brunswick it will help in employment in whatever job you do. The Government sucks up most of the bilingual speakers in NB so business is always fretting about getting someone who can speak French and English. In reality speaking English only doesnt limit your career (in Fredericton, it may in Moncton) but it does close some doors.

Sheesh.

Canada is a land of many jurisdictions I am afraid.

What has always been a complete mystery to me is that those who were first taught Quebec french have no problem understanding Parisian french, but the converse is not true.

Language Snobbery is abound.

I was delivering a presentation to Project Managers in Paris (in English) when the Quebecor who kind enough to guide me across Paris and introduced me told them I will be delivering my talk in English and that I cannot speak French, some wag in the Audience shouted up "What makes you think you can speak French?" I can understand French (sometimes) and I burst out laughing, they looked alarmed. But it showed their thoughts on the French coming out of Canada.

By the way while delivering my presentation I was answering questions when they started booing and hissing. I looked around and my screen saver had kicked in..... It was the England Rugby Team Screen Saver

"Twenty-five rabbits" was the key phrase on which my kids were tested while attending school in French in Toronto. It was thought important that they not sound as if they came from Quebec and crucial that they not sound like franco-Ontarians.

LOL!!!

It works both ways. When I first met Souvette, she was an expat in London. Her son, then about eight, was attending a private school in London. It was part of the French schooling system. The other kids were the offspring of (wealthy) French expats. The Boy soon picked up their accent. At parent evenings etc, he instructed his mother not to talk much and to be careful when she did. Such reverse snobbery at such a young age.

It never ceases to amaze me that recent immigrants have the pompous gall to demean and slander the the French language and culture found in Canada. As a pluralistic society member, I suppose I should accept your francophobic ethic - on the other hand, perhaps not. What's next? A cull of first nation peoples and their federally funded taxpayers-money-sucking reservation-lifestyles because smallpox didn't do them in, and their lifestyle is that of a non-conforming minority?We could always stop immigration from Western-European nations and allow only those from developing countries to settle - at least they don't moan and whinge so much . . .

Vingt cinq lapins?

How would a french person pronounce this versus a Kaybecker?

Van sank laypan?

BTW...which was the worst? Quebec french or franco-Ontarian?....IIRC Acadian french isn't greeted with open arms in Paris.