French School in Montreal
 

Hi All,

I will be moving to Montreal at the end of October with PR status. At present, I have very little French (just a few years of secondary school and a basic beginners refresher course). I have savings and am intending to spend the next year learning French full time, taking advantage of the free French lessons made available by the Quebec government.

Has anyone else had experience of making use of this service? Will they allow you to attend for a full year, are the classes good and how far can a person get language-wise in a year? I am hoping I'll be able to improve my job prospects significantly if I can reach an intermediate/higher intermediate level. I am prepared to take some additional private lessons too.

Does anyone know if it's possible to register for classes before you arrive in the country to speed up the admissions process?

Any thoughts or experiences welcome!

Re: French School in Montreal
 

Canadian French is different to the French taught in the UK (and even different to France french!) :)

Some courses for 'newcomers'
https://coursdefrancais.ca/en/francization/
https://www.lamaisonnee.org/services...s-de-francais/
https://www.immigration-quebec.gouv....h-courses.html
https://www.immigration-quebec.gouv....h-courses.html
If you can read basic French you can find more info here: https://www.quebec.ca/education/apprendre-le-francais/
Google translate can help, if you don't :D https://translate.google.ca/

Re: French School in Montreal
 

But not wildly so, unless you're dealing with an extreme like Gaspe or New Brunswick; then it's like trying to speak English with a Geordie. By and large, the French and the Canadians can understand one another.

Re: French School in Montreal
 

Actually I am a Glaswegian myself so who knows what kind of twisted Quebecois-Glaswegian-accented French I will end up with....!

Re: French School in Montreal
 

I heard that. But I agree with the rest of your post. Quebecois and Parisian French are different, but no more so than North London and Newcastle. Oops.

Re: French School in Montreal
 

My understanding also. They do use different words for things though. I was with a Quebecer when he visited France a few years back. Most French blinked at him a lot then it dawned on them he was speaking French! One memorable comment made to him by an old lady that he was very proud of was 'Are you from Marasille?'. I burst his bubble when I told him that Marsaille is considered the thickest and worst accent in France next to Corsican!

eg Car in French is voiture, in Quebecois, car is char . Char in French means tank (as in tracked military vehicle with a very large gun!

Re: French School in Montreal
 

Do the French in France pepper their language with "car parking" and other English words and expressions?

I know we do the same in English with the odd bit of Latin or French etc but it doesn't seem to come up mid-sentence quite so much.

Maybe it just seems that way and it really is the same for everyone. Mea culpa, c'est la vie.

Re: French School in Montreal
 

I am ‘apparently’ bi-lingual (in NB)...which is news to me...I arrived here with what I would have said ‘upper Intermediate’ French, having lived in France for many years, and feeling generally comfortable in most situations... I’ve never felt bi-lingual! I do use it most days here but it can be very hit and miss, if I speak to a lawyer or social worker in Quebec they will be most accommodating and we can get on well, if I get an upset person in Shediac, I don’t have a lot of hope.

You just don’t hear the same words in conversation none of the ‘pauses’ and ‘exclamations’ - bah dis donc, c’est chouette, on y va - or I don’t hear them here, and none of the changing daily patois on the radio like I did in France.

The big thing I see is how very dismissive some Francophones are of the other ones...my colleague who is a native many generation French speaker from here will not speak to the Québécois as she says they are so rude to her and put down her French abilities. They are just nasty to one another. My son, born in France and lived there till middle school, and then in French school here, tells me his French is ‘rubbish’ because that’s what his mates all speak and he doesn’t want to sound different, but when he speaks to friends in France or goes to Montreal he can easily pull it up, and feels OK.

French here, particularly in NB is a mess, it’s a big hot, expensive, Political potato with entrenched people on both sides giving no ground. I had ‘naively’ envisaged when I came here that it would be a delightful linguistic soup, and life would entail a melange of duo lingual conversations...boy oh boy was I wrong...:blink:

I really think that any one who approaches the language in a welcoming and one world attitude could make headway here, the main thing is don’t take some horrible ‘anti’ Franco stance...I really can see why they feel quite shirty they haven’t always been treated the best...

Re: French School in Montreal
 

There are loads of Quebec-Irish people, indeed I used to drink with a Michael O'Neill who was from Montreal and intelligible in English and French, early in the evening. I suppose you might sound something like them. What you must not sound like is a francophone Ontarian; schools struggle to suppress that accent like it's a native Canadian language.

Re: French School in Montreal
 

Don't tell them they would vote for a lampshade for example :rofl:

Re: French School in Montreal
 

:focus:

Does anyone else have any advice with regards to French LESSONS?
:)

Re: French School in Montreal
 

I hear that.

My godfather's father, born "pur laine" Quebecois in Chicoutimi, became quite a linguist, rising to a career as official translator for the Hansard record of the Quebec National Assembly, many decades ago. In that capacity, he'd had to master many distinct aspects of French--e.g. Quebecois vernacular, more formal French as spoken by a Quebecer, formal French as spoken by a Parisien, and some aspects of pre-Napoleonic legal French, as that still had residual application to Quebec property law. And he was equally fluent in the English equivalents for all of the above. During his career, roughly 6 - 8 decades ago, this level of fluency generated respect.

He passed on this wide-ranging French-English linguistic talent to his son, my godfather, who grew up without an accent in either language. And while one might think that that would have helped my godfather's career in the federal civil service (in Montreal), it proved the opposite. Bullshit linguistic politics from both sides kept a good man down: Anglo managers in the 60s and 70s kept a lid on his career due to his Francophone roots, and the Francophone managers who succeeded them in the 80s and 90s tried to push him out, for having made at least a start to a good career under the old Anglo-centric regime. Perceived linguistic loyalties over-rode demonstrable competence every step of the way.

Re: French School in Montreal
 

:focus:]

Does anyone else have any advice with regards to French LESSONS?

Re: French School in Montreal
 

I apologize if we went a little off ‘piste’ ...however...this website needs to continue...but certainly there has been a lot of oxygen removed from it, and every thread, other than a few, seems to be shut down...maybe we need a little more guidance that applies to ‘all’ posters so that we could all come back home and feel comfortable, and that doesn’t seem to be the way now.

Were I the OP I would think it better to have a more wholistic response than none whatsoever...which is what we are, unfortunately, travelling towards now.

Re: French School in Montreal
 

Well, in the interest of balancing out the discrimination victim francophone, my daughter who stayed in Canada attributes having her job to her bilingualism.