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Am I the only English-speaking North American who strongly supports Quebec being ONLY French-speaking?
Hopefully. What about the rights of the well-established English-speaking minority?
I have no objection to the sign law concept. I don't really agree with how it's applied to the English-speaking community in Quebec whose presence is entirely legitimate.
Hopefully. What about the rights of the well-established English-speaking minority?
I have no objection to the sign law concept. I don't really agree with how it's applied to the English-speaking community in Quebec whose presence is entirely legitimate.
While the English speaking community may have once been a well established co culture in Quebec those days are passed and whats left is a mere ghost of the English presence in Quebec.
With its population reduced to a mere 8% and with no leadership and no power and the remaining culture not generally being accepted by the francophone community being an Anglophone in Quebec is a rather pointless affair.
As for laws? it seems Bill 101 trumps all laws as it is used more like a weapon against English to ensure French language predominates all aspects of Quebec.
You want a totally French Quebec? You got it,
This does not even touch on exceptions to grammar rules in English. The real result is that the province is creating plenty of employment for English teachers, few actual successful speakers (as is the case elsewhere in the world: only about 7% of Germans successfully learn English to a practical level)
I find all of this extremely hard to believe. Do you have any sources? I would think at least half of all Germans can speak English "successfully" (I suppose it depends on how success is defined). Most Scandinavians and Dutch people can speak English. Few successful speakers? I would be surprised if much fewer than half of the Francophones in Quebec can speak English. It's really not a hard language to learn and be able to speak well enough to be understood.
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Originally Posted by Machjo
English is practically useless in most of Quebec, and where it could be useful, it's marred in red tape. Go figure.
English is practically useless in most of Quebec?! It's is pretty useful in most of the world, so it is even more so in Quebec.
There are few places in the world where students have as many opportunities to use the second teaching as there are in Quebec. You can go from kindergarten to PhD or MD in English in Quebec.
Sure you can do all your education in English in Quebec but if you want to do it in the public school system you better have that government issued certificate of eligibility to do so.
While there maybe a need for English teachers in Quebecs francophone school boards. theres virtually no demand for English teacher jobs in Quebecs public Anglo sector school system , as the English demographic leave Quebec and schools close due to lack of enrollment or extreme budget cuts the result is a glut of unemployed English teachers in English public schools.
Am I the only English-speaking North American who strongly supports Quebec being ONLY French-speaking? I do not speak French at all, but I love visiting Quebec and seeing only French signs. I dislike seeing English signs even though I speak the language. French is the major part why many of us love visiting Quebec because we get a taste of France in North America! If it becomes bilingual, then it would suck and French will be in decline and Quebec would become like rest of Canada and North America.
Please support ONLY French in Quebec and increase bilingualism in rest of Canada. Let Quebec be unique and charming.
You probably wouldn't enjoy the reaction among the thousands of immigrants, from every part of the world, who take most of the entry-level service-sector jobs which keep Quebec functioning. Most of them rebuilt their lives with the belief that learning English was a prominent part of the path upward. Now not only to they have to deal with a closed and occasionally adversarial culture; their kids are usually being educated in French-speaking classrooms, leaving them with less chance of participating in their education.
In all of the separatist elections, immigrants, have played a central role in a coalition with Anglophones, native tribes, and a few other minorities, in keeping Quebec a part of the Canadian union.
Am I the only English-speaking North American who strongly supports Quebec being ONLY French-speaking? I do not speak French at all, but I love visiting Quebec and seeing only French signs. .
Out of curiosity for some one who speaks no French at all how do you communicate on your visits to Quebec?
I find all of this extremely hard to believe. Do you have any sources? I would think at least half of all Germans can speak English "successfully" (I suppose it depends on how success is defined). Most Scandinavians and Dutch people can speak English. Few successful speakers? I would be surprised if much fewer than half of the Francophones in Quebec can speak English. It's really not a hard language to learn and be able to speak well enough to be understood.
English is practically useless in most of Quebec?! It's is pretty useful in most of the world, so it is even more so in Quebec.
LOL
Germany, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries do have high levels of English proficiency relative to other countries, but in many cases that level of proficiency is limited to very basic conversational English. The idea that all Germans and Northern Europeans speak English flawlessly is a myth. As for english being hard to learn...it is.
And English is practically useless in most of Quebec. Far fewer than half of al Francophones in Quebec can speak English, and most don't need to.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Machjo
From my experience in Central Quebec and China, English was practically useless outside of what we might call the English-language industry (e.g. teaching, translating, publishing), except in the high-end international tourist industry if you're prepared to pay the inflated price. Just my personal experience.
Even when it comes to international conferences, not all of them offer English interpretation. I've been to one such international conference.
Additionally, even when a conference is in English, it can face peoblems. Robert Phillipson describes in one of his books how he had attended a conference on language rights in Hong Kong. The Chinese there mostly just sat silently until one organizer asked why. Then they started to explain that they could not understand English. One South African asked why interpretation was not provided for Chinese. It turned out it had never crossed the organizers' minds. They might as well have had it in London.
When I was attending a conference in Beijing in 2004, one presenter described how at a World Federalist conference in Nice, on the first day Americans and Briton's were talking, and everyone else listened.
On the second day, half the participants were gone. It turned out many of the Japanese, Italian and other participants couldn't understand so decided to see the city instead.
These are just some examples to show that English is far from univeral among the great unwashed, limiting it to centre's of power mostly. I can guarantee you that most Quebecers couldn't speak English to save their lives.
The English language isn't universal among the educated either. I've said this before, but people who speak one of the world's major languages already (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, etc) rarely have to speak English because anything worth having is usually translated into those languages. There's a reason why the French and the Spanish are awful at learning English, they simply aren't missing out on anything by not knowing it.
Germany, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries do have high levels of English proficiency relative to other countries, but in many cases that level of proficiency is limited to very basic conversational English. The idea that all Germans and Northern Europeans speak English flawlessly is a myth. As for english being hard to learn...it is.
Like I said, it depends on how proficient you must be to be considered a speaker of a language. I would say being able to have a conversation about most things, even if it's not a flawless one, makes a person a speaker of that language. The goal of speaking any language is to be understood and to understand others, and the Dutch and Scandinavians certainly do well in that respect. I didn't say they spoke English flawlessly. But English abilities are very strong in the Netherlands & Scandinavia.
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Originally Posted by lexdiamondz1902
And English is practically useless in most of Quebec. Far fewer than half of al Francophones in Quebec can speak English, and most don't need to.
I guess you and I have a different notion of what's "practically useless." I think Finnish, for example, is practically useless in Quebec. I wouldn't say the same thing for a language the dominates the rest of North America (US & Canada) outside of Quebec, a language which itself has a significant presence in Quebec, and which is widely considered the global language, to be "practically useless." The fact that most Francophones in Quebec can function without English does not make English useless.
As for the 7% quote, it is a 2001 statistic quoted in a book titled La Nova Latino por la Eklezio Kaj Ekumenio, written by a Catholic dealing with the communication problem within the Catholic Church internationally. I myself do not profess the Catholic Faith, just for the record. I forget the author's name though, but I'll try to find it for you in the next few days.
I would appreciate it. I base my opinions off sources such as the following.
Ultimately, the information for Scandinavia and the Netherlands comes from Eurobarometer reports which show 86% of Swedes, for examples, can speak English. As can 64% of Germans and 90% of the Dutch, but only 39% and 34% for the French and the Italians, respectively.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Machjo
As for English being so difficult, if you Google OECD English morphology 2005, you should be able to find it in PDF format. The "Rapport Grin" (l'ensegnement des langues comme politique publique), a report presented to the Frech Haut Conseil de l'Education also in 2005 by the eminent language economist François Grin and also available online in French on the Council's website) likewise concludes that replacing English by an international auxiliary language (based on the assumption that it would be as easy to learn as Esperanto) could save the EU an estimated 25 billion euros yearly due to its ease of learning. He concludes that Esperanto is from 5 to 10 times less expensive to learn than English due to its rational grammar.
Robert Phillipson also quotes a 4% success rate in English language learning in India.
From my own personal observation, I would have been in trouble living in central Quebec without a knowledge of French. Tourist traps get expensive after a while.
I also found that few Chinese could hold a proper conversation in English even after university unless it was their specialization. If I had to guess, I'd say probably like India, a 4% success rate.
For those who travel off the beaten tourist path, we are well aware that English is very much a language of the elite in much of the world.
Esperanto is a total pipe dream, and thankfully so. As for the Chinese having difficulty learning English, that's completely expected since their language is quite different from English. Likewise, it's very difficult for an English speaker to learn Chinese. On the other hand, Dutch, German, English, Danish, etc., are all Germanic languages, which makes it easier for Germanic Europeans to learn English. (There are some other factors, too, such as the tendency for the Dutch and Scandinavians not to dub English language movies. Unlike the Netherlands & Scandinavia, Germany tends to dub English language movies.)
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