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Seriously, all Quebecois should be made to learn English. Canada is an English-dominated country, don't all Canadian schoolkids have to learn French? It goes without saying shouldn't English also be compulsory in school if Canada is truly bilingual? Since when did they start teaching English in schools in Quebec anyway?
Quebec City is a popular tourist attraction for visitors from all over the world.
I don't know where this idea that kids in Quebec schools don't learn English comes from?
They all do, and if people aren't able to speak English, it's the same reason that people in other parts of the world don't speak language X. They don't need to. I live right on the border with Ottawa and Ontario and if I really wanted to I could live my entire life basically without using any English at all.
So rest assured, English teaching in Quebec is the best broad second language teaching program in all of Canada, with the exception of the select French immersion program in English Canada which only involved something like 300,000 out of 5 million kids anyway.
Is it fair to say that the vast majority of non-Quebec Francophones are bilingual, while rather few non-Quebec Anglophones are?
Is there demographic differences between bilingual and unilingual Quebec Francophones? Education, age, gender, etc. There's a clear geographic difference, with bilingualism stronger in the Montreal and Ottawa/Gatineau areas than in the ROQ.
Francophones outside Quebec: close to 90%
Francophones inside Quebec: just under 40%
Anglophones in Quebec: close to 70%
Anglophones outside Quebec: about 7%
Education levels are roughly the same from francophones and anglophones regardless of whether they live in Quebec or in other provinces.
Is there demographic differences between bilingual and unilingual Quebec Francophones? Education, age, gender, etc. There's a clear geographic difference, with bilingualism stronger in the Montreal and Ottawa/Gatineau areas than in the ROQ.
50-60% of francophones in the Montreal and Gatineau areas are bilingual. In Quebec City it's about 30%. Other cities in Quebec tend to have lower levels of bilingualism.
In Ottawa-Gatineau the river is a big divide when it comes to bilingualism. Only about 2% of Ottawa francophones are not bilingual, whereas a third or more of people on the Gatineau side speak only French.
To go back to my initial observation, why is bilingualism so low in Quebec City? As you put it, people are not bilingual unless they need to be. Is it because the local economy is dominated by the provincial government?
Francophones outside Quebec: close to 90%
Francophones inside Quebec: just under 40%
Anglophones in Quebec: close to 70%
Anglophones outside Quebec: about 7%
Education levels are roughly the same from francophones and anglophones regardless of whether they live in Quebec or in other provinces.
So unilingual and bilingual Quebec Francophones have the same levels of education?
To go back to my initial observation, why is bilingualism so low in Quebec City? As you put it, people are not bilingual unless they need to be. Is it because the local economy is dominated by the provincial government?
It's probably that and a series of other factors. It's further removed from the borders, migrants tend to come from 100% francophone areas, few American or Canadian companies tend to have their Quebec branches there, etc.
It's probably that and a series of other factors. It's further removed from the borders, migrants tend to come from 100% francophone areas, few American or Canadian companies tend to have their Quebec branches there, etc.
I would think that an economy dominated by provincial government would have relatively little to attract migrants from outside Quebec.
For those of us who do not live in Montreal (and even Quebec City, beyond the downtown core/old town), you don't use English in daily life, so there is no real need to be bilingual. Of course, I'm sure we can all agree it is useful, but when you go years without needing to speak a language, it seems only natural that people don't care to really keep up with it or move beyond a bare minimum level.
When I first moved here 4 years ago, I didn't speak any French. I tried talking to my neighbour and she just shrugged. 4 years later, we talked about that, and she said that I was the first person in her LIFE to ever speak to her in English beyond a classroom setting in school. She never needed it, so she never bothered. This is pretty typical of most Quebecois - some people here on C-D seem to forget (or don't realize) that most Quebecois can easily go months, years, even their lives - without having to talk to an English speaker. They see tourist areas and think the province is like that. It isn't.
For those of us who do not live in Montreal (and even Quebec City, beyond the downtown core/old town), you don't use English in daily life, so there is no real need to be bilingual. Of course, I'm sure we can all agree it is useful, but when you go years without needing to speak a language, it seems only natural that people don't care to really keep up with it or move beyond a bare minimum level.
That makes sense. I would think that would be particularly true for the average "blue-collar guy" with no ambitions beyond the local paper mill and no desire to move away from his home town. He doesn't need English on the job, he doesn't know many Anglophones since he lives in a 98% Francophone town, and he can consume all the Francophone media he wants.
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