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Gain a different world view because a second language allows you to access and enjoy a totally different culture, its media and cultural offerings (think of the wealth of Francophone music, Francophone TV shows, movies, news programs, newspapers, magazines you'd be able to enjoy with a second language).
I immigrated to Canada with 3 languages - English, German, and Chinese - and allows my family and I to understand the world from 3 different world views (esp. the vast cultural and political canyon between China and the West).
Right now I am learning my 4th language - French while living between Toronto and Montreal. I know many folks in Toronto and rest of Ontario who learn French as their second language or their native language. So yes, at least in this part of the country French can be just as predominant and popular as English. Many who work in government institutions, who work in Crown corporations, who work for large Canadian multinationals have to master both French and English if you want to advance your careers. In my management consulting company based in downtown Toronto, we have an entire department dedicated to creating translations for documents and email communications between French and English because a large part of our workforce are bilingual.
People around the world may or may not learn a second language for a variety of reasons, but when simply talking about the value and desirability of doing so, Anglo-Canada at present is one of the only places I know where such a large proportion of people will be adamant (and even hostile in some cases) about how all what you describe is a total waste of time.
People around the world may or may not learn a second language for a variety of reasons, but when simply talking about the value and desirability of doing so, Anglo-Canada at present is one of the only places I know where such a large proportion of people will be adamant (and even hostile in some cases) about how all what you describe is a total waste of time.
It's quite telling.
I think it's an Anglo issue more broadly - not just limited to Canada by any means. Witness the sad state of affairs in the US or UK, where only a small portion of the native-born population has any functional communicational skills in another language.
Actually, my experience has been that my Anglo Canadian friends are more likely to speak another language (usually French) than Americans or Brits - but I admit that's purely anecdotal.
I think it's an Anglo issue more broadly - not just limited to Canada by any means. Witness the sad state of affairs in the US or UK, where only a small portion of the native-born population has any functional communicational skills in another language..
You're quite right, but my experience is that in Canada you have a lot more people who are defiant about being unilingual. Americans (and also Australians and Brits) are more likely to pay lip service to the whole notion: they will say it's a good thing to know other languages but never do anything to follow through on it.
Americans in particular are often self-deprecating about their language skills: "We 'Merricans are dumb... we can only master one language, hahaha!"
Canadians NEVER do this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slate Moonstone
Actually, my experience has been that my Anglo Canadian friends are more likely to speak another language (usually French) than Americans or Brits - but I admit that's purely anecdotal.
There is a segment of the Anglo-Canadian population (not living in Quebec) that is bilingual it is true.
According to stats I have seen, about 9% of Anglo-Canadians can speak French. If you take out Anglo-Quebecers (who are 70-80% bilingual) from that group, you get about 7% of Anglo-Canadians who can speak French.
Apparently, 4-5% of "anglos" in the U.S. can speak Spanish.
And in the U.K., apparently just over 15% of the population can speak French.
You're quite right, but my experience is that in Canada you have a lot more people who are defiant about being unilingual. Americans (and also Australians and Brits) are more likely to pay lip service to the whole notion: they will say it's a good thing to know other languages but never do anything to follow through on it.
Americans in particular are often self-deprecating about their language skills: "We 'Merricans are dumb... we can only master one language, hahaha!"
Canadians NEVER do this.
There is a segment of the Anglo-Canadian population (not living in Quebec) that is bilingual it is true.
According to stats I have seen, about 9% of Anglo-Canadians can speak French. If you take out Anglo-Quebecers (who are 70-80% bilingual) from that group, you get about 7% of Anglo-Canadians who can speak French.
Apparently, 4-5% of "anglos" in the U.S. can speak Spanish.
And in the U.K., apparently just over 15% of the population can speak French.
Draw your own conclusions.
Also keeping in mind that there are many non-anglos who speak French as their native or secondary language. I'm ethnic Chinese and I'm learning French. I have a lot of Arabic, Persian, and African friends who speak fluent French living in Ontario and ROC. Increasingly due to immigration, those ethnic groups with higher language skills will make up a greater proportion of Canada's population.
Learning another language never does anything but enrich your life and it makes learning further languages should you ever want to or need to much easier - not to mention that it is a 'learning to learn' situation in general. And it is never too late to learn - my father taught himself Farsi in his early 90s - and could speak quite a number of (self-taught) languages. He always kept dictionaries/phrase books for several languages at a time with him in his wheelchair or by his bedside.
In Canada, the easiest second language to learn is French because it is offered in schools everywhere. Canadians are blessed to be offered the opportunity to learn to speak another language - and so many have bad attitudes about that - it just makes me sad. French is, apart from being an interesting language, also a very useful language if you ever want to work for the Canadian government or many large corporations, or want to live in Quebec or Ottawa. As an Anglophone however you will have to speak/read/understand/write better French than a similarly qualified Francophone will have to do in English to get that job. I urge all Canadians to gratefully take full advantage of the opportunity you are given to learn and practice a second language. You never know when you will need it or where life will take you.
Beyond that though there is more French spoken and/or available in the schools outside of Quebec than even most Canadians realize. The west coast has quite a few francophones - and there are French schools there as well. There are primarily francophone communities across the country. And, I believe it is still the case that if you go to school in the Ottawa area, you have a choice of 4 public school boards - English Protestant, English Catholic, French Protestant, French Catholic - and either French immersion in younger grades or just the inclusion of French language classes, usually starting in later grades.
I was alive and spent a fair bit of time in Quebec during several of the worst separatist eras. I have seen the hatred that was spawned (primarily on the Quebecois side) and the stupidity of it all. I also know that most of it sprung from the Montreal area, with the youth and a few idiot older people. In the rest of Quebec there was no such animosity, even in most other towns and rural areas where no English was spoken. But, in Montreal, if you talked to many ordinary citizens they would say that they wanted to leave Canada and join the US. I avoided Montreal as much as I could after I was treated very badly and literally spat upon for being an Anglophone there who tried to speak French and wasn't perfect at it - so it was obvious I was not 'one of them' (though at the time I was married to a Francophone and my daughter was being raised bilingual). No such thing happened in Quebec City, the northern areas or the townships. When those from the Montreal area vacationed or competed in things like band competitions, etc. it was always in the US, never anywhere in Canada where English was spoken - and yet they would cross the border to places where only English was spoken and somehow that was going to be better. They somehow thought the grass was greener starting 2 steps inside the border to their south. Never made any sense to me. We have stupid people in Canada just as there are anywhere else - some speak English, some speak French.
However, that said, Quebec could not survive as its own country anyway, especially if, as it would have to do, it first had to give up much of its territory and pay back what they would owe the Canadian government before they could leave Canada. Canada would be worse off without them too. Separation is not in anyone's interests.
All Canadians would be much better off if we just settle down and be Canadian - and realize we are all richer for speaking 2 languages and embracing 2 equally wonderful cultures. Quebec, or rather the people who run it, unfortunately wants/want to live separately whether in Canada or not - and that is an ongoing issue for all Canadians - and even for themselves. In attempting to 'preserve' that Quebecois culture for instance they have alienated tourists from both the US and Canada who cannot find the store they want or the road they need because of the insistence within Quebec that English be so minimized. Traffic signs in Quebec can, because they insist on being only in French, cause quite dangerous situations to occur. But English Canada is not helping either ... if we embrace French as just as important a part of our heritage as English is, rather than ridicule it, shun it or dismiss it, things would undoubtedly improve for everyone across the country. Both English and French should be spoken everywhere - and we should be proud to do that.
As for politics, I do wish Americans who know nothing about Canada (yes, I am looking at you, Slate Moonstone) would cut out that kind of derogatory, mean-spirited, misguided, non-applicable stuff out when discussing Canadian politics. Stop spreading hatred beyond your own borders, please. It is bad enough that you do it down there. We have enough of our own young hotheads here - and our universities are breeding more every day. We get enough American liberal propaganda in Canada as it is these days - thanks to the CBC and ignorant university professors and our current sunny ways, great hair, part time drama teacher leader. You are totally wrong (even about American politics - I live in both countries so I know a bit about it all!) - let's just leave it at that.
As for politics, I do wish Americans who know nothing about Canada (yes, I am looking at you, Slate Moonstone) would cut out that kind of derogatory, mean-spirited, misguided, non-applicable stuff out when discussing Canadian politics..
Slate Moonstone knows a lot more about Canada than many Canadians, including many on here.
He just irks people because what he says goes against the dominant orthodoxy in some parts of the country.
But, in Montreal, if you talked to many ordinary citizens they would say that they wanted to leave Canada and join the US. .
"We're going to separate from Canada because we can't get along with anglophones, and join the U.S. which has 10 times more anglophones and be just a tiny insignificant speck in a huge hyperculture that has no time for us!"
Learning another language never does anything but enrich your life and it makes learning further languages should you ever want to or need to much easier - not to mention that it is a 'learning to learn' situation in general. And it is never too late to learn - my father taught himself Farsi in his early 90s - and could speak quite a number of (self-taught) languages. He always kept dictionaries/phrase books for several languages at a time with him in his wheelchair or by his bedside.
In Canada, the easiest second language to learn is French because it is offered in schools everywhere. Canadians are blessed to be offered the opportunity to learn to speak another language - and so many have bad attitudes about that - it just makes me sad. French is, apart from being an interesting language, also a very useful language if you ever want to work for the Canadian government or many large corporations, or want to live in Quebec or Ottawa. As an Anglophone however you will have to speak/read/understand/write better French than a similarly qualified Francophone will have to do in English to get that job. I urge all Canadians to gratefully take full advantage of the opportunity you are given to learn and practice a second language. You never know when you will need it or where life will take you.
Beyond that though there is more French spoken and/or available in the schools outside of Quebec than even most Canadians realize. The west coast has quite a few francophones - and there are French schools there as well. There are primarily francophone communities across the country. And, I believe it is still the case that if you go to school in the Ottawa area, you have a choice of 4 public school boards - English Protestant, English Catholic, French Protestant, French Catholic - and either French immersion in younger grades or just the inclusion of French language classes, usually starting in later grades.
I was alive and spent a fair bit of time in Quebec during several of the worst separatist eras. I have seen the hatred that was spawned (primarily on the Quebecois side) and the stupidity of it all. I also know that most of it sprung from the Montreal area, with the youth and a few idiot older people. In the rest of Quebec there was no such animosity, even in most other towns and rural areas where no English was spoken. But, in Montreal, if you talked to many ordinary citizens they would say that they wanted to leave Canada and join the US. I avoided Montreal as much as I could after I was treated very badly and literally spat upon for being an Anglophone there who tried to speak French and wasn't perfect at it - so it was obvious I was not 'one of them' (though at the time I was married to a Francophone and my daughter was being raised bilingual). No such thing happened in Quebec City, the northern areas or the townships. When those from the Montreal area vacationed or competed in things like band competitions, etc. it was always in the US, never anywhere in Canada where English was spoken - and yet they would cross the border to places where only English was spoken and somehow that was going to be better. They somehow thought the grass was greener starting 2 steps inside the border to their south. Never made any sense to me. We have stupid people in Canada just as there are anywhere else - some speak English, some speak French.
However, that said, Quebec could not survive as its own country anyway, especially if, as it would have to do, it first had to give up much of its territory and pay back what they would owe the Canadian government before they could leave Canada. Canada would be worse off without them too. Separation is not in anyone's interests.
All Canadians would be much better off if we just settle down and be Canadian - and realize we are all richer for speaking 2 languages and embracing 2 equally wonderful cultures. Quebec, or rather the people who run it, unfortunately wants/want to live separately whether in Canada or not - and that is an ongoing issue for all Canadians - and even for themselves. In attempting to 'preserve' that Quebecois culture for instance they have alienated tourists from both the US and Canada who cannot find the store they want or the road they need because of the insistence within Quebec that English be so minimized. Traffic signs in Quebec can, because they insist on being only in French, cause quite dangerous situations to occur. But English Canada is not helping either ... if we embrace French as just as important a part of our heritage as English is, rather than ridicule it, shun it or dismiss it, things would undoubtedly improve for everyone across the country. Both English and French should be spoken everywhere - and we should be proud to do that.
As for politics, I do wish Americans who know nothing about Canada (yes, I am looking at you, Slate Moonstone) would cut out that kind of derogatory, mean-spirited, misguided, non-applicable stuff out when discussing Canadian politics. Stop spreading hatred beyond your own borders, please. It is bad enough that you do it down there. We have enough of our own young hotheads here - and our universities are breeding more every day. We get enough American liberal propaganda in Canada as it is these days - thanks to the CBC and ignorant university professors and our current sunny ways, great hair, part time drama teacher leader. You are totally wrong (even about American politics - I live in both countries so I know a bit about it all!) - let's just leave it at that.
Young liberal hothead here living in Toronto. Yes we are breeding more and more everyday, almost like rabbits and squirrels. You just watch us
We get enough American liberal propaganda in Canada as it is these days - thanks to the CBC and ignorant university professors and our current sunny ways, great hair, part time drama teacher leader. You are totally wrong (even about American politics - I live in both countries so I know a bit about it all!) - let's just leave it at that.
The idea that the political influences on Canada that come from the U.S. are primarily liberal, leftist and progressive is quite comical.
As for politics, I do wish Americans who know nothing about Canada (yes, I am looking at you, Slate Moonstone) would cut out that kind of derogatory, mean-spirited, misguided, non-applicable stuff out when discussing Canadian politics. Stop spreading hatred beyond your own borders, please. It is bad enough that you do it down there. We have enough of our own young hotheads here - and our universities are breeding more every day. We get enough American liberal propaganda in Canada as it is these days - thanks to the CBC and ignorant university professors and our current sunny ways, great hair, part time drama teacher leader. You are totally wrong (even about American politics - I live in both countries so I know a bit about it all!) - let's just leave it at that.
This outburst is just bizarre. I find Slate's post well-thought out, and eluded to an aspect of Canada that I've never remotely considered (likely because I'm living within it). We're all richer in perspective from him posting -whether we agree or not. There was certainly no hatred whatsoever.
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