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As an aside, when chief of police in a small Cape Cod town we'd get a fair number of folks from Quebec visiting the place during the summer season. I was surprised by the number of Quebeckers who spoke virtually no English.
It would always surprise me when I met Anglos in out of the way places. Like I said before I met several that didnt speak any French in places like Hampstead, Cote st luc, Ndg, The point etc etc, but that is to be expected. I also met a few from other areas in the city that were largely French speaking areas and some didn't speak French or barely did. I worked with a few people from MTL North, The East end and other areas that spoke very little French. I guess maybe they are remnants of Anglo pockets that once existed in the city that have moved away? These were people with Anglo last names. I knew a Chinese Canadian guy that spoken very little French and whos family had been in The Ahuntsic/st micheal area for a long time. The only language he spoke fluently was English.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
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You get this all over Quebec. Not just in (western) Montreal.
Get this: about 15% of the anglophone population of Quebec City speaks only English!
It's a small number within an already small number of people, but still...
I knew a lady from the Quebec city area that spoke almost no French. I have even met people from the Gaspe Bay ara that spoke no French. I was actually very surprised.
It's pretty uncommon to meet young people from Quebec who aren't at least functional in French, it's much more common in older people. I know plenty of Millennial Anglos who live in Homa since it's cheap, even my brother moved out there. I've never met an Anglo who lived somewhere super French and who couldn't hold a conversation in the language.
[quote=BIMBAM;60193611[B]]It's pretty uncommon to meet young people from Quebec who aren't at least functional in [/b]French, it's much more common in older people. I know plenty of Millennial Anglos who live in Homa since it's cheap, even my brother moved out there. I've never met an Anglo who lived somewhere super French and who couldn't hold a conversation in the language.[/QUOTE]
Most of the people I met that couldn't speak French were middle aged. Some would be seniors now. It is probably even more rare now.
As an aside, when chief of police in a small Cape Cod town we'd get a fair number of folks from Quebec visiting the place during the summer season. I was surprised by the number of Quebeckers who spoke virtually no English.
Rich
Eh... chances are they lied to you. I don’t know of a single person who lives there that can’t speak English. Might be broken, but they can clean it.
Eh... chances are they lied to you. I don’t know of a single person who lives there that can’t speak English. Might be broken, but they can clean it.
I live in and am from Quebec, this is not the case. There are absolutely many people with English that is so limited that they are unilingual. Sure they might know a few words, but they'd be uncomfortable even trying a few sentences because they haven't used the language in decades. Think a 50 year old American who took one Spanish class in High School suddenly trying to get around in Madrid. Especially outside of Montreal, unilingualism is quite common, but even in Montreal it's not unheard of. If even some Quebec Anglos are unilingual, obviously more Quebec Francophone are.
Eh... chances are they lied to you. I don’t know of a single person who lives there that can’t speak English. Might be broken, but they can clean it.
I know many people in my family and extended circle, who do not speak English, or only the basics.
According to Statcan, here's the breakdown of official languages knowledge in Quebec (in 2016) :
Can communicate in French and English : 3,586,410 (44%)
Only know French : 4,032,640 (50%)
Only know English : 372,450 (5%)
Do not know French nor English : 75,060 (1%)
Total : 8,066,555
So there's more people in Quebec that only know French than people who are bilingual.
Most people in Quebec never have to use English in their daily life, so even though they learned English as a second language in school, if they never used it, they can't speak it anymore, like Bimbam said.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BIMBAM
Especially outside of Montreal, unilingualism is quite common, but even in Montreal it's not unheard of. If even some Quebec Anglos are unilingual, obviously more Quebec Francophone are.
Absolutely, it's quite common.. For example, I have a contractor working right now in one of the apartments I own, in Montreal. He doesn't speak a word of English. The other day, he had a unilingual English-speaking customer calling him. He gave me his phone and asked me to translate for them, they couldn't communicate - at all.
I don't actually remember not knowing English so I was bilingual around the age of 3 or 4, and even I find my spoken English has gotten rusty during the pandemic. I had a specific thing I worked on last summer which included Zoom and phone calls in English, but other than that I have rarely spoken English since last March. Work calls have been almost all in French, French with my family members, French during quick chats with neighbours and French at the grocery store.
My writing has not suffered due to forums like these and some work I do in English, and I also watch TV and movies in English so there's that.
But in terms of being quick on my feet when speaking, I don't doubt that I have lost a step.
Growing up in Canada, I really had to work at keeping up my Spanish. For years I barely had anyone to speak it with outside of my home. We visited family in the US often and I got to speak it and hear it there, but even there my cousins and Hispanic friends all spoke English.
The map offers some fascinating insights. There are a lot more areas that are predominantly Anglophone than I thought. Some areas like Montreal's West Island and the Outaouais obviously stand out but look at all those red shades embedded between the green, blue, and yellow ones elsewhere such as the Gaspe Peninsula. No wonder why it's easy to be surprised at the number of Anglophones in a predominantly Francophone region. It's because one town speaks French and the next town over speaks English or at least that is what the map suggests. It makes sense that some people living in those red regions probably cannot speak French because as long as they stay within their bubble or follow around friends or relatives that can translate, they won't need to. Note a great majority of these individuals are likely older persons who were not recently educated in the province. Many English speaking retirees retreat to the Eastern Townships for instance to enjoy its comfortable, bucolic lifestyle. There are still individuals here in the states that have lived here for decades and still cannot speak English but get around just the same.
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