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Reverse the scenario. You're an Anglophone in say, Vancouver, who also happens to speak French. A Francophone approaches you and starts a conversation in English but it's clear that French is their best language. You decide to be "nice" and "accommodating" (and you want to show off your French skills!!) and you respond to them in French.
Doesn't seem so bad, does it? Frustrating if you're trying to learn English? Obviously. But hard to say there are any bad intentions...
Ever think that maybe the francophones who switch to English might want to practise their second language too?
That was my first thought too.
I remember when I first moved to Montreal in the 1970s and made friends with someone in my apartment building. I was eager to improve my French. However, she had been raised in rural Quebec and only started trying to speak English three years earlier when she moved to the city.
She specifically asked if we could speak in English. She needed to improve her English to get a better job in her company. I was disappointed but her need was greater than mine and I was her only English Canadian friend.
After a generation of abiding by the rigorous doctrines of Bill 101 and the gestapo like behavior of the language police we Anglos the apparent dominators and suppressors of the francophone culture now are expected to give free English lessons to francophones? You want to learn English? dial 9 https://results.searchlock.com/searc...e&chnm=natural
Location: Montreal -> CT -> MA -> Montreal -> Ottawa
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JeanVoilou
I've been in Canada since the late 90s, as my parents migrated here. I come from an Italian family from the south of Italy and i've been always talking Italian at home, as well as in my entourage. Here in Toronto we have a very big Italian community and most italians come in this area when they migrate from Europe so it wasn't that easy for me to learn English at the school and I still do various mistakes, specially when I write. To make it funnier, most of my schoolmates were Italian Canadians. Besides, where I work I have to use always the English language but I still have a pretty strong Italian accent on me.
I read your post with an Italian accent. It's lovely. Yes, there are mistakes in your writing but they're charming.
Reverse the scenario. You're an Anglophone in say, Vancouver, who also happens to speak French. A Francophone approaches you and starts a conversation in English but it's clear that French is their best language. You decide to be "nice" and "accommodating" (and you want to show off your French skills!!) and you respond to them in French.
Doesn't seem so bad, does it? Frustrating if you're trying to learn English? Obviously. But hard to say there are any bad intentions...
Except I would not respond in French because they did not speak to me in French even if I could speak the language... so it's a moot point.
If someone stops me to ask where something is, or for directions, and is clearly new to English, I will automatically switch to their language. I never thought about anyone trying to practise English. For many years you could almost take it for granted that older women especially, of a certain age, would have very poor English even if they were born here as usually they had been homemakers and had had no need for English. That generation is dying out but in the last twenty years a new generation of immigrants has taken their place and they ARE finding it necessary to know English.
That led to a big misunderstanding once, when an older woman stopped me in a grocery store and asked me to show her where the n-word (Yes, THAT n word!) was. I automatically said, "Pardon me?" Which probably came out in an astonished squeak. And she repeated it, enunciating very carefully. I was speechless for a moment, staring at her in what must have been horror, wondering how I tell an old racist lady off when suddenly it registered that English was not her usual language. So then I asked her in my first language, which it was safe to assume was also her usual language, how she would say that in Low German.
The upshot was that she was looking for vinegar. I think she had asked someone how to say 'vinegar' in English and repeated it to herself many times and in the process lost the first part of he word.
I was very relieved to help her. I did not tell her what she had said.
Especially since a lot of francophones don't speak English. Even in the Montreal area.
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You want to learn English? dial 9 
It's lovely. Yes, there are mistakes in your writing but they're charming.
