Who would have more use for learning French?

[Arktikos]

I don't see it being particularly useful in either area.
Canadians take their French seriously though, as evidenced by the French immersion school way out west and north in the modestly sized community of Whitehorse, Yukon. Yukon Schools

[averysgore]

I went to high school in VT right near the Quebec border. I wouldn't say it was *essential*, and Spanish was nearly as popular as an elective. The most popular last names at my high school were all French (Gagne/Gagner was probably THE most common name.) A few of my friends' parents spoke French as a first language, and one (who I remember) spoke French when he was very young. It wasn't necessary for survival there, though.

Of course, since Montreal is close by, it can be useful to know when you're up there.

Honestly, I wish I would have taken French more seriously. I had the "learn it so you can get an A" mentality, which I did, but it would be nice to actually be able to hold a conversation in France or French Canada.

[aliss2]

Speaking French is useful in western Canada. I have had several additional job opportunities that my uni-lingual counterparts have not had. I use it several times per week. My H has a federal job and gets an extra bonus just for bilingual status. Recently, I had the unique opportunity to teach a bilingual workplace transition course for francophone African immigrants.

I grew uni-lingual and didn't learn until my 20s. I thought it was useless then. Turns out I simply didn't have access to the opportunities and assumed there were none. Silly

[engineman]

I took french in high school, I used it twice in Quebec.

I have used spanish in Mexico, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Miami.

[Jonathan Ashbeck]

Originally Posted by lepoisson

Northern New England. You can commonly hear French spoken in parts of Maine and Vermont.

I have to agree with you. Northern New England is where you can find some French speaking Americans.

[OwlAndSparrow]

This depends on the person.

Some people might want to talk to French relatives. Others might want to watch French media or read French literature. Others might want to make diving into European culture a hobby, and French is a good gateway Romance language; people who know French can go on to Italian or Spanish or Latin or Romanian or Portuguese without much trouble. French also helps learners better understand English in particular and the way language works in general, since studying a new language forces you to confront issues that are easy to overlook when they show up in your native language. The discipline required to learn a new language is quite useful in other areas of life.


For some people, the opportunity cost of studying French instead of a different language would be too much, even if French is common in the area. That's the reason I'm not learning Spanish -- time spent studying Spanish would be time I could better use practicing other languages.


There are many benefits to curing monolingualism. Speaking to the francophone next door is merely one of them.