[Magdalen] Quebec City.

[Jay Weigel]

I have a young friend who was raised Francophone in Montreal. At 23 she
decided to teach herself English and did so on her own and extremely well.
Her accent was adorable and she rarely made idiomatic mistakes, which is
commendable. At 28 she married a Dane she had met online several years
previously and went off to live in Denmark, where she attended a
government-sponsored language  program and passed all her levels in near
record time. Her (trilingual) Facebook page is quite a marvel to behold!
Now 33, she is a new mom who is hoping to find a position working with
special needs children in a preschool, which is what she did in
Montreal....when baby Livia is older. The funny thing about all of this is
that she was quite shy and until she decided to teach herself English
(because of a book she could not find in French) had never considered
learning another language, living anywhere but Montreal, or even going
online.

On Saturday, January 10, 2015, Molly Wolf <lupa at kos.net> wrote:

> Quebec is officially unilingual Francophone, and a good many Québécois(es)
> speak little or no English -- just as the majority of Anglo Canadians can't
> function in French.  True bilingualism exists in places where the two
> populations actually mix:  Western Quebec, parts of Eastern Ontario, New
> Brunswick -- Susan H. will know more.
>
> Molly
>
> The man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no
> other way. -- Mark Twain
>
> > On Jan 9, 2015, at 11:59 PM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen <
> magdalen at herberthouse.org <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > I saw a travelogue this evening featuring Quebec City.  The City  was
> > its usual charming and picturesque self.  This was expected.
> >
> > What was not expected was the heavily accented, even broken English
> > of the dozen or so locals who were interviewed during the course of
> > the program.
> >
> > I know of the tensions between Anglophones and Francophones in  Quebec,
> > but it was obvious that English doesn't come easily to Quebec natives, if
> > these
> > interviewees are typical.
> >
> > I have always envisioned Quebec (and really all Canadians) as an
> > ideal setting for the very early familiarity with both languages
> producing
> > a fluent, relatively unaccented French and English bilingual  population.
> >
> > I appear to have been wrong in this assumption.
> >
> >
> > David S.
>