[Magdalen] Quebec City.

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

A bit north of Hyde Park, and south of Albany lies the village of
Kinderhook, borthplace of Martin van Buren, eighth President of the United
States.  His first language was Dutch. Drop by the center of Kinderhook and
you'll find a statue of him sitting at one of the local benches.

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better
for people coming behind you, and you don’t do it, you're wasting your time
on this Earth.”  -- *Roberto Clemente

On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 12:11 PM, Joseph Cirou <romanos at mindspring.com>
wrote:

> There are English speaking villages between the St Lawrence and Us border.
> You go close to the border in Vermont (as I remember) and Maine and the
> signs are bilingual English and French--probably elsewhere. There are a
> number French Canadian settlements in Mass and NH. Our lead at the IRS
> didn't speak English until she went to first grade. Now this is  a 100
> years ago; but my father did not speak English as his first language altho
> he later forgot a great deal of his French.
>
> Joe
>
> On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 8:53 AM, Charles Wohlers <
> charles.wohlers at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > We last visited Quebec City about 7 years ago, and didn't encounter
> anyone
> > who couldn't speak English. And the English was always quite
> > understandable. In a previous trip, ten years ago, we only encountered
> one
> > person who couldn't speak English - a 10-year old (or so) pumping gas at
> a
> > fairly remote gas station near Gaspésie Nat'l. Park.
> >
> > All signs, even the menus at Tim Horton's, however, are in French only -
> > no English, even at Anglophone-owned establishments.
> >
> > Chad Wohlers
> > Woodbury, VT USA
> > just 40 miles from the Quebec border
> > chadwohl at satucket.com
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message----- From: Cantor03--- via Magdalen
> > Sent: Friday, January 09, 2015 11:59 PM
> > To: magdalen at herberthouse.org
> > Subject: [Magdalen] Quebec City.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 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.
> >
>