[Magdalen] Quebec City.

[Grace Cangialosi]

We have a Kinderhook about 15 miles up the road.

> On Jan 11, 2015, at 1:39 AM, James Oppenheimer-Crawford <oppenheimerjw at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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.
>>