|
 |
Materials for Quebec French non-existent | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| microsnout TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Canada microsnout.wordpress Joined 5472 days ago 277 posts - 553 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 33 of 49 04 May 2012 at 8:31am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, if the station you listened to was Radio-Canada (called CBC in English Canada) the French would be very standard and accessible. Another movie that is good for language students is Le Bonheur de Pierre which is a joint Canada-France production about a university professor from Paris who along with his daughter move to the Saguenay region of Québec. Language plays a big part in the movie including a funny scene discussing grammar and the conditional tense over a bowl of poutine. I must say however that if not for the language element I would pass on this film and watch the similar but much better movie "La grande séduction". Edited by microsnout on 04 May 2012 at 8:32am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ChiaBrain Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5809 days ago 402 posts - 512 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish* Studies: Portuguese, Italian, French Studies: German | Message 34 of 49 13 June 2012 at 6:34am | IP Logged | ||
|
Of interest to the more digitally inclined...
"Le Québécois pour mieux voyager" is available as a Nook Book or from iTunes. Its not available for Kindle though. Nook http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/le-qu-b-cois-pour-mieux-voya ger-collectif/1110360431?ean=9782896650637 iTunes http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/le-quebecois-pour-mieux-voya ger/id444180409?mt=11 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lecavaleur Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4778 days ago 146 posts - 295 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish | Message 35 of 49 13 June 2012 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I think the so-called peculiarity of Québec French tends to be exaggerated. It really
is not so different from Standard French except in slang (which is very different from European slang). The grammatical differences are not so numerous and can be discussed and learned by a good speaker of SF in an afternoon over coffee and then subsequently observed and practised in daily life. However, the reason that QF isn't taught and for which there are few materials available to the non-francophone is simply because the standard language in Québec differs very little from the standard language anywhere else. It's colloquial speech and accent which demarcate QF from other varieties, but with a few tips and a little practise, these are easily surmounted by any fluent speaker of Standard French. All the accentual differences are entirely regular and can also be discussed in an afternoon over coffee, observed and then practised. It takes a Frenchman only a couple of weeks before he understands basically everything Quebeckers are saying. Just enough time to get used to the regular differences in accent and the common colloquial terms and expressions. This is why the books previously cited on this thread are all simple phrasebooks and not complete language courses. (Incidentally, much of the stuff you will find in those books you will rarely hear in real life, if ever.) Bref, one can easily pass from SF to QF if need be, which is probably why SF is the preferred variant in language education. You can also be understood in QC with only SF, whereas the reverse is not necessarily true. There are only 8 million people in QC (not all of whom speak French, btw) out of a pool of 220 million French-speakers in the world. Brazilians make up the vast majority of Portuguese speakers. Latin Americans are the majority of Spanish speakers. Their numbers alone justify the demand to learn their varieties of their language. One can certainly dedicate entire volumes to Quebec's national variety of French, and this has been done, but the learner does not need to know 90% of what's in most of them. They are used as a reference only. I myself have completed about half of a very concise, brief crash course in Quebec French, written in English, that is designed for advanced students of Standard French. It covers all the main grammatical and argotic differences one needs to transition from SF to colloquial QF. I will post a preview of it once it's finished. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| vientito Senior Member Canada Joined 6339 days ago 212 posts - 281 votes | Message 36 of 49 13 June 2012 at 10:50pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I kid you not. I have lived and worked on this language for a good ten years now. I have come to the point where I can sit back comfortably and watch almost all local quebecois production (with occasional exception on some hardcore regional rustic joual). Yet once in a while I try to watch a few flicks from france I quickly lose interest over them because I must confess that I have difficulty following what they say.
It shows me that no matter how everyone stress the similarity of the two under the hood. In reality how much you get used to the sounds and accent plays a big part on how much you actually understand. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| altito425 Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5961 days ago 65 posts - 70 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 37 of 49 14 June 2012 at 1:08am | IP Logged | ||
|
Here are some free websites for Quebec French that I found a few months ago. They both seem pretty thorough, but they also assume that you already speak fairly good French.
http://emsjuwel.com/learn.quebec.french/tag/quebec-french-wi th-sound-and-audio/ http://www.republiquelibre.org/cousture/EXPRES.HTM Edited by altito425 on 14 June 2012 at 1:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ChiaBrain Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5809 days ago 402 posts - 512 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish* Studies: Portuguese, Italian, French Studies: German | Message 38 of 49 14 June 2012 at 2:36am | IP Logged | ||
|
Canadian French for Better Travel [NOOK Book]
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/canadian-french-for-better-t ravel-collective/1100738279?ean=9782896650590 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lecavaleur Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4778 days ago 146 posts - 295 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish | Message 39 of 49 14 June 2012 at 2:43am | IP Logged | ||
I suppose, but you must also be familiar with the colloquial expressions of both continents. And as for the accent, one can't acquire it from books. Most Quebeckers can effortlessly follow any French production, as they have been exposed to the European variety since early childhood through television and films. The reverse is not true. Europeans and Africans are underexposed to the Quebec variety, which is why they have difficulty understanding everything at first. But, as I said, after about two weeks in Québec, they have no trouble. The same would be true for you in the other direction if you started hanging with French people and paying attention to what they were saying. Your ear and passive vocabulary would acclimate themselves naturally. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lecavaleur Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4778 days ago 146 posts - 295 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish | Message 40 of 49 14 June 2012 at 3:01am | IP Logged | ||
|
I'm reviewing what I had already written in my crash course and I'm noticing that, try
as I might to keep it simple and avoid linguistic jargon, it's almost impossible. You can only dumb it down so much before you actually make it even more confusing than it is. This may be another reason why so few of these guides are written, and basically none for the beginner. How do you talk about verb conjugations without using the required terminology? You can't really. The reader has to already be somewhat versed in the lingo of language study in order to understand. He doesn't have to be a professor of linguistics, but he has to understand what a muted H is. Edited by lecavaleur on 14 June 2012 at 3:02am 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
