|
 |
Learning French in Quebec | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| imascatman Bilingual Diglot Newbie Canada tomseriousblog.blogs Joined 5276 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin* Studies: French, German | Message 1 of 4 30 September 2010 at 6:01pm | IP Logged |
|
Hello fellow language enthusiasts,
I am an Anglophone Canadian that wish to learn French, mainly for business purposes, but also for cultural and pleasure. I am thinking of attending an intensive French course in Quebec. Does anyone have any experience with this? What language schools are recommended? How long would it take for someone that has only taken Canadian public school French to be able learn French well enough from these schools to read, write, and speak French in a business setting? Which towns have the best immersive (English-free) experience? Thank you very much Edited by imascatman on 30 September 2010 at 6:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 3 of 4 01 October 2010 at 4:30pm | IP Logged |
|
If immersion and absence of English is your goal, then places like Trois-Rivières or Rimouski are most likely your best bet. I grew up close to Trois-Rivières and English-speaking people were rare enough that I can't really remember ever coming across anyone who spoke English. My hometown was 98.5% French-speaking.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 4 of 4 01 October 2010 at 7:37pm | IP Logged |
|
I can't making any additional recommendations about language schools. However I would like to address the question of how long does it take to reach a certain level. There are so many variables involved such as your "talent" and duration of the immersion experience that I think it is impossible to arrive at a precise number in terms of weeks or months. I would assume that the shorter the better.
One of the biggest obstacles to learning French in Québec, especially for business purposes, is that most of your French-speakers counterparts speak much better English than you do French. Not only will they be eager to practice their French, but for quite a while it will be just so more efficient to do things in English. Overcoming that obstacle will be the challenge. It's not going to be easy. In the context of a business meeting, you certainly don't want to inflict your initially bad French on everybody and you want to do the business at hand. You are far from this point for the time being, but my advice is to pay real close attention to how things are said in French. In your first sorties in French, you'll probably want to start off in French and then maybe switch to English when the going gets rough and then progressively increase the proportion in French. But to be able to do that, in addition to all the lessons, courses and studying that you must do, you have to become very observant. You'll certainly sit through a number of presentations, hopefully in French. See how the speaker introduces himself or herself: "Good afternoon, I'm X, and I'm director of sales for Eastern Canada. I would like to give a brief overview of our sales and marketing strategy for the coming financial year. I suggest you keep your questions for the end. Then I'll do my best to answer your concerns. Can everybody see the screen clearly? Maybe we can dim the lights a bit. Good. Let me first introduce the team members." This little blurb is typical of what you have heard and will hear. Now you have to master that in French. It's really not that difficult, but be forewarned that the learning curve can be long and steep. 1 person has voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
