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Canadian French Language Leaders Debate | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| microsnout TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Canada microsnout.wordpress Joined 5471 days ago 277 posts - 553 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 10 of 22 10 April 2010 at 8:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
2008 seems so long ago for me linguistically - having just started to learn French in the fall of 06 but I remember watching this debate and having the opposite impression. I found Harper and Layton the easiest to understand by far and wondered what strange dialect Gilles Duceppe was speaking!! - and I thought I could do better than May since even I could identify many of her errors. I also remember being impressed not by Harpers speaking so much as his listening ability - something that was giving me a lot of trouble back then. I found it mildly paradoxical that native speakers were harder to understand than second language learners. The natives were just not speaking with a 'proper' FSL classroom dialect curse them! From that point on I placed little or no value on conversation practice with other students. If another student was much more advanced than me, It had a little value but otherwise none at all. I found more value in speaking to someone begging for change on the streets of Montreal than advanced students at the Alliance Française. Maybe I should watch the debate again to see how my perception has changed.. Edited by microsnout on 10 April 2010 at 8:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| vientito Senior Member Canada Joined 6338 days ago 212 posts - 281 votes | Message 11 of 22 10 April 2010 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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"It's also interesting how much more forgiving the French-Canadian media is to linguistic
misfires than the English-Canadian media. " Haha you could have watched a recent episode of "3600 secondes d'extase" to what manner May was portraited. Then tell me if french media is really that forgiving ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| JBI Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 5691 days ago 46 posts - 67 votes Speaks: Modern Hebrew, English* Studies: Italian, Mandarin, French | Message 12 of 22 11 April 2010 at 4:00am | IP Logged | |||||
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The reason that the native speakers are hard to understand is the Quebec pronunciation, which is quite different than the standard Paris one. Duccepe, as a French Canadian is one of the most articulate people - even in the English debate he is super effective; the man is a natural debater, which shows; Harper and Layton aren't that bad - they can be understood at least. But I think one must make a distinction between Quebec and France French - Dion and Duccepe clearly aren't speaking with Parisian accents.
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 13 of 22 11 April 2010 at 4:46am | IP Logged | |||||
1) Why would the Québec accent be harder to understand for Canadians? It's as incongruous as if Québécois found Canadian English harder to understand than British English. 2) Dion is often perceived negatively by Québécois, specifically because of his accent that has a lot of European influence. His mother was French and he lived in France for 4 years. Edited by Arekkusu on 11 April 2010 at 4:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5866 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 14 of 22 11 April 2010 at 5:17am | IP Logged | |||||
It does seem strange, but I believe it is true. I learned most of my French in Quebec, but I find it a whole lot easier to understand and speak French in France and Belgium than in Quebec. And I have heard the same comment from a number of Canadian anglophones. I don't know for sure but I think the Québécois speak faster and probably use more colloquial words than their European cousins. Just my impression, based on personal experience. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 15 of 22 11 April 2010 at 6:04am | IP Logged | |||||
My wife (English native) finds Québec French easier than European French. I think it's just a matter of what you're used to, which, again, makes it odd that Canadians would find European French easier. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5677 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 16 of 22 11 April 2010 at 6:48am | IP Logged | |||||
For the most part, English-Canadians and French-Canadians live apart from each other. If they lived close to each other and interacted, their accents would be mutually intelligible. However, since they don't live close to each other, we don't interact. The media forms constitutes the bulk of our exposure to languages. Since Canadian English is very close to American English (which is the dominant form in English media), it is easy for Quebecers to understand an English-Canadian accent. However, because Quebecois is distant from Metropolitan French, it is difficult to understand the Quebecois accent without additional exposure to it. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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