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Quebec French

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maya_star17
Bilingual Tetraglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5675 days ago

269 posts - 291 votes 
Speaks: English*, Russian*, French, Spanish
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 9 of 35
09 December 2008 at 12:13pm | IP Logged 
TheBiscuit wrote:
You can't go far wrong with learning European French, although I do remember watching a film in France, in Quebec French, that had subtitles in France French! It might be worth asking a native French speaker how easy or not it is to understand Quebec French.
Without the subtitles, the European French speakers would be pretty darn lost.

The difference between the "dialects" is FAR larger than the difference between British and American English.
1 person has voted this message useful



fanatic
Octoglot
Senior Member
Australia
speedmathematics.com
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 Message 10 of 35
09 December 2008 at 5:27pm | IP Logged 
Transparent 101 Languages of the World includes a course in Canadian French. The quality of the program is excellent, with notes and a grammar guide you can print out, you can play the audio at 4 different speeds and you can click on any word for an instant translation, the root of the word and any grammatical explanation.

I have used the program with a number of languages. I record the audio and print out the text. The program is not expensive and works out very cheap for each language.

Barry Farber said in an interview it was one of the best resources available for language enthusiasts. I agree with him. I have made good use of mine.

I have no connection with Transparent Languages. I just like the product.
1 person has voted this message useful



jmlgws
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 6862 days ago

102 posts - 104 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German, Spanish, Mandarin

 
 Message 11 of 35
11 December 2008 at 5:46pm | IP Logged 
learninglover,

If you would like to learn "Standard Quebec Media French", I would suggest that you start listening to the programs on Radio-Canada or Radio Canada International. In particular, I would start with Radio-Canada's Radiojournal,their ~15 national news bulletin. You might go on to "Christiane Charette", this is the flagship morning current events talk show, she talks with different people with different accents.

I would also echo the suggestion of getting DVDs on Quebec videos (you might be able to watch some of them on TV5 if you get it). It seems that you can get some scenes of "Virginie" from the Radio-Canada website (not sure if you can get subtitles there though, you can on the TV emission). I have bought some DVDs for "Rumeurs" on Amazon, I think you can get "Les Bougon" there.
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Jar-ptitsa
Triglot
Senior Member
Belgium
Joined 5658 days ago

980 posts - 1006 votes 
Speaks: French*, Dutch, German

 
 Message 12 of 35
11 December 2008 at 6:17pm | IP Logged 
maya_star17 wrote:
TheBiscuit wrote:
You can't go far wrong with learning European French, although I do remember watching a film in France, in Quebec French, that had subtitles in France French! It might be worth asking a native French speaker how easy or not it is to understand Quebec French.
Without the subtitles, the European French speakers would be pretty darn lost.

The difference between the "dialects" is FAR larger than the difference between British and American English.


In Belgium it's possible listen a Quebec French Canadian radio station, and when I've listened it, it was very easy to undertsand, only the pronunciation was ugly (sorry!!!!) But, maybe they talk a more standard French on this Radio station, but usually much more slangs (I think this is the problem - the local slang and phrases are different than the "European" French). The belgian French and French French have some differences, but few.
1 person has voted this message useful



multilingual
Bilingual Diglot
Newbie
Canada
Joined 5600 days ago

28 posts - 29 votes
Speaks: French*, English*
Studies: German
Studies: Russian, Portuguese

 
 Message 13 of 35
18 December 2008 at 12:44am | IP Logged 
For starters I am a French Canadian attending a french-language university, so I think I can provide some
perspective on this.

Québec French and "French" French are mutually intelligible, unless people are speaking colloquially with an
unkept accent. There exists a French "dialect" in Québec called "joual", but at the end of the day, everybody
should speak standard French. Yes, some expressions are different on both sides of the Atlantic. Don't use
anything that might appear idiomatic, you probably won't be understood. There are also some words that are
considered literary on one side and quite common on the other. The occasional word for a given object or action
may be different (ex. while the British say "lift", Americans say "elevator").

Asking to learn Québec French (in my opinion anyways) is like asking to learn American spoken in the south of
the USA or Scottish English or Irish English. There's nothing wrong with these accents (not in my mind anyways),
but it would seem rather pointless.

French is an international language spoken in Canada, France, Belgium, Switzerland and Africa among others.
Anybody who speaks an "International French", a French without too many regional variants is better off.

Quebecers like the French very much (more than Anglo-Canadians) and deal with them frequently enough. If you
have a "French" accent you may even be perceived better.

Regardless, at the end of the day, unless you have been learning French for a very long time, you'll be the one
with the funny accent anyways.

If you have any other questions about certain practical aspects of this, feel free to ask. I took a whole class in
university covering the evolution of French and differences between different dialects.

I'll see if I can't find some good resources for you though.

DB
2 persons have voted this message useful



SlickAs
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Canada
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Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish
Studies: Thai, Vietnamese

 
 Message 14 of 35
18 December 2008 at 2:36am | IP Logged 
I learned French in order to communicate with the Quebecois and live in Quebec, without any initial interest in France.

First, the idea that "Quebec French" is somehow different to French is false. It is certainly not a different dialect. There is not a single gramatical difference. Not one. The difference is certainly no bigger than that between American English and British English ... Americans are going to take a few hours in Manchester to get their ears around the accent and different word usage. (And the Scottish film "Trainspotting" was shown in America with subtitles).

French newsreaders and Quebec newsreaders both speak in "proper French". Word choice can be a bit different, and the anglacisms different (French say "le week-end", Quebecois say "la fin de semaine" ... similar to how Americans say eggplant, and Brits aubergine) there will be websites that give these.

I managed employees who were French from France here in Australia whom we hired to deal with suppliers in Quebec ... within a couple of hours a new employee understands every single word down the telephone after making a couple of jokes about the accent to the existing French speakers working there (who are mostly like "Yeah, OK, we know, get over it").

Many people who learn French in schools and have their first experience with colloquial French in Quebec like to blame the Quebec accent rather than their bad French for the fact they can't understand ... but they would not understand the colloquial French spoken on the streets of working-class Paris either. I have heard them laugh at the Quebecois because they have never heard "oui" said as "ouais" before (like if you thought that "yes" was correct, but when you hear someone say "yeah", you find it funny because it is not in your student course).

My advice: learn international French from what ever package suits you best. If you want to get Quebec prononciation down before you go, rip the audio from the film Québec-Montréal, remove the spaces with Audacity, and listen to it over and over immitating it. You can use it as your own Assimil. You will learn all the "osti de tabernac" slang stuff. When you are surrounded by it, it is hard not to pick up the accent anyway, but you will have an anglophone accent for the foreseeable future anyway ... what you really need to be able to do is understand it when it is spoken, and the ripped audio from the film will help. It is good dialogue with all the meeting new people, getting to know them and general conversation stuff. A nice representative chunk of the language, that would probably edit down to 45 minutes once the title sequences, silences, action sequences, etc. are removed. You should be able to find the screen-play somewhere where you can read along, or at the very least be able to copy down the French subtitles for the hearing impaired on the DVD, and of course, the translation is there in the English subtitles that you can also copy down for parellel text with Audio a la Assimil.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

EDIT: I just remembered, there is a series of French language books that are made in Quebec, and you can buy there with a single cassette per level. Moi, Je Parle Francais, although I can not see the tape in this link. If you are in Montreal you can buy them at the school book store on the west side of St-Denis just above Mont-Royal. The accent is still very "international", much like the newsreaders, but it is made in Quebec. But I would not go this over an Assimil if that is more your style. These books give you a little dialogue, and then there are a bunch of fill-in-the-blanks grammar exercises. It might be worth picking one up to use in conjucntion with what ever else you are doing if you are obsessing about the "Made in Quebec" thing.

Edited by SlickAs on 18 December 2008 at 4:20pm

5 persons have voted this message useful



learninglover
Newbie
United States
Joined 6444 days ago

22 posts - 22 votes
Studies: English

 
 Message 15 of 35
18 December 2008 at 4:24pm | IP Logged 
multilingual wrote:
For starters I am a French Canadian attending a french-language university, so I think I can provide some
perspective on this.

Québec French and "French" French are mutually intelligible, unless people are speaking colloquially with an
unkept accent. There exists a French "dialect" in Québec called "joual", but at the end of the day, everybody
should speak standard French. Yes, some expressions are different on both sides of the Atlantic. Don't use
anything that might appear idiomatic, you probably won't be understood. There are also some words that are
considered literary on one side and quite common on the other. The occasional word for a given object or action
may be different (ex. while the British say "lift", Americans say "elevator").

Asking to learn Québec French (in my opinion anyways) is like asking to learn American spoken in the south of
the USA or Scottish English or Irish English. There's nothing wrong with these accents (not in my mind anyways),
but it would seem rather pointless.

French is an international language spoken in Canada, France, Belgium, Switzerland and Africa among others.
Anybody who speaks an "International French", a French without too many regional variants is better off.

Quebecers like the French very much (more than Anglo-Canadians) and deal with them frequently enough. If you
have a "French" accent you may even be perceived better.

Regardless, at the end of the day, unless you have been learning French for a very long time, you'll be the one
with the funny accent anyways.

If you have any other questions about certain practical aspects of this, feel free to ask. I took a whole class in
university covering the evolution of French and differences between different dialects.

I'll see if I can't find some good resources for you though.

DB


Thank you for the informative comments. It's very nice to hear from someone from the area.

Edited by learninglover on 18 December 2008 at 4:25pm

1 person has voted this message useful



multilingual
Bilingual Diglot
Newbie
Canada
Joined 5600 days ago

28 posts - 29 votes
Speaks: French*, English*
Studies: German
Studies: Russian, Portuguese

 
 Message 16 of 35
18 December 2008 at 4:41pm | IP Logged 
I am glad I could help. Bear in mind that I am not a Quebecois (probably allows me to notice oddities), although I
deal with them often (and the French for that matter). I am curious as to why the Québec accent and regionalisms
interest you? Is it simply because Québec is closer to you than France?


1 person has voted this message useful



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