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Le français du Québec | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| HyeLezûn Bilingual Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6487 days ago 33 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English*, Armenian* Studies: French | Message 1 of 17 08 August 2006 at 3:37am | IP Logged |
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Hello everyone. I'm honostly curious about the French of Québec compared with the European varieties of French. I've heard that Francophones from Europe (in general) can't understand Québec French, and I've also heard that it's completely intelligible. Is it just that it depends on the person?
I ask namely because I am learning French and I'm curious but also because I've heard the French of Paris (I was there a short while back) and I've heard the French of Québec and for some reason the Québec french just sounds SO MUCH more cute and adorable. Thanks for any input. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6507 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 17 08 August 2006 at 4:32am | IP Logged |
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It is not a law that you should always learn the 'standard' dialect of a language. The Quebec French dialect is generally said to represent the state of the language in Ile-de-France before the French revolution, for instance in the pronunciation of the nasal vowels and of "oi", -which is probably the single most reason for it's'cute' sound. The dialect has developed on its own since the 1700s, but as far as I know mostly in it vocabulary, where it has accepted a fair number of English words and phrases. But the grammar basically is the same as in the 'Hexagone', and there is no reason that French speaking people should have difficulties with the Quebec variety. Those French speaking people that deny that they can understand it must have a very narrow conception of what French is.
Edited by Iversen on 10 August 2006 at 4:27am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6572 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 3 of 17 08 August 2006 at 5:29am | IP Logged |
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I'm Canadian and I've never seen any evidence of communication problems between European and Québec French. Sure, the accent's different, but even that will vary from place to place in Quebec and the rest of French Canada.
The broadcast standard for French in Canada is more or less international French, and Quebeckers watch TV and movies from France with no difficulty. Quebeckers are also, I'm told, quite supportive of visitors learning French, and most of them are monolingual, which means they'll do their best to use French you can understand instead of trying to communicate in English. Edited by Captain Haddock on 09 August 2006 at 9:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7122 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 17 08 August 2006 at 12:20pm | IP Logged |
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In my opinion, Quebec French can be incomprehensible to those in Europe, but only in certain circumstances, which apply in every language. Some Quebecers choose to speak a more "slang-y", more slurred, and more informal form of French among friends. However, the great majority of them are perfectly capable of speaking standard French. They are regularly exposed to standard French on the media such as television (almost all Quebec homes receive TV5, an international TV channel based in France).
Similarly, the French also speak their form of informal language which may be incomprehensible to Quebecers due to small differences. Generally speaking, in normal situations, the Quebec and French varieties of French are more or less the same, despite the difference in accent. There might be small differences like between American and British English, but those can be learned in an hour or so. If you're learning French, you don't need to worry at all about not being understood in France or in Quebec, whichever form of French accent you decide to learn. Your accent will just tell the person that you learned a "standard/international" versus a "Quebec" accent, but they will understand you quite well. I learned French at school with a more Canadian/Quebec standard accent, and later on, as I approached more French material, I picked up the French/neutral accent. But when I speak to Quebecers, I can switch back to the Quebec accent. So who says you can't learn both! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Thomaskim Groupie Joined 7073 days ago 84 posts - 85 votes | Message 5 of 17 08 August 2006 at 2:02pm | IP Logged |
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It could be interesting (for some) to notice that some French loanwords still used in Italian have disappared from everyday idiomatic Continental French, but can still be found in Canadian French. This is the case of 'cabaret' rather than 'plataeu', just to give you in example.
For those interested in Canadian French and Acadia, I'd recommend investing in the NTC's dictionary of Canadian French by Robinson & Smith 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Thomaskim Groupie Joined 7073 days ago 84 posts - 85 votes | Message 6 of 17 08 August 2006 at 2:04pm | IP Logged |
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I meant 'disappeared' of course
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| olps Newbie Canada Joined 6502 days ago 24 posts - 24 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Czech | Message 7 of 17 09 August 2006 at 3:27pm | IP Logged |
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As it's been touched upon by others, teh only real difference wouold be
pronunciation, and slang. So a person from Paris may find it a little confusing or strange talking to someone who is speaking joual (a sociolect) but otherwise it's very mutually intelligable. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Fred Diglot Newbie Canada regard-fred.blogspot Joined 6502 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 8 of 17 09 August 2006 at 7:07pm | IP Logged |
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I think, but I’m not sure, that I am the only member who is a Quebecker (In fact, I am half Quebecker and half German). So, I speak French with this exotic accent. Those are my inputs.
Is it difficult for others Francophone to understand a French-Canadian? Well, I think that the others members of the forum gave you good answers. I will just add a few things. There are not only one French-Canadian accent, but rather many French-Canadian accents like the “Acadien” accent, the “Saguenay” accent, the “Beauceron” accent, the “Gaspésien” accent and many more. Even others Canadian provinces have their own accents. Some of them are very hard to understand and others are easy. My mother spoke once with the “Gaspésian” accent, but she lost it when she moved in the Eastern Township (It is near Montreal). Now, she speaks with a standard Quebecker accent. The most interesting aspect of the Quebecker accent are his swearing words. Thrust me, we know how to swear. Most of them are religious swearing words. I won’t elaborate on this matter, but if you are really interesting, you should check on that. These days, I’m learning German full time. Even if in most of the time I practise in international German, I also try to learn a bit of Swiss-German with some Pimsleur tapes. I do that because I know that I will probably face several different accents in my live. My father speaks himself German with an accent from his birth town. If you want to be really fluent in a language, you need to be able to understand various accents. HyeLezûn, it is great that your curiosity makes you want to learn about all aspects of a language and specially the accent. If you have a question, feel free to ask me. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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