DogsBody

Pourquoi est-ceci toujours ici ?
I mean REALLY.

Saddle Up

I don't need to read past this first post to know that this is about the dumbest most ignorant post ever at BF. Wow.

cyclezealot

If I lived in a bilingual country, a condition of High school graduation would be so many terms of the second language of the country.. Problem solved.

Gordon P

Canada is a multilingual country and the majority do speak more then one language. For some reasons Anglos have a problem learning French - myself included. When I went to school in Manitoba the second language taught was German reflecting the second largest linguist group in that province. I never heard French spoken publicly in Manitoba until I was an adult!

Luddite

^Wow! German? Really?

I was forced to learn Francais in Elementary school in BC, I think that's a federal requirement? I was terrible at it, still am. I was raised by an American mother so I barely ever *heard* French.

I have no issue with Quebecois speaking French. French is an official language of this country, it's part of our identity as Canadians, eh? However, it bugs the ever loving hell out of me when people from Quebec call my workplace and expect us to speak French with them, I'm in BC, they're lucky if any of us even speak English these days.

This rude ***** called the other day from QC, she spoke English quite well but insisted in conversing in French. I scrambled to find someone, I did but he didn't sell the products she wanted, that's a different department.

The person in the correct department only speaks English, she's from BC. Later, she told me the rude ***** told her she should learn French. :twitch:

I have a big problem with sanctimonious jerks no matter where they hail from. I also have major issue with Chinese people that live here calling in to my workplace and expecting us to speak Cantonese. This is Canada, not China. FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuu-.

One of my coworkers is Quebecois but he's the furthest thing from being sanctimonious or obnoxious he even makes fun of me if I use the occasional Portuguese Brazilian expression. My ex husband is Brazilian so I fala um pouco, just for fun.

Incidentally, I'm going to be learning Latin in college, I would have studied Portugese if I could but they don't offer it.

neil

Not a Federal requirement. Education is provincial jurisdiction. The only nationwide language requirement is in the Charter which says that education must be available in either official language if there's demand for it.
Having lived in Quebec, I've pretty much just learned to just ignore the language snobs. I do speak French, but not overly well, so I got plenty of flak. (The reality is that most Quebecois don't actually speak french...they speak a weird hybrid language with a funny accent. Don't tell them that, though...they're absolutely convinced that they speak the purest form of the language.)

German is actually fairly common throughout the Prairies. In my part of the world you can find miniority language communities of German, Ukrainian and French in pretty much equal balance. All are dying out, though - my in-laws live in a formerly French dominated town, where you'd now be hard pressed to find someone under the age of 50 who prefers French.

Quijibo187

that's odd, because Winnipeg has a very large French population.
heck, in St. Boniface the stop signs also say Arrete on them.

Gordon P

Manitoba's Francophone population is about 47,000 while 22% of the province is of German extraction. I grew up there a few decades ago and things have changes for the better for the Francophone community.