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Comment by _yawn | Hacker News Reader

People in Quebec are actively hostile to other languages in general, mostly for historical reasons. Probably not the best place to get started haha

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It also doesn't help that French and Quebecois French are different dialects to the point of almost being different languages. We "offended" our entire office in Montreal when we rolled their telephony system into our headquarter's PBX and added localization for IVRs, Voicemail and whatnot using prompts recorded by a Parisian. I could understand the French French, the Quebecois was..., well, honestly about as different as street Spanish in Mexico and the Columbian Spanish I learned early in life.

Definitely. Some of the idioms are different and the language sounds come from the back of the throat vs. Parisian French. I had the same experience in terms of understanding and being understood.

French spoken in Quebec is the same French as in France, they use their idioms and slang at time with an accent but we can 100% understand each others. If you are not convinced you can find multiple interviews of Quebecois speakers done in France on youtube and see for yourself that it is without filters or subtitles. Here is an example for celine dion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x6ezHzWPDU

It goes the other way too. Most Parisians would rather speak English with a Québécois than listen to them “mangle” it.

> It also doesn't help that French and Quebecois French are different dialects to the point of almost being different languages.

No, just no, they aren't and I can speak both.

I don't know if you are a native speaker, but It's tiring to have your own language (or 'dialect') explained to you.

For what it's worth, France has dozens of regional dialects as well.

Not a native French speaker, no. Apologies if that one-sentence broad generalization was tiring to you - I meant neither to explain nor be exhaustive. ;)

Obviously they're not different languages - I was a bit exaggeratory in that regard. And I do understand both, in as much as I understand either. French is my third or fourth most proficient language after English, Spanish and maybe German, but I never get to use it (or German for that matter).

The two are however different enough in some pronunciation and idioms that we ultimately had to do a second localization to support both. And the differences reported to us ran the spectrum from simple things, such as how to correctly pronounce the (cardinal) number 1 (a cleaner "un" compared to what sounds to my ear like "arn"), to the longer phrases one might expect to hear in a voicemail prompt. Ultimately our translation department got things ironed out, but it was a (somewhat amusing/bemusing) learning experience for us.

It's ok.

I have another response in this thread about the origins of the Parisian accent (because it really is a new invention) compared to the Québec accent.

Also in Martinique, they speak with a less sing-songy accent than they do on the mainland.

I personally enjoy all the variations of my language, and especially appreciate the language that is 'of the people'.

I am a French speaking Québécois and do work with many French people (downtown Montreal). You can't deny that the French French and Québécois French uses a lot of different words. They are still the same language for sure, but we often have so much fun exchanging funny expressions.

A funny anecdote was when I was working with a guy name Jean-Nicolas and all the Québécois people called him Jean-Nic. That was very funny to the French guys hehe

I am Québécois and am in no way hostile to other languages. What we are protective of is that the official language is French, for historical reasons yes. Meaning, if I encounter an English speaking person, there is a big probability that I'll switch to English just because I'm not an asshole and want to be nice. But, I also don't want my whole culture to disappear and be assimilated to at the same time I do care that I can be served in French when I go out to the restaurant, etc.

If people made fun of OP's accent then they were dicks and I don't think the majority of people would do that. We do however switch to English quickly when we determine the other person is anglophone just because most people in Montreal are bilingual and hey, let's make it easier for everyone. If the other person asks me to continue in French, I'll gladly do so.

Many Quebecois are also of a 'more French than the French' mindset when it comes to language purity, if only out of a feeling of self-preservation.

And they speak French as it was spoken in the 1600s

Interesting, can you please elaborate more?

More like 18th century French.

There were two accents in common use in 18th century France: the 'bel usage' and the 'grand usage'.

The short explanation is that after the French revolution, Parisians adopted the 'grand usage'—a pronunciation which till then had been reserved for public speeches and church sermons—for everyday speech.

The 'bel usage' was the usual French 'code' reserved for every day use. It more closely resembles the French spoken in Quebec.

But the 'bel usage' wasn't just a plebeian accent for the unwashed masses, the King's court spoke in 'bel usage'.

But after the revolution, people wanted to change things up: hence the new pencil head pronunciation they use there, which everyone says is the 'correct' one. lol

In Québec, we retained the original 'bel usage' and never adopted the new accent from Paris. We are the keepers of the proper pronunciation of French, unless you want to give a sermon or make a political speech that is...

I don't see a problem with either accent, as long as you enunciate, you will be understood across the entire Francophonie. (Well to be honest, I do prefer my 'accent' from Québec, because I don't have to lug around a dictionary to make sure I pronounce very si-ng-le sy-la-ble cleanly and correctly.)

Source: http://legoutdufrancais.org/dou-vient-laccent-des-quebecois-...

Thanks!

Thanks for that

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