French Canadian !

[EagerBeaver]

The thread should not be stopped. The discussion has been mostly civil. If the Mods thought the thread was useless or going in circles they would have shut it down. This thread potentially could have gone in circles but new wrinkles in the debate have emerged. So it hasn't been completely circular. The Mods are usually quicker to shut down STD threads when people start a debate on health risks and we have a bunch of non-medical professionals posting seriocomical conclusions about health risks or lack thereof.

The language debate is emotional for some posters here, but it really isn't for me. I look at language debates more from the standpoint of logic and reason. One issue that has not been discussed enough in this thread, IMHO, is the talent issue. I believe that it's a talent to learn foreign languages and some people do not possess it. I certainly do not although my mother speaks 5 languages. It's ironic in my mind to compel people to learn a language (French) which is exceedingly difficult if not impossible to learn and master. To me this is a very underdiscussed issue. What is more logical is that if you are going to compel people to learn a language it should be an easy one, not a hard one. It's like making kids take calculus rather than algebra and geometry. It's not necessary if you are teaching kids that struggle with math.

 

[jalimon]

I agree with you EB. It's a very interesting thread that got diverted to cooking when thing gets too messy

The thing is you do not learn a language based on complexity. You learn because it's practical. For us French here it's a matter of survival for your career. That is why all school here should be fully bilingual. No more english or french only school.

My guess in the states it's better to learn Spannish as it's becoming one of the most important language (to the horror of many you would say...). Luckily Spannish is quite easy, especially for us French. But by far english is the easiest of all language.

Cheers,

 

[cloudsurf]

?!
Sorry to disappoint you, I don't have a previous handle.
I don't really get you STN. You take pride in your sense of humor and advanced sarcasm but you never seem to get mine.
I don't have any problems with you, do you have any with me??

I sent you a PM to make sure we were good but you never replied. Clearly, I must have done or said something that bothered you, but I don't know what.

I apologize in any case, that certainly wasn't my intention.

If I may speak for STN
BB I think you remind him of some of his favourite characters like Merlot and Bookert. Do you collect watches and wine?

 

[EagerBeaver]

I live in a community which has a large Hispanic population, many of my clients are Hispanic and fortunately I do have a functional knowledge of Spanish, which I studied in high school and middle school. It's easier than French. The verb conjugations make sense and are fairly easy to memorize. I had a middle school teacher who taught verb conjugations by singing: "soy, eres es! somos, sois, son!" I can still remember it to this day. When I was in Kindergarden we did have a teacher who sang Frere Jacques in French but I don't remember the words although I do remember the melody of the song. It was mentioned earlier in this thread that language instructors use music and song as a method of language instruction, but with French it still doesn't work well.

 

[EagerBeaver]

If I may speak for STN
BB I think you remind him of some of his favourite characters like Merlot and Bookert. Do you collect watches and wine?

I had thought BB was a prior poster as well but not Merlot or Booker. Merlot would have stirred some shit in this thread, as his urge to shit stir was enormous, but he would not have asked this thread to be shut down as it would have eliminated shit-stirring opportunities. A habitual shit stirrer needs his fix like the junkie needs his, and you never shut down a source.

As far as Booker, although his English is functional, it's not as crisp as BB's. I highly doubt Booker cleaned up his English that quickly even if he is taking many trips to Vancouver to supervise his real estate investments there.

 

[BigBrowser]

Do you collect watches and wine?

Neither! I am not someone you know or used to know.

he would not have asked this thread to be shut down

I never asked the thread to be shut down. I was merely pointing at the fact that no one is able to listen to the other party's argumentation anymore (or they simply pretend not to understand what has been pin pointed and focus on something different as an answer)

Debate all you want and for as long as you want, I don't mind.
As far as I'm concerned, I read very interesting posts from both parties here and I think I have understood a couple of things thanks to you all. Thank you! But it seems that you are now repeating yourselves. Maybe I'm wrong and I'm simply not able to see the relevance in newer posts. Don't mind me and keep on discussing, by all means.

If I may bounce on the level of difficulty to learn a language, do you mean that only easy ones should survive?
What do you think of Esperanto and the idea behind it?

 

[Titilleur]

I live in a community which has a large Hispanic population, many of my clients are Hispanic and fortunately I do have a functional knowledge of Spanish, which I studied in high school and middle school. It's easier than French. The verb conjugations make sense and are fairly easy to memorize. I had a middle school teacher who taught verb conjugations by singing: "soy, eres es! somos, sois, son!" I can still remember it to this day. When I was in Kindergarden we did have a teacher who sang Frere Jacques in French but I don't remember the words although I do remember the melody of the song. It was mentioned earlier in this thread that language instructors use music and song as a method of language instruction, but with French it still doesn't work well.

Il y a des raisons qui expliquent pourquoi le français est plus difficile à maitriser que l'anglais ou l'espagnol.. Une de celles-ci serait que le français une langue plus ancienne que l'espagnol et que l'anglais. Le français a subit plusieurs ajustement durant sa longue évolution. L'espagnol provient de la même souche linguistique (langues romanes ou latines) que le français. L'espagnol étant moins ancien, on peut presque dire qu'il est un français épuré.

L'anglais est aussi une langue jeune. Cette langue tire sa source de la souche germanique... L'allemand et l'anglais sont de même souche avec le danois et le néerlandais (entre autres). L'origine de l'allemand serait plus lointaine que celle de l'anglais... Donc, encore ici, on peut suggérer que l'anglais est une simplification de l'allemand.

Bien sûr, tout ça ne sert qu'à résumer grossièrement pourquoi le français est plus complexe que l'anglais ou l'espagnol... Mais l'évolution de ces langues en se résume pas nécessairement en quelques courts paragraphes.

De là à dire qu'on devrait se contenter d'apprendre une langue facile pour mieux vivre... Ça serait de la paresse intellectuelle. C'est en stimulant le cerveau qu'on le fait fonctionner à son plein potentiel.

Pour ceux que ça intéresse, voici une description des différents groupes de langues: http://www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca/monde/familles.htm. Vous y trouverez que 48% de la population de la planète parle une des quelques 200 langues indo-européennes (le français, l'espagnol et l'anglais font partie de ce groupe). Le mandarin ne fait pas partie de ce groupe, donc soyez sans crainte. Nous ne sommes pas près d'être obligés de se convertir à une langue chinoise...

 

[Cruiser777]

As far as I'm concerned, I read very interesting posts from both parties here and I think I have
understood a couple of things thanks to you all. Thank you! But it seems
that you are now repeating yourselves.

The discussions repeating mostly are about Quebec politics, language issues, no freedom of choice etc etc

Here on MERB the discussion is going on only for few weeks, but the real story is going on / repeating for the past
40 years or so...
We will separate, give us more, no we will not separate, English is illegal, OK only %50 is legal etc etc, so its the norm.

As you say maybe we should talk about other topics like, religion, excellent choice, because I can say my religion is good,
the rest not so good, need more headaches and wars, hatred and more killings, without religion we wouldn't have those, since the
world would have been a better place, who needs that, not that good...

Another useful topic could be, separation and borders (This could be heated one).

Since Quebec borders are protected only if they are part of Canada, upon Quebec separation, the Indians (2/3rd of Quebec)
will defiantly separate and rejoin Canada and how about Montreal ? (If referendum won), Montreal could be like Monte Carlo, Monaco, or another Hong Kong ??? Any thoughts ? Any Laval separatists (Wants to join us) ? LOL

Just ideas for some other topics OK ???
(Let me see if I can come up with more ideas before the alcohol level, effect decapitate from yesterday).

 

[EagerBeaver]

Since Quebec borders are protected only if they are part of Canada, upon Quebec separation, the Indians (2/3rd of Quebec)
will defiantly separate and rejoin Canada and how about Montreal ? (If referendum won), Montreal could be like Monte Carlo
or another Hong Kong ??? Any thoughts ? Any Laval separatists ? LOL

My question is if all these different layers of succession occur, will Griffintown secede from Montreal and declare itself an independent Canadian province eligible for federal tourist subsidies?

And would the official language of Griffintown be English so that new parking signs can be put up?

 

[Cruiser777]

will Griffintown secede from Montreal and declare itself an independent Canadian province eligible for federal tourist subsidies?

Griffintown??? Hummm

I don't think independent city of Montreal would tolerate such a thing.

Dew to Boul RB / Hwy 10 going right through the middle of Griffintown, the city will be divided to East and West, this will
cause tensions between the two sides and create headaches to the surrounding areas, IMHO, not a good idea.

 

[EagerBeaver]

But I stayed in Griffintown a few times and it's mostly condos, owned by foreigners and leased to tourists. I was thinking the independent city-state of Griffintown could possibly cut a new deal with AirBnB to waive taxes because of the AirBnB rentals per capita.

The new Griffintown flag could be an amalgam of Canadian, USA and Chinese flags. Or become a sister republic of Key West which seceded from the USA in 1982 and became the Conch Republic:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe....svg/1200px-Flag_of_Key_West,_Florida.svg.png

Instead of the Conch the symbol could be a Beaver, building a dam, to symbolize the new construction in Griffintown.

 

[Sol Tee Nutz]

Perhaps we can rephrase the question so no one will really know what we intend.

Nice jab at the last referendum question.

 

[EagerBeaver]

The referendum question for Griffintown residents should be:

Should Griffintown separate from the newly independent Montreal and become a new sovereign political and legal entity to be known as The Republic of Griffintown?

 

[BigBrowser]

And speak Catalan

 

[EagerBeaver]

Sam21,

I have to agree, you did a good job with softening up that Griffintown sovereignty question.

I think it would pass. I think ethnic ownership of condos in Griffintown is high. Money and ethnics win.

 

[CLOUD 500]

Stop constantly generalizing personal frustrations into interpretation of political phenomena, to the scale of a whole society.

Like I've mentioned in a previous post, all workplaces have been at involve French speakers systematically switching to English as soon as there's an English speaker in the room, even when it is known that this person understands English.

Yes you told me about workplaces switching languages. I guess you seem to selectively read. I did say that most French Canadians are open but there are still a few seperatist xenophobes who beleive it should be all French. We got some seperatist xenophobes on this board. BTW this is not a personal frustration. Anyone who has a language imposed on them will be frustrated. This is why there was a mass exodus of Anglophones and Allophones when Bill 101 came into effect including many businesses that moved their HQs to Ontario. The proof is in front of your eyes when Montreal went from being the leading top largest city in Canada in the 60's to loosing its status to Toronto. This is a bad bill and it is borderline unconstitutional.

I do not know what "jealousy" you're talking about in this maniacal paranoid interpretation of events that you have. I've never grown into such jealousy and have never observed it among family, friends, colleagues...

You want to see jealousy. I will show you examples of jealousy from Merbites. Behold... This is written by Hydargoos.

@Cloud 500

Le monde ne choisit pas l'anglais par CHOIX mais car les sociétés américaines le leur IMPOSE. Penses-tu qu'un boîte dont tout le monde parle telle langue est contente de se faire imposer l'anglais juste à cause de 2-3 personnes unilingue anglophones. Allons donc.

Dans votre tête, il y a juste l"anglais qui compte et vous pensez que tout le monde veut vivre en anglais, même les non-anglophones. Mais il y a bien du monde que ça les mets en cr... de se faire imposer l'anglais juste à cause d'une minorité de hauts dirigeants.

This guy is jealous because English naturally without enforcement laws or government intervention English is naturally dominant. So what? The people choose. And it is not anyones fault they do not speak French or are not interested in French. Many people are just not interested in French also. French is a very hard language to learn. But why is everyone watching American television and listening to American music? Seems too hypocritical. America does not have laws to enforce English on the world neither do they have a language police. Like it or not the world is dominated by American media so English is the chosen international language.

Your attitude is not better than the one displayed by these hardcore PQ anti-English narrow minds that you denounce so vehemently

My attitude is one of openness and freedom. I am saying is to let the people and business decide which language they want to use. It is not up to the government. Seems you are the one with the narrow mind.

But here are examples of seperatist xenophobes. Their favorite sentence is speak French or hit the 401. Well are two sentences written by Merbites. Behold

Ces parents ont le choix d'envoyer leurs enfants étudier en anglais ailleurs qu'au Québec...

and

Le Québec est une province francophone ET NON BILINGUE comme le Nouveau-Brunswick... Si le Canada était vraiment bilingue, les francos des provinces anglaises n'auraient pas à se battre pour étudier en français. ET les anglos n'auraient pas à faire la même chose au Québec. Les anglos du Québec sont bien mieux traités que les francos des autres provinces, tu sauras...

Here is another example

LE QUEBEC EST UNE PROVINCE FRANCAISE !! UN POINT CES TOUT !!!

And and if you don't like it here in Quebec because of the language or whatever... oh well you got 9 other provinces and 2 territories to choose from... As you guys love to say in english, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out... :/

Need I say more? Here you are saying that I am an extremist and have a closed mind? Loool In these examples that essentially said speak French or hit the 401. The PQs favorite slogan.

Gladly enough, the hardcores like you, on both sides, belong to a past generation and are slowly becoming extinct. Quebecers of my generation and beyond have no complex at all, embrace speaking multiple languages and have had the internet shape their globalist sensitivity. There is no place for "jealousy" with a mindset like this. There is simply no motive for it.

You could not be more wrong. We already got a few members on this board attempting to justify and sell lies to us it is about preservation when it was always about French DOMINATING all other languages. As I said many times most French Canadians are open. The separatist xenophobes are slowly diminishing but there still remains a significant amount. I repeat you got a selective memory. I am no hardcore. I am for the free choice of the citizens. They will choose. The government has no business choosing for them like in a dictatorship government. Do not attempt to try to distort what I wrote to your advantage. Find someone else naive enough to fall for that... I am not one them. Nice try though.

 

[dboone]

Yes you told me about workplaces switching languages. I guess you seem to selectively read. I did say that most French Canadians are open but there are still a few seperatist xenophobes who beleive it should be all French. We got some seperatist xenophobes on this board. BTW this is not a personal frustration. Anyone who has a language imposed on them will be frustrated. This is why there was a mass exodus of Anglophones and Allophones when Bill 101 came into effect including many businesses that moved their HQs to Ontario. The proof is in front of your eyes when Montreal went from being the leading top largest city in Canada in the 60's to loosing its status to Toronto. This is a bad bill and it is borderline unconstitutional.



You want to see jealousy. I will show you examples of jealousy from Merbites. Behold... This is written by Hydargoos.



This guy is jealous because English naturally without enforcement laws or government intervention English is naturally dominant. So what? The people choose. And it is not anyones fault they do not speak French or are not interested in French. Many people are just not interested in French also. French is a very hard language to learn. But why is everyone watching American television and listening to American music? Seems too hypocritical. America does not have laws to enforce English on the world neither do they have a language police. Like it or not the world is dominated by American media so English is the chosen international language.



My attitude is one of openness and freedom. I am saying is to let the people and business decide which language they want to use. It is not up to the government. Seems you are the one with the narrow mind.

But here are examples of seperatist xenophobes. Their favorite sentence is speak French or hit the 401. Well are two sentences written by Merbites. Behold



and



Here is another example



Need I say more? Here you are saying that I am an extremist and have a closed mind? Loool In these examples that essentially said speak French or hit the 401. The PQs favorite slogan.



You could not be more wrong. We already got a few members on this board attempting to justify and sell lies to us it is about preservation when it was always about French DOMINATING all other languages. As I said many times most French Canadians are open. The separatist xenophobes are slowly diminishing but there still remains a significant amount. I repeat you got a selective memory. I am no hardcore. I am for the free choice of the citizens. They will choose. The government has no business choosing for them like in a dictatorship government. Do not attempt to try to distort what I wrote to your advantage. Find someone else naive enough to fall for that... I am not one them. Nice try though.

Since by your own admission the majority of French Quebecers are open, why do you waste time inflating and distorting what the most extreme bring to the debate? Why do you torture yourself by exaggerating their influence and priming yourself up with that?

You're hurting yourself. Loosen up, your at the perfect place to shop for some relaxation...

 

[heliragedeleted]

Made that soup this we, wonderful flavour , very good! It is now in my repertoire

 

[Cruiser777]

Fromage FONDANT... I just "Love" these things.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/oqlf-quebec-anglicisms-1.4296376

 

[jalimon]

Made that soup this we, wonderful flavour , very good! It is now in my repertoire

Haha for all those who say WTF, got to go back to post 339

Cheers,