Trying to understand Québécois French

[mmcirvin]

Québécois French is frustrating Maciej Ceglowski. I can sympathize, though intellectually I realize that it's not the language's fault.

For reasons of geography, I've spent far more time in Québec than in any other place whose primary language is not English. So my school training in French actually comes in handy... except that, like Maciej, I learned the wrong version of the language, and Québécois is still frequently baffling to me. It's sort of like the difference between, say, Scottish and Texan English. As a non-native speaker, it's been a little harder for me to "get accustomed" than it probably is for native French speakers.

I remember one time I was at the Montréal jazz festival and suddenly realized that there was one French-speaking group that I could mysteriously understand when they introduced themselves; it turned out that they were from Paris, and I think Tom Dignan, who is much more fluent than I am, overheard some people in the crowd making fun of their crazy accents. (Of course, when I was actually in Paris I didn't have much more success, because the people there talk at like a thousand words a minute and use lots of abbreviations, verlan and other slang. I have the most luck with people who are trying to speak very clearly, such as broadcast announcers and people introducing bands.)

Some consonants and vowels in Québécois sound to me more like the way they do in American or Canadian English than the way I was taught they were supposed to sound in French. So sometimes I end up doing this mental flip in which I imagine an English speaker reading words out loud, and that clears up some difficulties. (Native speakers of the language would probably be insulted to read that, so I stress that I'm not claiming they're pronouncing their own language incorrectly or in an Anglicized manner. It's just what I hear in my own head. And it probably has as much to do with English's borrowings from old Norman French as with anything else.)

...And, yeah, dépanneur completely threw me the first twenty times, too.

Comments

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

This is true. My parents are both fluent in French and have taught it in college and stuff, as well as French Lit. They themselves have trouble understanding various non-Parisian versions (even a few miles outside of Paris, people can speak quite differently).

My mother used to help out the poor tourists in Paris when she was there on a fullbright. The tourist would be standing there trying to figure out what the hell the taxi driver had said to them, but for some reason my mother was able to understand the very quick speech of the taxi driver.

Her analogy for this is New York English versus the very slooow version of English spoken in the Midwest. A brand new immigrant on the docks in New York (this was in primarly boat-travel, not much plane travel times, early 1950's) asked my mother to 'what language is that man (the porter) speaking?" Because 'jwantmettakeyerbagsdownfrya' (Did you want me to take your bags down for you) didn't sound like English at all.

Whereas, when speaking to a typical Midwesterner, an New Englander may sometimes wonder whether the Midwesterner is stupid and thinks slowly, or just speaks slowly. Heh.

Another example is Chinese, of course. A Beijing resident will tend to add a ton of 'r' sounds to the end of a lot of words, and will ellide things that a non-Beijing person would never ellide (e.g. 'xiao har' instead of 'xiao hai zi' for 'small child'). Even in a village five miles outside of Beijing, people speak vastly differently. And the Shanghai folks often drop a lot of tone subtleties, and shout a lot in fourth tone.

[tomscud.livejournal.com]

I am pretty good these days at understanding Lebanese arabic, but the new boss is an Egyptian, and I am back basically to square one when he wants to talk to me in Arabic. Which is unfortunate, because his English leaves something to be desired.

[happytootum.livejournal.com]

Hehe..got here through a comment you made on someone else's journal..jarai I think.

I lived in Montreal my entire life until almost 3 years ago, when I moved here to Southeastern Wisconsin to get married and have kidlets. I followed the links in your post and had a nice little taste of home. I still miss French sometimes although I'm an anglo. The french they teach in schools (compulsory from kindergarten right on up through highschool) has almost nothing to do with what you hear in everyday life. It's silly really. They really should teach some Quebecois in school. Sure it's slang and mangled and full of local flavour..but I know from personal experience that the french they teach you in school does little to prepare you for actually holding conversations with francophones in Quebec. I would much rather have learned some slang etc. than what we did do..which was mostly read French literature (ok ..I was in advanced French..heh) and stuff that had nothing to do with Quebec.
Ok. I'm babbling. Thanks for the taste of home. Now if only you could transmit Montreal bagels and Chalet Bar-b-q chicken through your posts, I'd be completely happy ;)

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The problem with teaching slang is that it mutates; by the time it ends up in classrooms it's out of date enough to be embarrassing. A large part of the point of slang is to identify people as part of an in-group, and a foreigner learning the language is out-group pretty much by definition. I learned a little bit of French slang in college, but it wasn't particularly applicable to real conversation in France. And, of course, it wasn't applicable to Quebec at all.

Another thing I learned is that, contrary to my expectations, most English-speaking Ontarians speak French very, very badly if at all.

[iayork.livejournal.com]

most English-speaking Ontarians speak French very, very badly if at all.

As an English-speaking Ontarian, I'd like to take exception to this, but I can't because I speak French very badly if at all.

My impression is that Ontarians somewhat yougner than me do quite a bit better. Not long after I went through compulsory French in public school, the curriculum was changed to put more emphasis on spoken, Quebecois french than on Parisian and written. My younger sisters all speak much better french than I do (one, who lives in Montreal, is a professional translator).

I think there is still much less necessity for an Ontarian to speak french, than for a Quebecois to speak English; and Quebecois generally speak much better English than Ontarians speak French. Though if the Quebecois think you're from Ontario, they may not speak English to you at all, because you are supposed to speak French, you see. Wear a US flag on your shirt, and the number of English-speaking Quebecers will double. (I remember going to Parc Frontenac a few years ago, and trying to puzzle out the directions I was getting from the park attendant, who spoke only French. Rolling her eyes, she came out to point on the map outside her booth, saw the US license plates on my car, and promptly gave me directions in perfect English.

[iayork.livejournal.com]

)

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Also, I'm working on the Viande Fumée Ray but it's not quite finished yet.

[mezdeathhead.livejournal.com]

thanks for writing that, that made me happy. i'm from the montreal area, and although i've lived in colorado for over half my life now, it's interesting to hear other people's take on the language and culture of the motherland.

my father is french, as is all of my relatives on his side of the family. i grew up almost bilingual (with the stress more english than french), but could never understand french from france. they really are two different languages.