ANSWERS: 11
  • Because people are bloody rude, I hate that. Maybe they learnt Spanish at school instead, who knows.
  • Last I looked, Canada had 2 official languages....which means I am perfectly within my rights to speak in either of these languages. And....if and when I come to Quebec and I make efforts to speak in French, I quickly revert to English because I get ridiculed for my accent. Speaking of rude. Really...this subject is so passe' !
  • Why do French people especially French Canadians think they can just come down to the states and speak French everywhere? Don't they realize how rude and annoying that is? Don't they learn English in school anyways like they should? . It works both ways buddy.
  • Well not everyone learns to speak French, and in English schools, the French courses, from what I've seen are rather minimal, certainly not enough to fluently speak the language. Also as already mentioned, any decent effort on behalf of an English speaker to attempt and speak French in Québec is often mocked and ridiculed. Hell I speak French, but because it has an accent from France I get ridiculed and laughed at, so I can easily understand why some folks wouldn't bother to show much respect in the face of said stuck up behaviour. I mean Québéquois use slang and Englishized French, and I get laughed at for using proper words and sentence structure? What the hell? It's not a one way thing, they have to show respect too, and from what I can see in living here, Québec seems to believe itself the center of the universe. Besides, half of Montréal is English speaking, I don't see that there should be such a problem anyways.
  • Because English is their native language and Canada is their native country. Why are you trying to divide the country in two? That is just petty.
  • Tons of English-speaking people -- especially from the U.S. -- don't know how to speak French. If you want them to experience the good and beautiful things about Quebec, then be a gracious host and help them out if they can't speak French. It's better to leave them with good memories of your home than to "teach them a lesson."
  • Welcome to the world buddy. It's called a language barrier...Should we just teach everyone every single language just in case they plan to travel to every country? We speak English because that's what we learned to speak growing up, just like you learned to speak french. We take a few courses to get the basics down and carry a translation dictionary around, but I'm not gonna go through a full fledged course for french just to visit it, maybe if I was going to live there, but it's not rude to not know how to speak another ones language just because it's not to your liking or meeting your standards. I'm sure you would butcher Japanese even if you thought you were making an effort to speak it on a vacation there. Tchao.
  • I am afraid that a lot of French Canadians are not very patient with visitors. Even if you speak European french they look down their noses. It is not very good for the tourist industry. I think it is something to do with the French psyche because although I am a French speaker in France the people in some areas can be very unwelcoming and ungracious to visitors. Of course a lot of French people are very welcoming and friendly.
  • These people are visiting Quebec and helping to support your economy by buying things and attending shows, etc. and while you might think that they are rude for not speaking French, they may think you are not a very welcoming people for not being more grateful to them for helping to keep your economy thriving. Anyway, many schools offer languages other than French and not everyone is going to remember much beyond a poorly pronounced version of "bonjour" after a few years of disuse. There are very many tourists that come to my area and barely speak any English at all and that's fine -- most other people don't care either. When we start caring is when they act inconsiderately (by littering, etc.) but they really do help our economy so much that we are grateful for having them as customers. Another thing to consider is that different places have different customs. Where I come from, it isn't rude to not speak English -- you can speak Spanish or Italian...Russian, Yiddish, etc. and it is NO BIG DEAL...really, nobody really thinks anything of it. Many people may not understand that you think it's rude not to speak French. So before you consider your tourists rude, you might want to consider what kind of hosts your people are being to them. From personal experience, I can tell you that when I visited Quebec (to study French), some people were very nice to me when I spoke English and others were just downright cruel. I was taking an immersion program in Quebec and the whole point was to learn French when I got there. Well, had I known that many people would be so mean to me for not knowing French (which was the whole point of the trip), I honestly would have taken Spanish instead and went to study in Mexico or Spain instead of Quebec.
  • As a united states person who's constantly flabbergasted at how rude and offensive people are on the subject of people speaking spanish, seeing all these civil "cut them a break, jeez" answers is kindof head-trippy.
  • It really bothers me when people from Québec try to say were rude for speaking English. Thats my language..do you have a problem with that? I think its rude of them to expect us to speak French. Eventhough I do know a little French I would much rather speak my first language when talking to my friends and family...wherever we are, and whenever were there! Nothing against French, but if I can avoid making myself look dumb by trying to speak in a language that I dont fully understand, then I will. If I could fluently speak French than it wouldnt be as much of an issue. But unfortunatly, after being out of school for so long and not coming into contact with any French at all, other than on cereal boxes and road signs, I have forgotten most of what I learned from all those classes that I took in school, not that they taught us very much to begin with. I do realise that it must be annoying to a point. Here in Winnipeg, people try to speak Chinese to me almost everyday lol Needless to say, I never understand a word of it. But I only find it irritating because I dont know what they are trying to tell me, not because of the language that they speak.

Copyright 2023, Wired Ivy, LLC

Answerbag | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy