Perhaps you should stay there if you enjoy it so much.

Hey Antoine, il n’est pas nécessaire à séparer d’être plus proche! C’est vrai que nous canadiens anglais ne parlons pas très bien ta langue, si belle, mais si l’on l’étudie on fait une belle découverte! Ta langue est merveilleuse!

Hey! Racine, Molière, Corneille, Voltaire, Diderot Beaumarchais, Rousseau, Zola, Balzac, Sartre et bien sûr les auteur-e-s Québecois-e-s et franco-canadien(nes) aussi! la Révolution française n’était pas pour rien! Mais on voudrais éviter la Terreur, c’est certain!

Of course I understand your English, Antoine! What’s not to like? – You are clear, and minor grammar is hardly of great import — communication is all that’s important! It seems that les Québecois pour la plupart parlent assez bien l’anglais — but its true that the rest of the country is not functionally bilingual — we in other parts of Canada, only got core French from Grade 9 in my day, although my kids all became bilingual, starting around age 3 or 5 for le français and they laughed themselves silly when I tried to say anything French! Now they are grown and I’m back at school in Guelph trying to improve the other official language of my country, the one that that is your langue maternelle. I went also to Chicoutimi for a month and had a wonderful time, also in Québec City and other areas and I will come back many times to all areas and speak only in French and you guys will have to listen and laugh at me! I know your history and I realise you had 151 years as a frontier culture with many acheivements followed by about 200 really bad years with British and then anglo-canadien rule. But this is a different and wonderful Québec the last 50-60 years, and a different Canada as well. Lets celebrate both our languages! I have no opinion about whether teaching history in English in Québec schools is
a good idea. Maybe it should be taught in French in Ontario. In general kids should have the opportunity to have 5 month exchanges and live in homes where no English will be used. This is what English Canada needs for our kids. In Québec probably getting to Montréal is good for those who want to get the second language, but best of course to live with a famiy here in Ontario.

Why is Canada not like the USA? Because we have two founding cultures and languages (and others also, but not founding ones.) French is part of the Canadian psyche, whether we know it that well or not, we know that Québec has made us more diverse, more liberal more tolerant and made us a better (binational) nation.

As for Stephen Harpur he can go to hell! What a bully and control freak! Hopefully he is going down, and hopefully for good. Plus his French sounds terrible to my ear! I guess he tried that way, but the main thing is he has a mean streak. You guys don’t like Dion, I suppose, but I think he a way better person that Harpur. Anglos may complain his English isn’t perfect but so what — his heart is in the right place, and his mind is clear. Lots of people here do like him, not so much in the West where they are somewhat “redneck” — not all but a bunch of bitching complainers to a degree. Still there are French language communities out there on the prairies, they don’t get the chance very much in the west to experience Québec and when they do — usually they love it.

As for me, when I am in Québec je refuse de parler anglais. Il est vrai que des gens me répondent en anglais, mais je continue en français et on adapte gracieusement avec bonne humeur.

Bonne chance à tous de vous canadiens qui sont arrivées à partir de 1608, et bonne 400e anniversaire!

What has always made the Japanese economy strong has been its single-minded pursuit of international education and the view that Japan as a nation deserves to have the very best of everything the world offers. The Meiji Emperor in the 19th century, intentionally sent the brightest students overseas in the hope of industrializing and modernizing Japan from within. Japanese as a nation always express a sense of admiration and a willingness to adopt things foreign, but have also found a way of taking the best from abroad and Japan-izing it for domestic use.

If you make the very best stuff for yourself, the rest of the world will want it too. Japanese don’t worry that they’ve become too Americanized. They meticulously preserve certain aspects of traditional culture, but for the most part the more international the better…

I have always found it amusing in Montreal that when walking down the street one hears many people chatting in English, but (at least in the East) as soon as they enter a shop or restaurant and engage in business it switches to French. Thus in Montreal, at least, Engilsh is a major language of socializing and personal interactions and French is the major language of business. This seems entirely backwards from how the outside would might imagine it should be. Isn’t English the international language of business. Shouldn’t French be the favoured language for intimate discourse and socializing?

What I describe does not apply to everyone, of course, but I think for a large segment of the urban population it is true. At least in part this is because outsiders (other than Quebecers or Frenchmen) often fare worse in French than Montrealais do in Engilsh.

So, curiously the situation you advocate for schools already exists spontaneously on the streets of Montreal.
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As for Bill 101 harming anglophones, I think it clearly does. But I suppose that is just too bad. Deal with it! Most laws both protect us and restrict us at the same time. The irony of democracy is that the minority must always sacrifice for the benefit of the majority. 101 is linguistic protectionism and in the long run it hurts the majority too, just like economic protectionism. It is appealing to try to preserve local industry and jobs, but it makes business lazy and unable to compete internationally. We need a way to keep francophone society from getting complacent under bill 101 if we want to avoid falling victim to protectionism.

I’ve just returned from Japan. Not too many fluent English or French speakers but quite a few Japanese actually could understand basic English.

The Japanese have quite a good education system. Their top students often learn two or three other languages. There’s quite a few who speak excellent French. Some are right here in Montreal. They also speak excellent English.

As for the Phillipines. I think one needs to look at the fact that it’s a collection of languages and islands. Many just speak Tagalog, the predominant language, a mix of native, Spanish and English. The other dialects also have similar structure.

The Phillipines suffer from the imposition of both Spanish and U.S. colonialism with the consequent lack of development of an independent culture.

Can’t say that about the Japanese.

Thanks for the perspective. I never thought of the material difficulties, or of the lack of qualified teachers. That has to be adressed.

AQ

All the bilingualism you talk about is a RESULT of Bill 101. It did not exist before. And where did you get that Francophones did not want to learn English? There are 4 times more bilingual people and seven times more trilingual people in Québec than in the rest of North America. Québec has some problems. multilinguism is not one of them.

A lot of emotions, clichés, exageration and vicious parallels with nazis…the usual comptention.

But, again:

Tell me exactly how, as an anglgophone in Quebec, bill 101 hurts you.

Real facts please. #1,#2,#3 etc.

So we could discuss them rationaly.