Living in a Fight Over Languages – Quebec

Quebec is a very complex place. Many Quebeckers think that there are two official languages, but the rest of Canada refuses to learn French. The English speakers in Quebec often think that French speakers totally trample on their linguistic rights. Signs must be in French. Hospitals must speak French. Kids must be schooled in French. The resentments go both ways and go on and on. Most of the time, as people deal with each other, these irritations are unspoken. But they are still there.

Day-to-day language was complicated. Quebec is full of immigrants, so a huge percentage of the population speak not only French and English but another language, as well. Then there is the schooling. Our kids were forced to be educated in French. I thought this would be a great opportunity. However, my oldest son had difficulty with foreign languages, and we had to send him to a private school so he could be educated in English. Then, because he had to take a French exam to pass high school, we had to send him to special tutoring. He worked hours and hours on his French but was never fluent. Somehow he passed the exam. My other son was in a school that taught gradual French immersion. That means that each year there was more French until in sixth grade the school was taught all in French. He hated being forced to speak it. Today neither one of my sons is fluent. My wife taught in English at McGill University and was very busy researching, teaching classes, and being involved with our family. She is bilingual in sign language, but never had time to really learn French. So she isn’t fluent either.

Still, many kids from English speaking families grow up bilingual in Montreal. I know several who speak French with little or no accent. It just depends on the family and the kids’ abilities with language.

Of course, one of the ironies is that wealthy francophones want their kids to learn English so they can more successfully navigate English North America. They send their children to private English schools. But the Quebec government forces poorer francophone families to educate their kids in French.

I spent hours and hours learning French in classes. My fluency in Spanish helped, but it was a long haul. The French are very picky about language, especially in writing. I practiced my French constantly at the banks where I worked. However, native French speakers wanted to practice their English and kept switching to English. Or bilingual speakers switched to English because it was more efficient. Sometimes I would have conversations at work that went on for ten minutes in which I would be speaking French and the francophone would be speaking English.

Then there were all the psychological reasons I or the other person chose one language or the other. When we were defensive we reverted to our native language. Sometimes we used our non-native language just to be courteous.

But I had an advantage. When I visited French-speaking companies I apologized for my French and said that I was American and learning the language. The French-speaking business person immediately gave me more leeway than they would have given someone born in Ontario.

I remember the banking meetings we would have when one of the seniors executives would fly in from Toronto. There would be twenty or more French speakers and the entire meeting would be in English. That always seemed unfair to me.

One of my favorite stories was when I went to a coffee house and two women baristas were conversing in English about how awful the men in their lives were. I ordered in French. They made my order and immediately switched their conversation to Greek. They’d recognized my English accent and switched to a language I couldn’t understand.