# Canadians: Do you speak French?



## ohgodits2014 (Mar 18, 2011)

.


----------



## Awkto Awktavious (May 11, 2011)

Took french up until grade 10, but forgot almost all of it. 
Lousy memory.

Edit: Native-born; No


----------



## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

Natively born Canadian, I know a small bit of French. Not enough to have a conversation though.


----------



## Brasilia (Aug 23, 2012)

The real question is Mr. Speaker, can French Canadians speak English?


----------



## KYJE (Aug 11, 2012)

Born and raised here in Canada. Don't speak French, but I wish I did.


----------



## Diacetylmorphine (Mar 9, 2011)

Is it mandatory to learn French in Canada?


----------



## kilgoretrout (Jul 20, 2011)

Non. Je ne parle pas français.


----------



## Neutrino (Apr 11, 2011)

Yepppppp


----------



## straightarrows (Jun 18, 2010)

all what I know they r sooooooooo rude! imaging they r above others!.. and trust me they make the world worst TV series! esp sitcoms!


----------



## Octal (Aug 2, 2011)

straightarrows said:


> all what I know they r sooooooooo rude! imaging they r above others!.. and trust me they make the world worst TV series! esp sitcoms!


Lolwut. All of them are rude? nice generalisation.


----------



## Perfectionist (Mar 19, 2004)

Native born citizen, and yes.

I'm not super fluent - I call my self "functional" in French in my resume. Taken lots of univ classes and gotten a certificate in French, but I don't speak it at all in my daily life. I wish I did. It's such a beautiful language.


----------



## Canucklehead (Aug 28, 2012)

Yes, but not for the reason you would assume.


----------



## Canadian Brotha (Jan 23, 2009)

I couldn't hold a conversation at all. I know some basic phrases & a series of words that jump out at me when I hear them but that I can do nothing with


----------



## straightarrows (Jun 18, 2010)

Octal said:


> Lolwut. All of them are rude? nice generalisation.


that what our students say! I don't know, but they always advisee others not to go to french parts of Canada (there r like 16000 students vs. more than 50000 in the U.S.)


----------



## Monotony (Mar 11, 2012)

Brasilia said:


> The real question is Mr. Speaker, can French Canadians speak English?


Nope they cant read it either apparently since there's almost no bilingual signs in Quebec so they can take the damn French off the signs in Ontario.


----------



## Marakunda (Jun 7, 2011)

French class was one of the worst things ever for me.... My French teacher was a complete ***** who freaked over every little thing. I took French from 4th grade til 7th grade, but learned literally nothing from it. No, I don't know French.


----------



## Reclus (Jan 11, 2012)

17.5 % of Canadians can converse in both French and English, according to the 2011 census results (up from 17.4 % in the previous census).

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/10/24/census-language.html

I found that Canadian Anglos' ability to speak French improved the closer you got to Quebec. In Ottawa (which sits on the Ontario/Quebec provincial border) native English speakers spoke to me in proficient French merely because I happened to be buying a French newspaper, or because they spotted a French language museum brochure in my pocket. In stores in Montreal, I encountered native English speakers working behind counters who had no trouble handling detailed inquiries in French.

My impression generally was that French Canadians tend to speak English better than Anglo Canadians speak French.


----------



## Noca (Jun 24, 2005)

Born here and no I don't speak French.


----------



## GuyMontag (Dec 12, 2010)

I learned some in school, but I have forgotten it all. I only studied it for the mandatory grades.


----------



## fanatic203 (Jun 23, 2010)

I've taken so much French in my life, but no, I still don't speak it, even though I was a good student. You need to be in French immersion to actually learn to speak it or understand rapid conversations. I'm jealous of my friends who were in French immersion, because I've worked in Ottawa and may want to work there again, and it's so much better to be billingual there.


----------



## ACCV93 (Sep 6, 2012)

no i don't. but i wish i did. I effing love the french language


----------



## coldsorehighlighter (Jun 2, 2010)

I can read it better than I can speak it. And I can speak it better than I can understand it when spoken by someone else.


----------



## Watercoulour (Jul 24, 2011)

I do I do!

Although, I'm not really Canadian.... 

Ohwell.


----------



## the alley cat (May 17, 2012)

I was born and raised just outside of Montreal, and although I took a lot of French classes in school, I never seemed to have a grasp or an interest in it enough to be fluent in it. I know some french; I can talk to somebody in french but occasionally I would stumble to find the word and I can write in french but I need to use the dictionary sometimes and there's a lot of grammar mistakes. 

I grew up in a rural community where the languages between french and english amongest the population are split around 50-50, but most of the people I know and talk to are either predominately english speaking or completely bilingual. I live in the only part of the province (I think) where there are english stop signs instead of french ones.


----------



## BillDauterive (Oct 24, 2012)

Naturalized Canadian citizen and I never learned it. I lived in Toronto when I was quite young. When I lived in Saudi Arabia, I never learned a bit of Arabic either as I went to an American international school and was always surrounded by expatriates.


----------



## SnowSunRainClouds (Dec 3, 2012)

I know a little bit of French. A few phrases and sentences and words, but I wouldn't consider myself fluent. I couldn't have a proper conversation however. 

I took French from grade 4 until grade 8. I rather enjoyed learning the language in grades 4-6, but loathed it in 7 and 8. Partially because the teachers in junior high were really quite horrible, but also because my SA was getting really bad. 

I may take a French course now that I'm in university. After all I am considering working in Ontario once my education is over. We don't exactly use French much out west but I know it's more commonly used down east and would be considered more of an asset there. We shall see if I go through with it and take the course.

(Native-born citizen and no)


----------



## whattothink (Jun 2, 2005)

I can read French well, I can incorrectly write enough to communicate, but I can't speak it or comprehend it verbally. I've only taken up learning it about a year ago, though. I try to read at least one French news article every day.


----------



## cafune (Jan 11, 2011)

Native-born citizen; yes.

I took French until twelfth grade and I live in Quebec (the French-speaking part of Canada) during the school year, so my spoken French isn't too bad (still a work-in-progress).


----------



## Eraserhead (Sep 23, 2006)

It looks like I'm the only one in my category. :O

Naturalized citizen, fluent in French.


----------



## John316C (May 1, 2011)

no. i cant think a french teacher that didnt have a stick up their *** and a chip on their shoulder.
but i do like France and its culture.


----------



## vicente (Nov 10, 2003)

This poll should be for non-Quebeckers only.

I speak French but I learned it in France. If I never went to France my French would have continued to suck like everyone else outside of Quebec and Acadia.


----------



## bent (Aug 4, 2005)

I am outside of Quebec and speak French. Not native born.


----------



## MCHB (Jan 1, 2013)

Born and raised in Canada. I speak two languages, English and Bad English.

I failed french...hard...7% hard.


----------



## essixo (Feb 3, 2013)

Yes, I speak French... But I was not born here. I am naturalized.


----------



## hipolito (Sep 25, 2012)

KYJE said:


> Born and raised here in Canada. Don't speak French, but I wish I did.


hi =)


----------



## Iced (Feb 7, 2011)

Forgot most of it, c'est la vie


----------



## Lipizzan (May 31, 2013)

si


----------



## BillDauterive (Oct 24, 2012)

non


----------



## AlchemyFire (Mar 4, 2013)

No. But I picked up more French by spending three days in Montreal than I did by taking it for 6 years in school.


----------



## Scrub-Zero (Feb 9, 2004)

Born and raised in Quebec, so of course je parle en français every day. And English too


----------



## AmandaMarie87 (Apr 24, 2013)

Oui, un petit peu (Yes, a little bit).


----------



## Gamesizer (May 23, 2013)

Naturalized citizen here and I would say I speak French "functionally". It's not perfect and doesn't come that naturally but I can go to a store in Québec and buy something without speaking English (attending the Explore program also helped a lot with this).


----------



## Earl of Lemongrab (May 15, 2012)

I used to speak it relatively okay (could hold a conversation and understand the majority of things said to me in French) - I mean, I used to have conduct surveys over the phone in French and spoke to customers in French, but it isn't good nearly enough for where I'm living, and I've since stopped trying to learn because it will never be good enough for this city (I live in the capital, which is bilingual). This thread is odd to me because it seems like 50% of the anglophones where I live can actually speak French 100x better than me.


----------



## modernwarrior (Apr 15, 2013)

Born in Canada and speak french, not in Québec though but Ontario and no not Ottawa or eastern Ontario but northern Ontario pretty far from the Québec border, generations and generations of french have lived in my parts we are not Québécois but Franco Ontarians with our own flag and a culture similar to Quebec but with ojibwe, cree, and métis (mix native american and white "usually francophones") culture.


----------



## CrimsonTrigger (Jun 28, 2011)

Nope. School never did a good job at teaching it, so I never bothered to learn or remember anything. I'm pretty sure if I was motivated enough I could learn to speak it near fluently since I still remember some of the grammar rules, but right now it's not a concern of mine.


----------



## nothing else (Oct 27, 2013)

No


----------



## swisscheese (Feb 21, 2014)

Brasilia said:


> The real question is Mr. Speaker, can French Canadians speak English?


Anyone who has any dealings outside of quebec,yes.


----------



## enzo (May 30, 2011)

Pretty interested in the need to distinguish between native-born and naturalized. 

Naturalized citizen. Not fluent.


----------



## Steve French (Sep 17, 2012)

Born here in Canada, and no, can't speak it. Only was required to take it till the tenth grade, the classes were a joke, once a week and real simple. Hardly learned anything. Pretty sure none of my teachers could speak it actually.


----------

