Which is why forced bilingualism is bullshit. In Canada there's maybe 10% of the physical country where you will regularly use both languages so expected people to be fluent in both means you're eliminating the overwhelming majority of eligible candidates.
Some friends told me about a story that happened about 20 years back. Their first language was English, but they'd lived in Quebec practically their entire lives. They'd been immersed in a majority French culture for nearly two decades and had been taking French lessons with actual French Quebecers at school throughout that time, so they could speak the language fluently with barely an accent or any spelling mistakes when writing. At some point when they were around 18, they went to visit some of their friends who lived in Toronto. They met them at their school, and were given a tour. When they were introduced to their French teacher, she was apparently ecstatic at the opportunity to speak to them, and tried to start a conversation. They told me that they had to really struggle to understand the slightest word that came out of her mouth. They were completely fluent in French, but they couldn't make out what the person in charge of teaching the language at that school in Toronto was saying.
Simply taking lessons and accumulating hours isn't enough. You need to have a proper teacher, or to use a proper teaching method. You need to actually want to learn the language, and to make efforts to go about it. You need to find opportunities to speak it more often in your regular life. It's only by immersing yourself in that culture or by spending time having conversations with fluent speakers that you can really get a good grasp of it.
So what? Why should it be my or anyone else's fucking responsibility to learn French to talk to a tiny minority of frogs who hate anglophones anyway? The difficulty of learning a language has no bearing whatsoever.
I'm surprised you don't know that English and French are both official languages of Canada and that for about a third of Canada's population French is their native tongue. Spanish on the other is not an official language of the US.
I didn't know that (for sure). But my point was that you can't criticize the English-speakers' response to the Spanish song while defending the French-speakers here. Both seem a valid defense of the national (or regional) language.
I agree that the superbowl thing was bad. It's the hypocrisy that annoys me. Every culture should be able to defend itself in its own country, not just English.
600 hrs of lessons isn't trying?
The video he did was subtitled in French, you frogs all illiterate or something?
If you don't actually speak the language you don't speak the language no matter how many lessons you supposedly took. Sounds strange but it is true.
Which is why forced bilingualism is bullshit. In Canada there's maybe 10% of the physical country where you will regularly use both languages so expected people to be fluent in both means you're eliminating the overwhelming majority of eligible candidates.
Some friends told me about a story that happened about 20 years back. Their first language was English, but they'd lived in Quebec practically their entire lives. They'd been immersed in a majority French culture for nearly two decades and had been taking French lessons with actual French Quebecers at school throughout that time, so they could speak the language fluently with barely an accent or any spelling mistakes when writing. At some point when they were around 18, they went to visit some of their friends who lived in Toronto. They met them at their school, and were given a tour. When they were introduced to their French teacher, she was apparently ecstatic at the opportunity to speak to them, and tried to start a conversation. They told me that they had to really struggle to understand the slightest word that came out of her mouth. They were completely fluent in French, but they couldn't make out what the person in charge of teaching the language at that school in Toronto was saying.
Simply taking lessons and accumulating hours isn't enough. You need to have a proper teacher, or to use a proper teaching method. You need to actually want to learn the language, and to make efforts to go about it. You need to find opportunities to speak it more often in your regular life. It's only by immersing yourself in that culture or by spending time having conversations with fluent speakers that you can really get a good grasp of it.
The French teacher may have also been speaking Parisian (aka real) French while in Quebec they speak Quebecois French which has some differences.
Learning a second language isn't exactly difficult.
It is if you want to be fluent. After 10 years old you start speaking with an accent, and after 18 grammar becomes an issue.
I talk to my parents regularly, and my extended family notice the difference between me and my brother who rarely calls.
So what? Why should it be my or anyone else's fucking responsibility to learn French to talk to a tiny minority of frogs who hate anglophones anyway? The difficulty of learning a language has no bearing whatsoever.
Ok, go learn Klingon then and stay fluent in it.
Trying in the same way the American school system is trying in inner cities, apparently.
As if you guys didn't throw a tantrum over the superbowl's spectacle that was Spanish only... Miss me with your BS.
So if that's a tantrum, why do you agree with this? Either all of it OK, or none of it is OK.
I'm surprised you don't know that English and French are both official languages of Canada and that for about a third of Canada's population French is their native tongue. Spanish on the other is not an official language of the US.
1/5th, not 1/3rd. And only 18% of Canadians are fluent in both languages.
I didn't know that (for sure). But my point was that you can't criticize the English-speakers' response to the Spanish song while defending the French-speakers here. Both seem a valid defense of the national (or regional) language.
I agree that the superbowl thing was bad. It's the hypocrisy that annoys me. Every culture should be able to defend itself in its own country, not just English.