French from France vs Quebec French (Canadian French)

TT   Mon Mar 01, 2010 11:59 pm GMT
How do French from Paris (France) compared to Quebec (Canada) French?

I would like to know from ONLY native French speakers. I heard some people saying they find French from Quebec quite different from French from Paris for example?
JeanPierre   Tue Mar 02, 2010 12:03 am GMT
The French language in Canada is spoken differently than the language spoken in France. Mainly due to two factors: 1. Location. & 2. Canadian French uses 'old' French words and phrases which are no longer used in modern French. And sometimes the difference between the two spoken French languages is horrific. Short story to make my point: One time I had a house guest who was a French Canadian. During his visit, another friend came by. This other guest was a Frenchman from Normandy. I introduced the two (in French). The Canadian and Frenchman shook hands and the Canadian started speaking French. After a 3 minute diatribe, The Frenchman interrupted the Canadian and said (in English), "please, if you don't mind, speak English". Of course, the Frenchman, by inflection indicated that speaking English would be a courtesy to me! But the French Canadian wasn't buying the story! He was insulted. Claimed that he spoke perfect French and that the Frenchman was probably uneducated, Blah, Blah, Blah. So you see, the differences between French Canadian & Classic French can be monumental.
TT   Tue Mar 02, 2010 12:11 am GMT
From a previous thread a read this:

I speak Québécois French but I can easily switch to a more standard European French. They will not understand me if I speak it with rural Quebeckers, but I will always understand them. Canadian French is a more archaic dialect of French and it has maintained many features which were lost in European French.


Is it true that French people from France struggle understanding Qubec French and vice versa?
kelly   Tue Mar 02, 2010 12:26 am GMT
Continental French have trouble understanding Canadian French sitcoms/soap operas just like Brazilians have trouble understanding Continental Portuguese sitcoms and soap operas.
WOLFFBEATDOWN!   Tue Mar 02, 2010 12:44 am GMT
Quebecois struggle understanding the spelling of their own nationalistic words. It should be QubecOIS not QubecKERS. Why the hell are you pea-brain Francophone imperialists using the English ending -kers rather than your -ois thingy? You smelly onion-breath primitives.
Terrible Province   Tue Mar 02, 2010 4:46 pm GMT
terribelle province
rep   Tue Mar 02, 2010 6:21 pm GMT
Perhaps differences between Quebecker French and European French are like differences between Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese?
..   Wed Mar 03, 2010 12:41 am GMT
The difference between Qubec French and French from France is futher away than Brazilian Portuguese and Portuguese.
PARISIEN   Wed Mar 03, 2010 1:50 am GMT
<< Perhaps differences between Quebecker French and European French are like differences between Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese? >>

-- No.

. Quebec French and European French do not differ in any way as far as the writen language is concerned.

. In normal slightly formal speech (e.g. TV news) only the accent makes a difference.

. In more colloquial speech some differences appear but do not impair intelligibility (just like the distance between Paris and Marseilles French ; it just takes some time to adjust).

. On the other hand Montreal urban slang is tremendously creative, with an ever changing inventory of absolutely obscure words that challenge understanding! Here, subtitles are needed.


<< One time I had a house guest who was a French Canadian. During his visit, another friend came by. This other guest was a Frenchman from Normandy. I introduced the two (in French). The Canadian and Frenchman shook hands and the Canadian started speaking French. After a 3 minute diatribe, The Frenchman interrupted the Canadian and said (in English), "please, if you don't mind, speak English". >>

-- And you want me to buy that utter bullshit????
Visitor   Wed Mar 03, 2010 2:06 am GMT
The difference between British, American, and Australian Englishes parallels the differences between Castilian Spanish and Hispanic American Spanish and the differences between Hispanic American Spanishes. They are wider than the differences between Metropolitan French and Canadian French therefore present difficulties in communicating using their respective speeches.
|@|   Wed Mar 03, 2010 3:44 am GMT
American, British, and Australian have a hard time understanding each others' TV sitcoms therefore they have to be dubbed to be understood by the locals.
Original Name   Wed Mar 03, 2010 3:46 am GMT
In the UK I've never seen an American nor an Australian sitcom dubbed and I've never had any trouble understanding either.
|@|   Wed Mar 03, 2010 11:06 am GMT
Thanks to modern means of communication, the differences between Metropolitan French and Canadian French is narrowing.

Despite the modern means of communication, the differences between American, Aussie, and British Englishes keep on widening that there will come a time that the relationship between the three will be quite the same as that between Dutch and Afrikaans.
Baldewin   Wed Mar 03, 2010 10:03 pm GMT
Their languages differ so much, they use Korean for communication.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaJNDFi8AAE

But seriously now, listen to this woman!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lB-AX8_lSA

Sounds a lot like French with a Portuguese accent, but it's not that different if they don't speak dialect/slang. I guess younger people hardly speak their patois so it's probably only the slang these days that's very different.
..   Wed Mar 03, 2010 11:38 pm GMT
Wikipedia:

Mutual intelligibility of Quebec French with Metropolitan French is a matter of heated debates among linguists. If a comparison can be made, the differences between both dialects are probably larger than those between standard American and standard British English, and those between Mexican Spanish and European Spanish. It is also comparable to the distance between Croatian and Serbian, or spoken Norwegian and Swedish, or Czech and Slovak. Francophone Canadians abroad have to modify their accent somewhat in order to be easily understood.



Grammatical differences between informal spoken Quebec French and the formal language abound. Some of these, such as omission of the negative particle ne, are present in the informal language of speakers of standard European French, while other features, such as use of the interrogative particle -tu, are either peculiar to Quebec or Canadian French or restricted to nonstandard varieties of European French.



The differences in the two French dialects are as huge as the distance between France and Quebec. The language construction, vocabulary and pronunciation are all starkly different. Quebec French is generally categorized under Canadian French, which includes other French dialects used in Canada. The Canadian French dialect is older than the current France French dialect, as it grew only gradually in popularity outside of France, and it was more in isolation as it was surrounded by the predominant American English.



FF: le weekend
QF: la fin de semaine

FF: Je t’en prie
QF: bienvenue