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Canada has two official languages(English and French), so it's a bilingual country de jure.
1. How is one's first language decided in Canada?
a) follow his or her parents' first language
b) the region he/she grew up
c) the school he/she went to
d) some other factors
2. In Quebec(where Francophones are dominant), are there any English-based public schools for Anglophones?
3. In other parts of Canada(where Anglophones are dominant), are there any French-based public schools for Francophones?
4. Do Francophones in Canada generally speak English well?
5. Do Anglophones in Canada generally speak French well?
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Wasn't this posted before?
1. Same as in any other country: people learn the language that surrounds them. Generally, that's French in Quebec and English elsewhere, but there are obviously exceptions.
2. Yes. If your parent went to an English school in Quebec, you're allowed to go to English school.
3. Yes. In Ontario, there are four main school board systems: English, English Catholic, French, and French Catholic. The English and English Catholic school boards also offer French Immersion programmes in which anglophone students are taught in French.
4. In Montreal and the Outaouais a lot of francophones speak English to some extent. Outside of those areas, not much.
5. No, not usually. Higher positions in the federal government require bilingualism, but other than that, French learning is fairly low west of Ontario. (Though there are individual school boards that emphasize it.)
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I've never posted the same thread, though I might have seen the similar question to #1.
Anyway, aren't Catholic schools private? I was asking for public schools(government-run schools).
Apparently, there are English public schools in Quebec and French public schools in Ontario considering Josh's answers. =)
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<<Anyway, aren't Catholic schools private? I was asking for public schools(government-run schools).
Apparently, there are English public schools in Quebec and French public schools in Ontario considering Josh's answers. =)>>
No, the Catholic schools are publicly funded (which is ridiculous, in my opinion). There may also be Catholic private schools, but that's not what I was talking about.
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I just wanted to say that you can learn a lot about the Canadian Psyche by watching 'South Park'.
So, what sort of name is 'Lalonde' anyway? That does not sound very Anglo-Saxon to me?
Cheerio
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What does the name "Lalonde" mean?
Our official family cyber-historian Eric Lalonde says:
Lalonde is a parish of the lower Seine of the Rouen arrondissement. "Londe" means forest, thus "de la Londe" means "of the forest." There is a Lalonde forest in France and, in fact, the Canadian Army regiments of Maisonneuve and Mont-Royal took part in a battle there as part of the liberation of France in late August and early September 1944. This area is not far from the town Rouen where Jean comes from.
Why Lalonde and LaLonde?
Eric explains:
"The spelling of the Lalonde name has been with only one capital L here in Quebec. It appears that the second capital L has been added in the US. I have only heard of Lalondes with two capital L's from the US. I guess if we searched the records in Michigan where the Lalondes first went to the US we might find where the change happened. It probably was some recording clerk who changed the spelling on a birth certificate and it continued from there."
http://web.uvic.ca/~lalonde/history/
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I found that site too. As you've probably figured out, it's a French-Canadian name. I wouldn't use South Park as a guide to the Canadian psyche, by the way. They don't really know what they're talking about.
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1. Josh, are you a Francophone then?
2. Do Canadians or Americans generally know their ancestry?
Most Asian Americans and Asian Canadians know where they are REALLY from.
Can European descendants identify their roots?
P.S. I'm sorry that my second question is not related to language.
If my question is not appropriate for this forum, can you suggest me any websites that I can ask such questions?
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1. Not natively. I started learning French in an immersion programme at age five.
2. I think most have a general idea, say "Scotland" or "Sweden", but a lot of people know with more detail too. There was huge immigration to Canada after WWII, so most of their descendants probably know pretty well where their parents or grandparents came from. A lot more are descendants of immigrants from the late 1800s to early 1900s, so that's close enough to track down fairly easily. Not many Canadians are descended from the original settlements, either French or British.
I'm not too worried about short discussions on non-language topics, it's just when the whole forum is hijacked by "my language is better than yours" threads that I intervene.
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