I went with a canadian friend to Quebec and thought "boy is his french bad" when he ordered a room. Much to my surprise the answer wad in exactly the same dialect. Loved it and ruined in the local radio stations for the whole drive after.
Still have a certain song in my ear that we heard live in a bar in Quebec "Quand je change ma vie, je rue la Gaspesie...". Which is what we did after Quebec... If you asked in French, the local people immediately switched to English and were extremely nice and helpful.
Do not let them fool you. If they recognize you as a tourist they will happily switch to English, however broken theirs may be, however much trouble they might have speaking it.
If they recognize you as a 'local' (i.e. immigrant) and you don't speak French you will get into trouble in most places in Quebec. Even in Montreal though not everywhere in Montreal. If you aren't aware, Google about the referendum and the "OQLF" and their practices for example. It's very telling that even the Bank of Montreal moved their headquarters to Toronto back then.
When I lived in a dorm in Montreal, a pizza delivery guy passed by and asked my neighbor for directions to a room, in English. He replied that he doesn't know. Obviously he does, so after helping the guy I asked my neighbor why he'd say that. He said essentially if the guy lives here and can't speak basic French he doesn't deserve an answer.
Most people aren't like that, but there are assholes out there...
I had to let someone go at a company we had just acquired in Montreal a while ago. The guy was underperforming and had a huge attitude problem. One of the frequent arguments he had with everyone was that he insisted he didn’t need to learn French to live in Montreal and was somehow hostile to the language.
Despite being born and raised in America and having lived the last 20+ years in the Bay I somehow spoke more French than him. But I honestly questioned why he immigrated there in the first place when there’s 50 states and 9 other provinces he could go to and live exclusively in English? I get he probably couldn’t pass the higher bar for US immigration but that still leaves 2/3rd of Canada to go to.
This is a guess but Quebec and even Montreal are quite unique in North America. There's influence from both North America but also Europe. It may sound cliche but it is true. E.g. try to ignore or cut through the language politics of various parties and it will be hard to find equivalents in many other places in NA. Maybe some of that is something that spoke to him and made him go there. If he went to Montreal specifically it is even true what he said: He didn't have to learn French to be able to live and survive in Montreal, depending on the area he lived in and frequented.
Side note: apparently there are "agencies" in some countries that let you pick an equivalent city in their own country as a "benchmark" for the kind of lifestyle you'd like to have and they tell you which North American city to immigrate to and how to do that (i.e. how to meet the legal requirements, paperwork etc.). Maybe he used one of those services.
> Maybe some of that is something that spoke to him and made him go there. If he went to Montreal specifically it is even true what he said: He didn't have to learn French to be able to live and survive in Montreal, depending on the area he lived in and frequented.
Maybe. He seemed to really want to come to the US but the performance and behavioral issues made it a big no. I don’t think he would have passed the stricter requirements anyways.
One of the things he ranted about was how his kids attended public school in French. I mean, here in California public schools operate in English because it’s what the people speak. In Quebec it’s logical they would operate in French in a French province.
So by law you may not be able to send your kids to English school even though there's one down the road, which I guess can be a bit surprising. Not sure if that was the case for that person though, or if they were just complaining about lack of English schools in general...
From the previous answers it seems like he was an immigrant to Canada. As such he would not be eligible to send his kids to public English school in Quebec. All immigrants have to send their kids to French public school. That changes only if you pay for private school in which case you are free to choose the language even as an immigrant. Quebec has been trying to limit access to English schools even for Quebecers as many Francophones are sending their kids to English schools.
Still have a certain song in my ear that we heard live in a bar in Quebec "Quand je change ma vie, je rue la Gaspesie...". Which is what we did after Quebec... If you asked in French, the local people immediately switched to English and were extremely nice and helpful.