hiya folks,
can anyone tell me if there’s a significant difference between Québec French and the French spoken in France? Are they as similar as Australian English is to British English or more divergent?
thanks,
mog
The accent’s very different, and there are many words used in Quebec that aren’t used elsewhere. It’s the difference between proper, Queen’s English and a midwestern drawl.
They’re not significantly different, maybe a shade more than the difference between American English and London English. The French in Canada were isolated from France more dramatically than the U.S. or Australia from England.
Even within Canada there are, or at least were, quite a few regional differences in accents and expressions which non-speakers would ignorantly lump together. Again because of isolation: The Lac St. Jean region would have very little interchange with Acadia. Like any other language, better means of cultural exchange like television and transportation is homogenizing French both within Canada and worldwide.
If you get by in Dijon, you’ll get by just as well in Chicoutimi.
eunoia: Are you a Quebecker?
I spent a bit of my childhood in Quebec; my personal take about the French spoken there is it seemed a lot more masculine-sounding than heard in Paris, or even in a French class here.
An aside, mmm-mmm I love me some Quebec women, ‘specially when they’re shoutin’ in French.
I am a Quebecker (ignore my location tag - it’s temporary).
I think I know what you mean by more “masculine” - that the words tend to be pronounced lower (more short vowels) and blunter, often slamming many words together. Such as “ouais” for “oui” or saying “chu” or “tès” instead of “je suis” or “tu es”. All together, it has a rather unsophisticated sound. I mean, what would you rather hear - “Chu allé au dépanneur cette fin-d’semaine, mais y’avaient pas de pain frais” or “Je suis allé au marché ce weekend, mais ils n’y avaient pas de pain frais” (I went to the convenience store this weekend, but they didn’t have fresh bread).
The thing is, thought, even though Quebeckers speak the way they do, they very rarely actually write like that. We learn our verbs (yeah, right) the same way everyone else does, and most of us can write a decent sentence in proper french. When speaking to a Parisian, though, I’d say that there aren’t all that many problems, with the exception of accents (which are quite different) and the occasional regionalism, such as the above use of the word dépanneur, which has in the past been mistaken for a misspelling of dépanneuse, which is a tow-truck.
Ok, I’ll shut up now. Hmmm…I miss home!
In English, do we really have to say “Quebecker”? It looks so … I don’t know … not like a real name but a made-up name. I always thought the proper name for people from Québec was “Québecois.” I can never get used to “Quebecker.”
Check this site for an answer to your question and much more…
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/7318/FRANC2.HTM
Quite interesting, I learned things myself as I have just found the link…
Not surprisingly, our French as been very much influenced by historical factors. It appears for example that we speak something influenced by the “King’s French”.
I also remember a documentary that I saw in Quebec about a small region of France where its inhabitants speak with an accent indistinguishable from the Quebecois accent!
When I lived there in the Gatineau River regions north of Hull, it was insulting to most people to call them “Québécois” because of its political connotation.
From Wikipedia:
In French, the word québécois generally refers to a resident of Quebec, Canada. Its English equivalent is Quebecker, also spelled as Quebecer, but this latter alternative’s ending might be mispronounced as “-sir”.
The word Québécois in English can more specifically refer to a particular Francophone (i.e. French-Canadian) ethnicity and culture found in Quebec. This ethnicity traces its roots to the French colonists of Quebec.
My immediate reaction: Argh, that’s all too confusing for me. I give up trying to figure it out. You’re all Canadians, let’s leave it at that.
On second thought: Is it analogous to saying Tejano in English? In Spanish, tejano simply means anything having to do with Texas. In English, Tejano has a more limited semantic range.
I’m French Canadian, am typing this from Quebec, and I’ll go out on a limb here and say that the French have a somewhat richer vocabulary and grammatical knowledge that their Canadian couterparts.
All I can throw in to this is that when I moved here from the UK I used a word for yogurt in my French class that no one had heard before, including my teacher.
Would that word be: Ya ourt?
Quite honestly I don’t remember… it was about 15 years ago now and my French is terrible…
uh huh…looks like it, too. :wally
wooba – was it “da-goo?”
The Québec French version of yogurt is yogourt. The France French version is yaourt.
And ookpik2, about the vocabulary and grammatical question, it is true, but also Québecois tends to be a lot less formal and stilted than European French.
There’s not much of a difference between canadian french and “french french” apart some specific words here and there. Only the accents can in some cases make the communication difficult sometimes.
IMO, the French in Canada & France are as different as the English Prince Charles & Ralph Kramden.
Yeah, I concur. In Quebec, the fellow’s gonna loom over you for a while, then call you a “squarehead” just before he throws you into an eddy. In France, you’ll likely speak to his ass long before he sets the table.
Completely different approach.
Did I mention that Quebecois have an inferiority complex when compared to French? 
Seriously, ookpik2 is somewhat right, but I think this is due to the anti-intellectualism in Quebec then any inherent lack of language skills.
An anti-intellectualism which historically comes from the fact that French-Canadians (catholics) were living in the regions on farms while the anglophones (protestants) formed the upper class in the cities…
That is why you won’t see many French-Canadians reading “Le Monde Diplomatique” and learning those big words…