Understanding French in Montreal Canada
September 8th, 2010 | by Ridhima Suri |Visiting Montreal
Montreal is a popular tourist destination in Quebec, Canada. The city offers many historical attractions and is about 5-6 hours drive from Toronto. The city has many interesting museums and over 5000 restaurants offering cuisines from 80 countries. My favorite was French food, of course. However the most striking part of my visit was experiencing the strong French culture! Montreal is one of the few cities in North America with a thumping French culture! It’s like going to France.
Clearly the French regime has left an indelible mark on the city. Many buildings in Old Montreal and almost all the churches are inspired by the French culture. During the British regime many Victorian homes and military buildings were built. Hence Montreal is a combo (!) of the French and English culture. Over the past several decades the immigrants have embraced the French-English culture and contributed to the changing fabric of the city.
People speak French in Montreal-All’s in French!
What’s unique to Montreal is that suddenly you start seeing road signs in French! Oui! As soon as you enter the city by road the English signs will totally disappear and you will notice only French directions. It can be very challenging for a non-French speaking tourist who is driving into Montreal. If you plan to do a road trip to Montreal be sure to carry a GPS with you. Otherwise there is a 100% guarantee of losing your way.
- While the city is a tourist attraction boasting of rich historic, culinary, and cultural history it’s not very tourist – friendly so to speak. When you check into a hotel you will find several guide books in French and only a couple in English (thankfully). There are few bilingual guides as well. Merci!
- Mostly everyone speaks French…from the doorman to the bartender to the staff selling tickets in the Subway (also called Metro) everyone starts the conversation with ‘Bonjour’ and may or may not understand what you are blabbering in English. No conversation with others is in one language. It will always be a mix of three-English, French, and Italian.
- Many channels on the T.V. are French. Even the Kohls advertisement was in French! The word ‘Guichet’ is used for ATM, ‘metro’ is used for subway, ‘depanneur’ means a convenience store. An advertisement of a local arts centre will have the words ‘maison de la culture’.
- There are French – speaking Vietnamese, French speaking Chinese, French-speaking Lebanese which means you will hear a multitude of accents during your visit. There are several studies that show French words, phraseology, and accent very unique to Montreal English. Montreal English is also very different from the English spoken in the rest of Canada. In fact no where in the world is such English spoken or written, according to some studies.
- Arts, television, theater, culture–it’s French all the way.
Don’t worry- you will get the hang of it!
- Carry a Frommer’s Guide & a pocket translation book
The good part is that you start making sense of the language after a bit..:) However, it’s always a good idea to carry a Frommer’s Guide or a Harper’s Guide to Montreal city and a basic French-English translation book. There is no way you can know that SQ stands for Surete’ du Quebec or provincial police. Also if you want to buy liquor look out for SAQ which stands for Societe’ des alcools du Quebec which means a liquor store.
2. Ask people when in trouble
Don’t be shy to ask for help if you have trouble reading a sign or finding your way. People are generally very helpful and try to help you out despite the language barrier. Most tourist attractions have English speaking administrative staff. For example, I lost my prized hat in a museum (gosh I was so sad!). I went to the help desk and the person called a translator to understand what I was saying. He took my details and promised to get back to me if he found it. He never found it but at least I was helped.
OK that was on my French experience. If you are planning a trip to Montreal be prepared to visit France in Canada. It’s a very unique experience and completely worth it.
ont un grand voyage! (Have a nice trip)
Tags: Montreal Canada, visit Montreal
