Some words have a different meaning, they use a lot of English words, and have a unique accent. We Frenchmen can understand québécois with minimal difficulty.
The easiest way to compare is Irish/Scottish relative to global English. Or better yet, a thick American southern accent compared to a British accent.
The idioms, the accent etc all have their particularity. Typically quebecers can understand French from France but the opposite is a little more difficult.
All that being said, just like all languages there’s localised variations around quebec. And a trained hear can usually tell the difference between someone from Gatineau, Montréal, quebec, Gaspésie or Lac St-Jean.
Interestingly, Québécois French is less likely to use loanwords like “le weekend”, preferring instead to use terms like “fin de semaine” (literally “end of the week”). In terms of vocab used, a French person is still likely to understand a Québécois French speaker (and vice versa). I can’t speak for how much impact accent has on intelligibility though
Source: English person who did 8 years of French in high school, who also has a French Canadian friend
I lived with a French Canadian while living in France. They like to get so high and mighty about speaking “purer” French with “less loanwords”, but I would say they use just as many if not more.
One example was a day we started taking about cars. I hear him use words like “wheel” and “bumper” (literally just the English words with a French accent) and I’m like “bro do they really not use the French words for those in Canada?”
French people and French-Canadians both use anglicisms, just in different ways.
For example, if we take the sentence “I parked my car in the parking lot for the weekend”, someone from France might say:
J’ai stationné ma voiture dans le parking pendant le weekend
whereas someone from Canada could say
J’ai parké mon char dans le stationnement pour la fin de semaine
Both have influence from English, but in different places. English loanwords in Canada tend to originate from the beginning of the 20th century (a reason why many car-related terms in Canadian French are anglicisms, such as “bumper”) and in France loanwords tend to be a more recent phenomenon.
I suppose it wasn’t all in high school. It was between the ages of 10 and 18, which would mean that it was from Year 5 to Year 13. In my country, secondary school is from year 7 to year 13; I said “in high school” because that’s when the majority of it took place
They do like the words un hamburger/hotdog. They have their own slang, want to test your mingled(mangled) language skills? Try talking to an Acadian, a mixture of french and english in the same sentence, so much fun. Accent has a HUGE effect, rural folk(not living in the cities like MTL, Quebec city, and a few others) can have such a thick accent I can’t understand 2/3 of their words
Some pronunciations are very different for sure. For example, France French says montagne (mountain) sort of like mohn-tahn-yeh, and in Montreal it’s mohn-taine.
Isn’t French in Quebec very different from everywhere else that speaks French?
Some words have a different meaning, they use a lot of English words, and have a unique accent. We Frenchmen can understand québécois with minimal difficulty.
Thank you. I have heard differently before, but never from a first hand source.
The easiest way to compare is Irish/Scottish relative to global English. Or better yet, a thick American southern accent compared to a British accent.
The idioms, the accent etc all have their particularity. Typically quebecers can understand French from France but the opposite is a little more difficult.
All that being said, just like all languages there’s localised variations around quebec. And a trained hear can usually tell the difference between someone from Gatineau, Montréal, quebec, Gaspésie or Lac St-Jean.
Interestingly, Québécois French is less likely to use loanwords like “le weekend”, preferring instead to use terms like “fin de semaine” (literally “end of the week”). In terms of vocab used, a French person is still likely to understand a Québécois French speaker (and vice versa). I can’t speak for how much impact accent has on intelligibility though
Source: English person who did 8 years of French in high school, who also has a French Canadian friend
I lived with a French Canadian while living in France. They like to get so high and mighty about speaking “purer” French with “less loanwords”, but I would say they use just as many if not more.
One example was a day we started taking about cars. I hear him use words like “wheel” and “bumper” (literally just the English words with a French accent) and I’m like “bro do they really not use the French words for those in Canada?”
French people and French-Canadians both use anglicisms, just in different ways.
For example, if we take the sentence “I parked my car in the parking lot for the weekend”, someone from France might say:
whereas someone from Canada could say
Both have influence from English, but in different places. English loanwords in Canada tend to originate from the beginning of the 20th century (a reason why many car-related terms in Canadian French are anglicisms, such as “bumper”) and in France loanwords tend to be a more recent phenomenon.
8 years of French in high school, huh?
I suppose it wasn’t all in high school. It was between the ages of 10 and 18, which would mean that it was from Year 5 to Year 13. In my country, secondary school is from year 7 to year 13; I said “in high school” because that’s when the majority of it took place
I wasn’t sure if you were trying to make a joke about the quality of your ability to communicate in French lol
They do like the words un hamburger/hotdog. They have their own slang, want to test your mingled(mangled) language skills? Try talking to an Acadian, a mixture of french and english in the same sentence, so much fun. Accent has a HUGE effect, rural folk(not living in the cities like MTL, Quebec city, and a few others) can have such a thick accent I can’t understand 2/3 of their words
For an English speaker with no french knowledge, it’s not gonna make much difference.
Some pronunciations are very different for sure. For example, France French says montagne (mountain) sort of like mohn-tahn-yeh, and in Montreal it’s mohn-taine.