Low Effort Memes

To be fair, most French speakers would say the same thing when talking to Quebecois.

Same with federal officials, like at customs, where they typically start with “hello, bonjour”. Reply “bonjour”, and you may quickly reveal yourself to be a francophony.

The bonjour/hi is mostly used where there are higher percentages of english speaking people, so mainly downtown and in the west island.

In neighbourhoods like Villeray or Plateau people will assume you speak french but will switch to english if they see you struggling with it.

I have a friend who just moved here from Australia, she's taking French classes and they're teaching her all formal vous shit and I'm like, we don't really do that, I don't even do that with my grandmother.

It's funny we attract a lot of French people on work travel visas and you can see them get twisted up about it when they're new.

Reminds me of the English varieties in the post-colonial Caribbean countries (Trinidadian, Jamaican). Very informal compared to Received Pronunciation.

Even for customers in their 20s? I’m in Germany and some youngish people actually get annoyed when I use the formal you with them. I would prefer they get annoyed in that direction, so I keep doing it (unless they appear to be at least a decade younger than me or I feel like I actually know them well enough to be informal- my metric is whether I’d feel comfortable making a genuine joke vs. a customer service joke with them), but it’s definitely not helping with any tips.

French people aren't fun (source: am french). The québécois accent is awesome and I love their colloquialisms !

They don't teach QC French in canadian schools tho. That's how the anglos get clocked so easily.

Damn, I am a shame to my Spanish teacher of 3 years. That took me too long to figure out.

Lo siento, Señora K, yo no practico...

Sevolla? Wow. You should commit and go with Sevoya.

That's all you can say!

The French teacher at my high school grew up in France and moved to the US in her 40s, and loves to bring up how often she is in Canada and some places in Quebec, many people refuse to speak to her in French. Every year she would bring up how some places that speak French will critique your accent much harder than others, and you might not get the conversations you hope for.

She says she refuses to speak in English if she's in a primarily French speaking area. Which if you live in a foreign country, I can totally see wanting to stick with your original language whenever possible if only to keep it in your mind. I can't imagine living in a country that wasn't primarily English speaking, not because I don't want to learn and use another language, but because it's a huge change.

Tns of respect for any non native speaker in a foreign country. It can't be easy, even after years of immersion. Don't apologize for your accent, you speak my language infinitely better than I speak yours.

And, what you're wearing, and the lack of cigarettes, and they way you walk, and lean against the counter, and how close you do or don't stand, and a bunch of other clues.