When I was 12 or 13, at the beginning of high school, there was a student in my class who was supposedly bilingual.
“David is bilingual,” our teacher said one day. “His father is English-speaking, so he taught him English.”
We all murmured a wow of blissful admiration, while David gave us a mysterious smile.
Bilingual!
That word had captivated me. For me, being bilingual was a magical superpower that I was so jealous of not having. Yet all it took was having a parent who spoke another language, and you became bilingual, as if by magic.
Bilingual, câlisse, why wasn't I bilingual too?
We never found out if David was really bilingual. Honestly, he never showed any impressive skills in English class, so I think our teacher exaggerated a little.
But later on, I made other friends whose parents were born in Greece. They owned Greek restaurants in Repentigny... and they spoke Greek at home, no kidding! In front of me, and probably about me!
This time, I had no doubt. I couldn't understand a word they were saying. My friends were totally bilingual!
J’étais jaloux en tabarnac!
In the years that followed, I got my revenge.
I learned English by reading voraciously everything I could find and painstakingly looking up every new word in the dictionary. Then I started learning Italian from an old dusty book I found in the basement at home. It was an old edition of Italian With Ease, which my mother had had for ages.
I also bought Greek With Ease and told myself that I was going to learn it so that I could finally understand what my Greek friends' parents were saying behind my back. But I gave up after a few weeks, put off by the difficulty of the language.
That didn't stop me, years later, from taking up German, Russian, and several Romance languages.
Since then, I've had a fascination with foreign languages that has never waned.
Given that I've always been attracted to languages, I find it difficult to understand how some people in Quebec refuse to learn French and make all kinds of excuses for not doing so.
Let's take a look at some of these excuses.
The 6 worst excuses for not learning French
“In Montreal, I don’t need it, everyone speaks English”
That excuse is pretty cocky.
Let me go back to my example of my Greek friends. I wanted to learn their language, not because they didn't speak French, but because I wanted to understand what they were saying to each other!
I didn't like the idea of being excluded from a social group because of language.
In fact, I was mainly very curious to know what lurked behind those incomprehensible words.
It's true that English is very present in Montreal. And it's also true that in almost all stores, you can get service in English (which is not always true for French).
But still, you can't say that everything is in English in Montreal. After all, French is everywhere. It's the language that a lot of people speak among themselves. Practically everything is written in French.
So the excuse that it's not important is a bit like saying, “As long as I can buy my bread and order at a restaurant and talk to my friends in English, I don't really need to understand what's being said.”
I met an American on a trip who had lived in Spain for a few years and said he “preferred not to learn Spanish because that way he didn't understand the crap people said to each other.”
It's a rather peculiar stance, to say the least.
Not speaking French in Quebec, even in Montreal, means missing out on a huge part of social and cultural life.
Theater, festivals, spontaneous conversations between neighbors, literature, music, or simply understanding what people say to each other.
I think many people would like to have access to all of that.
“I've always sucked at languages”
School ruined many people's desire to learn French. Those conjugation tables you had to memorize traumatized you. And those years of boring classes didn't teach you much in the end.
It's true that in North America, languages are taught very poorly in school. They find a way to give five years of lessons without students being able to convincingly order orange juice in a café in Paris at the end of it.
But that doesn't mean you're “bad” at languages!
That means you got off to a false start. You don't become bilingual by reciting verbs, any more than you become a musician by copying notes on paper without ever touching an instrument.
Today, we know much more about the science of language learning. Researchers in language acquisition explain that it's not a question of innate talent, but above all of exposure, motivation, and perseverance.
And polyglots from all over the world share their secrets on YouTube. How they learned three, five, ten languages! What really works, and what's useless.
We now have access to methods that are much more effective than those imposed on us in school.
“I don't have time to take French classes”
It's true that in the old days, learning a language was complicated. When I tried to learn Italian in Repentigny, all I had was a little book with faded pages. No recordings, no way to practice, no teacher, nothing. Niente. To take classes, I would have had to go to Montreal.
Today, is it necessary to point out how many resources are available for learning a language?
We have free government-subsidized classes, apps (admittedly imperfect, but still), conversation groups, libraries, YouTube channels, podcasts, and so on.
What lies behind this lack of time (or money) is mainly a lack of motivation.
We don't hesitate to spend $250 on an air fryer (family size!) or a coffee machine, but buying a few books or a French program seems like a luxury.
This is a question of priorities.
Let's be honest.
Lack of time is not the real problem. Everyone can find 15 or even 30 minutes a day that we waste on our phones anyway.
“I'm too old to learn a language”
In fact, you're too old NOT to learn a language.
After a certain age, say 40, our brain falls into bad habits. It spends its evenings watching trashy series on Netflix. It repeats the same gestures. It no longer exercises. It starts to develop... a beer belly!
Okay, our brains don't have bellies. But a lack of stimulation makes them lazy, and they start to degenerate.
Making the effort to learn a new language at a mature age is one of the best gifts you can give yourself! Yes, it will be more difficult than if you had started earlier. But it's never too late, and your efforts will pay off!
In addition to having fun speaking this language, you'll give your brain a workout worthy of the name, a kind of training that will keep it young and fresh for a long time to come.
“Canada is a bilingual country”
Here's a very cowardly excuse I've heard before. “Why can't I speak English in Quebec... Canada is a bilingual country!”
As far as I know, speaking English is not optional in Toronto or Calgary. Loudly proclaiming that Canada is a bilingual country will not enable French speakers to be served in French everywhere they go in the rest of Canada!
Canadian bilingualism is an illusion.
It is mainly at the administrative level that certain texts must be translated into both official languages. In reality, very few Canadians are bilingual. Most bilingual people are in Quebec, and even there, must we remind ourselves that the only official language of Quebec is French?
When a group of French speakers starts speaking English to be polite to the only English speaker in the group, they do so somewhat out of obligation. We don't necessarily want to switch to English just for one person. Don't you want to communicate with people in their language?
“With artificial intelligence, it is now unnecessary to learn a foreign language”
Before examining the weaknesses of this argument, let's take it to its logical conclusion.
If artificial intelligence will render learning a language obsolete because technology will take over, this will also mean that fewer and fewer people will learn English in the future.
Indeed, if technologies become advanced enough to provide us with accurate translations at any time and in real time, the importance of English as an international language will diminish.
Today, we learn English to access the entire culture of the web, which is in English. But if everything is effortlessly translated with artificial intelligence, then fewer and fewer people will learn English.
If we push this argument all the way, we could predict that one day, without artificial intelligence software, it will become increasingly difficult to travel speaking only English.
And this is not just a hypothesis. According to the EF English Proficiency Index 2024 report, English proficiency is declining for the fourth year in a row, with 60% of countries scoring lower than last year. The decline is most pronounced in Asia, with Japan falling to 92nd place (out of 116 countries and regions). The future of multilingualism is therefore much more complex than we might imagine.
In fact, a translation is always imperfect.
As soon as software translates, it is an interpretation, a choice of translation made from dozens of possibilities.
Even with the most advanced AI software available, there will always be something missing from the translation, because each language has its own logic, with nuances that simply cannot be translated.
How can we translate unspoken words and gestures, which sometimes completely change the meaning we give to words?
Will we have to walk around wearing glasses equipped with cameras that also capture and analyze all this nonverbal language?
In Italian, they say traduttore, traditore. “The translator is a traitor.”
Every translation is a form of lie, because ultimately, it is impossible to perfectly translate a culture and a way of thinking.
As in Sofia Coppola's film starring Bill Murray, something gets lost in translation. Lost in Translation...
30 good reasons to learn French
To conclude, here are 30 good reasons to learn French and Quebec culture. These reasons are not logical at all. They are 100% emotional, but isn't that what motivates us the most, after all?
To appreciate the beauty of joual in Michel Tremblay's Les Belles-sœurs.
For the love of the Saguenay Lac-Saint-Jean accent.
For the satisfaction of swearing in Quebecois (tabarnac!)
To understand Quebecois comedy shows.
To appreciate actor Mani Soleymanlou.
To appreciate Marc Labrèche and Le cœur a ses raisons.
For François Pérusse’s Cinq minutes du Peuple.
For Cœur de Pirate.
To be able to flirt in Québécois.
To understand the jokes of Like-moi!
To visit the Îles-de-la-Madeleine.
To discover the storytelling of Fred Pellerin.
To read Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time in French.
To cry while watching Jean-Marc Vallée’s C.R.A.Z.Y.
To go to the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, or the Théâtre Denise-Pelletier, or the Théâtre du Rideau Vert, the Espace Go, or the Théâtre Duceppe. There are more than 200 theater and performing arts companies in Quebec, and only a handful in English.
To understand the cultural references in Tout le monde en parle.
To laugh at the New Year's Eve Bye Bye.
For Xavier Dolan's films.
To understand the puns in Quebec signage, such as the restaurant Ma poule mouillée.
To understand Série Noire and Les Invincibles.
Because you have a crush for Karine Vanasse.
Because you have a crush for Éric Bruneau.
For Quebec rap.
To stroll through the small villages of Quebec and really talk to people.
To be moved by listening to Les Cowboys Fringants.
To walk into a bookstore in Quebec and come out with something other than a spatula or a cookbook.
Because the French-speaking world also includes more than thirty countries where French is one of the official languages.
To go to the Cinéma Beaubien and see a Quebec film without subtitles.
To join in a bilingual conversation without always feeling out of place.
To stop making up awkward excuses when someone asks you, “You live in Montreal, you must speak fluent French, right?”
And you, what are your reasons?