goatee

France: le parking - Quebec: le stationnement
FR: le shopping - QC: le magasinage
FR: le week-end - QC: la fin de semaine
FR: le mail - QC: le courriel

Who has the most anglicisms?

The argument that Quebec French hasn't evolved because it has been isolated is true. There wasn't much contact with English in many parts of remote rural Quebec until the mid-20th century.

As for who can lay claim to the "purest French", this is a bit suspect. Who can determine which French is the "purest"? Which standards does one use?

In any case, the distinctions between the various ways French is spoken in various regions of France is much too fine to make a difference to a non-native speaker. If I were choosing a place to learn French, I would go where they had the program that best suited my needs and budget, and perhaps whether I like the town. I don't think determining which town's inhabitants speak a "purer" French is all that significant.

crefloors

So the big questions is...do you say "hot dog"? ou chien chaud?

indytravel

I took a basic French class from a retired university French professor. She was born and raised in the south of France. She was a hoot. Tiny little lady "of a certain age" who always wore a skirt, heels and a scarf 'round her neck with her hair "up."

I mentioned I'd worked in Trois-Riviere for a bit in '89. It's the largest French only speaking town in Quebec. I rarely ran across someone who spoke English there. It's halfway between Montreal and Quebec City.

She was quite scandalized as she told me that someone in Trois-Riviere had the nerve to tell her that the Trois-Riviere French was more pure. Her response was no, it's just older and not modern.

ira

>Her response was no, it's just older and not modern.<

A very perspicacious lady.

goatee

Heheh... most Quebecers do say &quot;un hot-dog&quot;, and a quick check on www.granddictionnaire.com shows that this is the &quot;approved&quot; term by the Quebec <i>Office de la langue fran&ccedil;aise</i>. Odd. Same goes for &quot;hamburger&quot;. I do remember some people trying to impose &quot;hambourgeois&quot; but that never caught on.

Christina

I don't think Apuka said what level of French classes he was seeking, but I don't think it makes the slightest difference where the &quot;purest&quot; French is supposedly spoken for someone taking beginning French classes (if that's the level). I don't really think it matters much even for higher level. I think the most important thing is the quality of the school, and one should choose a city or location that is of interest with things to do. Since cost is a concern, perhaps some place outside Paris, but that depends how much money one wants to spend outside the school. A lot of the schools in Paris have very cheap tuition plus lodging.

A beginner in French isn't going to be studying local dialect and argot, and the teachers may not even be from that area, hard to say. As for Berlitz, I made the mistake of taking an advanced French conversation class from them in Washington DC and they were not very good, and none of the teachers were native French people; they were from various Francophone countries in other parts of the world. I think one was from Canada and the others from Africa or Lebanon. I didn't think much of their general quality or materials, either (they don't use traditional French texts, because they make you buy their books to make more profit).

I can understand French speakers very well from Quebec City or Montreal, but can't even understand what they are saying from rural Quebec province.

tedgale

Not only do Quebecers say &quot;un hot dog&quot; but they have a distinctive idiomatic expression &quot;mangeur de hot-dogs&quot; -- Literally a &quot;hot dog eater&quot;.

It means a low-class person.

Re infection of proper French by English: The French now adopt English terms with really shocking regularity and I can understand the horror of Academicians. I was reading a French website bulletin board this weekend and was really struck how thoroughly it was peppered with unnecessary English terms.

But nowhere in France will you hear the literal melding of the two languages, as you may in Canada -- and perhaps it is worse outside Quebec, since French speakers are surrounded by English there.

Overheard once in Ottawa, Ontario: &quot;Watchez-vous pour les polices&quot; -- for &quot;Watch out for the cops&quot;. I can't count the number of errors in that sentence!

goatee

Oh I've heard &quot;tootez la horn&quot; in Gatineau, just across the river from Ottawa.

I do have to take a bit of offense from the insinuation that if a language instructor is not from the &quot;mother country&quot; that their ability to teach the language is inferior. I'm sure the instructors would teach &quot;le fran&ccedil;ais international&quot;, not any regional dialects. You are basically saying that American instructors can't possibly teach English as a second language as well as someone from England.

kswl

When I was a girl graduating from boarding school there was really only ONE place where anyone went to learn French: Switzerland. In fact, we were told by our teacher (hon. mod languages, Cambridge) that the best French is NOT spoken in France, but Lausanne. There were many fine language schools there that offered full years' of study, degrees in language, summer study, etc. Some young women chose to attend a language school there in lieu of university, and at least one (who attended a school called Diavox) became a very successful translator.

I don't know if your interest is academic or commercial, but you will find wonderful instruction in Switzerland.

Eloise

You might not learn the purest French, but the French course described in this Essay from the New York Times Travel section sounds like a wonderful experience:

http://travel2.nytimes.com/2004/10/2...urope%2FFrance

(The Web site for the course is linked in the article.)