lamest joke I've seen in a while

Report  
chickswithdicks (August 6, 2006)

no one from quebec has ever been nice to me. is it because i don't speak good francais?

Report  
Someone (August 6, 2006)

Quebecers have always been nice to me. They are always ready to party.

Report  
boba_fett (August 6, 2006)

yeah. i live in montreal and i dont speak good french, so i choose not speak it at all.

Report  
chickswithdicks (August 6, 2006)

yeah i don't get it. perfectly nice people until they figure out that you're from ontario or wherever, then there's no respect.

I'm from Quebec and I'd say younger people speak both languages but some radical conservative older people here don't want to learn english at all and are really close minded.

Report  
Someone (August 6, 2006)

I confirm.

Report  
Someone (August 6, 2006)

That's some bullshit.

Following your speach, Americans are all fat cowboys and don't want to eat anything else but wendys, burger king or macdonalds and agree the war in Irak and Lebanon.

So basicly, this is nothing true....

keep it up (i mean your mouth)

Report  
Someone (August 6, 2006)

That doesn't make any sense.

Report  
Someone (August 6, 2006)

Dammit, I'm not usually a grammar nazi, but this has been pissing me off for a while now. The term is "closed minded". As in, one's mind is closed to other opinions or ideas.

Report  
Someone (August 6, 2006)

Iraq, not Irak.

You probably couldn't find it on a map, either. Idiot.

Report  
Someone (August 6, 2006)

Yeah, because somewhere in my comment I mentioned Iraq...

Report  
Someone (August 6, 2006)

Not you, Einstein. The comment three above mine.

if you live outside of the montreal area or one of the really touristy areas like tremblant, nobody speaks english. they just cant get over the fact that they lost the battle of the plains of abraham.

we also have really ghetto sign laws. i think we're the only place in the world where if you have a sign for anything, it needs to be in french, or at the very least it has to be billingual with the french text predominant.

aaaaaaaand: if you werent educated in english in the canada, then you have to send your kids to a french school. so if you're an immigrant, you're fucked.

Report  
Someone (August 6, 2006)

Even if your first language isn't French either?

Report  
Someone (August 6, 2006)

In Quebec, we translated the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises to Poulet Frit Kentucky. However, in France, they kept it in English. We are more french than the French.

Report  
Someone (August 6, 2006)

www.archive.org has a couple live shows from Autumn Picture that are super good and capture the intimacy and honesty of the band.

Report  
boba_fett (August 7, 2006)

your first language could be zulu and they wouldnt give a shit. in quebec, they make you learn french.

luckily, my parents were educated in english in the province, so i got to go to an english school.

Report  
Someone (August 7, 2006)

i don't understand what the problem is with that. if you're german and move to, let's say Denmark, wouldn't you have to learn danish and go to danish school? Why is it wrong to go to french school if you live in a french province?

Report  
boba_fett (August 7, 2006)

because its an english country. imagine living in new orleans and being forced to go to a french school while the rest of the country lives in english.

Report  
Someone (August 7, 2006)

Officially, Canada has two official languages. each province has it's own language policy. For instance, New Brunswick has both english and french languages as official languages while Alberta only has english as official language. Quebec's official language is french.

Report  
boba_fett (August 7, 2006)

the only reason we're billingual is because the federal government refuses to take a hard line with its most retarded province. rather then draw a line, they just keep pandering to quebec because they think its the only way to get votes. giving quebec a seat at UNESCO? what. the. fuck. why doesnt ontario get a seat then? its more productive. or alberta, since they are the only province in the black.

Report  
Someone (August 8, 2006)

to be frank, I think it's ok that quebec has a seat at UNESCO and I think Ontario should have one too. Canada is a big fucking country and the things that concern people in the eastern province are not necessarily important to those in western provinces.

Canada is bilingual because parts of it are. In Quebec, you've got 82% french-speaking people (that goes up to 95% if you keep Montreal out of the equation). Maybe I'm retarded, but to me that sounds like quite a lot of people...



Report  
boba_fett (August 8, 2006)
but they're all concentrated in one place. if you get rid of quebec, theres maybe 5% of the population that speaks french first language. in ontario i think theres 400,000 french first language people. move past ontario and theres nobody.

i guess if the federal government wants to be billingual, they can be. except that quebec needs to recognize the rights of the english people. if you live in quebec, you've heard about bill 101, you've heard about how they're forcing westmount to change their street names from english to french, how they're doing that in beaconsfield too, how they made monkland tavern change their sign because tavern wasnt french.

also, if you head off the island of montreal towards the north, NOBODY understands basic english. they force the english kids to learn french, but they dont give the french kids the oppurtunity to learn english. th

show rest of commentbut they're all concentrated in one place. if you get rid of quebec, theres maybe 5% of the population that speaks french first language. in ontario i think theres 400,000 french first language people. move past ontario and theres nobody.

i guess if the federal government wants to be billingual, they can be. except that quebec needs to recognize the rights of the english people. if you live in quebec, you've heard about bill 101, you've heard about how they're forcing westmount to change their street names from english to french, how they're doing that in beaconsfield too, how they made monkland tavern change their sign because tavern wasnt french.

also, if you head off the island of montreal towards the north, NOBODY understands basic english. they force the english kids to learn french, but they dont give the french kids the oppurtunity to learn english. thats a handicap in a north american market.

all of it under the guise that the french language needs protecting. if you wanna make your highway signs french, cool, but when it comes to advertising signs, you should be allowed to put them in whatever fucking language you want.
Report  
Someone (August 8, 2006)
"if you wanna make your highway signs french, cool, but when it comes to advertising signs, you should be allowed to put them in whatever fucking language you want."
I agree. But I still think that if you're an immigrant coming to Quebec (I'm not talking about Canadians moving from a province to another, I'm talking about people from different countries) it should be normal that you learn french in school just like you would learn german if you moved to Germany.

"also, if you head off the island of montreal towards the north, NOBODY understands basic english." If I go to Alberta or Ontario, I don't expect people to speak or understand french.

"but they dont give the french kids the oppurtunity to learn english." that's untrue. we do have english classes. the results might not be extraordinary (probably like second language french in the

show rest of comment"if you wanna make your highway signs french, cool, but when it comes to advertising signs, you should be allowed to put them in whatever fucking language you want."
I agree. But I still think that if you're an immigrant coming to Quebec (I'm not talking about Canadians moving from a province to another, I'm talking about people from different countries) it should be normal that you learn french in school just like you would learn german if you moved to Germany.

"also, if you head off the island of montreal towards the north, NOBODY understands basic english." If I go to Alberta or Ontario, I don't expect people to speak or understand french.

"but they dont give the french kids the oppurtunity to learn english." that's untrue. we do have english classes. the results might not be extraordinary (probably like second language french in the rest of Canada) but the opportunity to learn is there.

Report  
boba_fett (August 8, 2006)
what im getting at is that the language laws in quebec are archaic and only serve the purpose of isolating themselves.

I agree. But I still think that if you're an immigrant coming to Quebec (I'm not talking about Canadians moving from a province to another, I'm talking about people from different countries) it should be normal that you learn french in school just like you would learn german if you moved to Germany.
but thats not an accurate comparison. quebec isnt a country, its just a small part of a country, which is part of a larger north america. just like germany is becoming a part of a larger europe. if you come to quebec you should have the opportunity to study in whatever language you want. its a democracy after all. you shouldnt be forced to learn one language above all others. french courses, cool. french schooling mandatory, bad.



show rest of commentwhat im getting at is that the language laws in quebec are archaic and only serve the purpose of isolating themselves.

I agree. But I still think that if you're an immigrant coming to Quebec (I'm not talking about Canadians moving from a province to another, I'm talking about people from different countries) it should be normal that you learn french in school just like you would learn german if you moved to Germany.
but thats not an accurate comparison. quebec isnt a country, its just a small part of a country, which is part of a larger north america. just like germany is becoming a part of a larger europe. if you come to quebec you should have the opportunity to study in whatever language you want. its a democracy after all. you shouldnt be forced to learn one language above all others. french courses, cool. french schooling mandatory, bad.

If I go to Alberta or Ontario, I don't expect people to speak or understand french.
does it make sense for people accross the country to learn a language spoken by 1% of the people on the continent? no. does it make sense for people to learn the language spoken by 90% of the people on the continent? yes.

that's untrue. we do have english classes. the results might not be extraordinary (probably like second language french in the rest of Canada) but the opportunity to learn is there.
the oppurtunity to learn really only starts to manifest itself at the higher levels of education, and since such a huge portion of the population drops out before finishing high school, a greater effort needs to be made earlier.

you seem like a good moderate guy, and i respect that. its just that i feel ive been discriminated against for not speaking french on a few occassions, and as a result im pretty hostile towards the pequiste thing.
Report  
Someone (August 8, 2006)
I think that the purpose served by those laws is preservation of the language, not isolation. Quebec might not be a country, but it is still a pretty big territory inhabited by 7 million people, 82% of them speaking french. When you are living in such a place without learning the language of the majority, this is when you risk isolation.

"if you come to quebec you should have the opportunity to study in whatever language you want." Well, do I have the opportunity to study in whatever language I want anywhere in the world? Can I move to Sweden and send my kids to french school? Or english school for that matter? I don't know, but I really don't think so.

Well...this is a good conversation but I don't think we're going to settle anything. This conversation would be better suited for a pub around a couple of beers. We might not settle anythi

show rest of commentI think that the purpose served by those laws is preservation of the language, not isolation. Quebec might not be a country, but it is still a pretty big territory inhabited by 7 million people, 82% of them speaking french. When you are living in such a place without learning the language of the majority, this is when you risk isolation.

"if you come to quebec you should have the opportunity to study in whatever language you want." Well, do I have the opportunity to study in whatever language I want anywhere in the world? Can I move to Sweden and send my kids to french school? Or english school for that matter? I don't know, but I really don't think so.

Well...this is a good conversation but I don't think we're going to settle anything. This conversation would be better suited for a pub around a couple of beers. We might not settle anything there either but we might have a good time.


Report  
boba_fett (August 8, 2006)

respek.