I like to dunk on Quebec as much as the next guy but that's actually based.

Fin de semaine in France means end of the work week (Thursday Friday) whereas fin de semaine in Quebec means weekend.

The Vienna Convention allows you to use either STOP or your native version. Likewise, you can either use a red octagonal sign, or a red upside-down triangle inside a red circle. https://de.wikipedia.org/... (that list only seems to exist in German Wikipedia)

Packaging having both languages on it is a federal level legal requirement, since we are bilingual. However, the stop signs are more a regional thing. If there is a francophone population in the area, and you're not in Quebec, you might see both on a sign. In my home province, we have the dual language signs wherever the French speaking population is large enough to warrant it, but everywhere else has English only.

In Eastern Ontario you'll see these signs along the highway that spell some safety message. They'll have sometimes 2 or 3 in a row to fully tell you the thing in english. Then you'll get the same signs again explaining it in french.

I’ll have to ask my wife if she can do that

Honestly, lucky coincidence. I just thought it was funny the bear was speaking French.

In France, they call it le Macdoh

But how do you order a quarter pounder?

It'd be "Donken" in Sweden.

You joke, but I had a bunch of (northern) Italians recommend Pizza Hut to me. To be entirely fair, it was in Germany and it’s better there than in the USA, but it’s still not good pizza.

I'd say it depends on the restaurant tbh :3 some I think sound nicer in my native language, but some are airing really close to unfortunate naming

I'm not sure why you're getting all the downvotes, you're absolutely right.

a government body won't prosecute you if you don't throw a hissy fit about their human rights abuses. I never had problems with it, and they even have cool guides for you to avoid violations. We need to move on from that discussion

Yeah, no, that's not an argument. It doesn't change that the system is unacceptable.

And no, it's not just big American companies who are affected - in fact, they're affected the least. They have the deep pockets that small, local businesses don't have. And none of it changes the fact that the government has absolutely no fucking business telling anyone which languages they are and aren't allowed to speak.

It's not even that, signs have to be mainly in French. Bar a few small exceptions, the English has to take up significantly less space than the French. Their stop signs literally say "ARRÊT" instead of "STOP" because that would be too much English influence. It's incredibly fucking petty.

Yeah I was already picturing the fur.

We didn't date but became friends. One or two years after we met, with a group of friends we went to Quebec with her and stayed at her family cabin that was very far north of Chicoutimi, near a small lake, and it was breathtaking.

There was another confusion though. She referred to going on the lake on the "ponton" (pier in French from the metropole). But we saw the lake and there was no pier on it. She was in fact referring to the kind of boat they have to chill on the lake. It was more some kind of draft : square, flat, with a lot of room to chill and no focus on going un a particular direction, which makes sense. It looks more like a pier than a boat, it was just not on the water when she talked about it.

Je suis du sud du Québec et j'ai toujours entendu ça... C'est pas juste au Saguenay, en tout cas.

pourquoi?

Fair point I guess I should have said French from France or from the metropole? Pretty sure the term dialect can't be applied here.

In France nowadays French is a relatively homogeneous because of radio and TV, but when I was a child (40 years ago) old people in the alp valley I grew up in still used the local dialect, and it is way more difficult to understand to other French than Québécois is. It's closer to modern Italian but still far from it.

It's pretty dead now. I only know a few sentences and child songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQKDSaeeGes

I didn't get the part about gosses?

Combines à grand-manches

English is already three or four languages fighting in a trench coat. So it's not hard to add new ones to the melee mix.

I mean presumably they don't spell it as anything because it's a dub.

I read that as make Oasis pay for it, not a bad idea because after all, it'd be a wonderwall.

And yet Quebecois will stop you in the street and say "t'as une smoke ?"

Du footing?

Téléphone intelligent, not "smartphone".

Ordiphone, actually but it comes from one of the most shittiest french administration

Wasn't the first KFC in Utah though?

They literally went from an empire where the Sun never set to be relegated to an island smaller than Michigan.. and they don't even own the whole island, they have to share it with like 3ish other governments.

Nope, french caandians started in NA.

yeah I think they mostly care about people trying.

It mostly comes from folks only visiting Paris and not realising those motherfuckers are worse than new-yorkers. And it is also true that generally speaking, the rate of adoption of English has been slower than comparable neighbouring countries, though that is starting to change now.

I asked for directions in broken French and the guy answered me but spoke slowly and clearly. Then asked me in English if I understood him

Try speaking English in Quebec and you might get resistance but at least they know English.

Try speaking French in English Canada and nobody even bothered to learn the language. Hell, half of Canada barely speaks English properly.

Québécois are the most bilingual people in Canada, besides french New-Brunswickois.

Yeah but Quebecquers != Quebecois

Right? The French hate us, they were the original separatist

Plus it's cool and interesting to have areas that have their own culture, and not just Americanization. Like Alberta

It has nothing to do with Quebec. It was a joke about -cois and -osis

Their ancient ancestors lost a war. And, in a move that was unusual at the time, were allowed to keep their language and culture. That made them mad.

Well, you're kind of right but only kind of.

"""French must be the predominant language on signs.

Under those new signage regulations, non-French company names or trademarks must be accompanied by French text twice the size, effectively forcing companies to add French descriptors or shrink English words to comply."""

Those are the latest rules. Additional languages will be punished if the French version is not sufficiently large but I think this only applies to names and trademarks, not all signs.

What I was mentioning was an older case described here: https://canliiconnects.org/en/commentaries/29658 Not sure what the final verdict was but someone was very much arguing in court that signs in many languages are illegal.

Wait, so you're actually mostly wrong about the new law and wrong about the old case I had in mind. So you're kind of mostly wrong.