Ariel Helwani nails French interview on LIVE radio

Metal_Daze said:
Aaah, census numbers. Modern day gospel. I wish there was another number in there: if 56% can speak both, then 44% cannot, right?

Question: in this 44%, which percentage do you think only speaks French? Which percentage only speaks English? I can't find those numbers but that's the point I made:

Even here in Montreal, the second largest French-speaking city in the World (after Paris), it is easy to completely ignore French. That would be impossible in France, unless you're there for work and going away right after. In Montreal, there are entire neighborhoods where French is absent. Every street sign is in French first but English is there too! Are you telling me Arrêt / Stop is preventing you to live a full English life in Montreal?

That's my point: it's not easy but it's entirely possible to ignore French in Montreal and be fully functional.
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Dude give it up, you are just flat out wrong and you made a fluff thread.

- 67.9% of the population speaks French at home
 
Metal_Daze said:
Not at all. It comes from their easy surrender to German troops. A month after the invasion was launched, the surrender happened. And the Germans only got into France a couple of days before the debacle. It's not like the German's were coming 10 on 1, they were just more prepared and flanked the French troops, who were as numerous (3.3M troops against 3.35M). Air superiority is a bitch too but still, giving up Paris after a couple of days of battle is strange to say the least... (sorry for the generalization, I don't want to dive into WW2 discussion)

Here in Québec, for every French colon, there were 100 English colons. Not only that, the English sent the army! We were leaded by French Generals (Montcalm) but the troops were not soldiers: they were farmers and hunters drafted to defend Québec from the English "armada".

As for the Queen, last time she came to Québec she was booed out and proceeded to her royal court, Ottawa.
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whatever man, Queen E2 is queen of quebec too, even if you don't like her or boo her. she's your queen too because you are part of a country that wants her to be the queen. Deal with it :p

seriously though, every country has been invaded at some point, I am of mixed origins and nationalities and everyone is whining about their symbolic/historic loss & defeats. I love quebec and quebecois (even if not their accent) but not letting go of wars that were centuries ago is a bit un complexe d'inferiorité (quebequois are not the only ones with that), just like bringing up WW2 events (the french "excuse" is as worthy as yours, even if no excuses are needed in the first place, people that joke about it or find it strange were not there at the time to speak, if you see what I mean)
I personnaly prefer& admire the spirit of reconciliation between the french and the germans for exemple.
 
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touchedbyjab said:
You can speak another language....congrats Shillwani, now quit making threads about yourself.
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I'm not Ariel but I admit I am a fan.
Metal_Daze said:
I posted my pic in this legendary thread:
UFC154%20media2_zpsyw5jafuz.jpg
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Come at me!
 
rjmbrd said:
Dude give it up, you are just flat out wrong and you made a fluff thread.

- 67.9% of the population speaks French at home
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Wrong about what? Can you read or must I use your police for you to understand? Damn I can't find your color but here it is:

- It's entirely possible to ignore French in Montreal and be fully functional.

I didn't say anything else, I didn't bring phony stats into it. Let's argue my point instead of bringing an entirely different matter (which you do not understand) into play.

Thank you.
 
Lol french. Hope the language will die out so people will just stick to their native shit and english. Its so fucking annoying meeting french people that refuses to speak english even though they understand you.. Just stop it frenchies english won the world language battle.. Accept it
 
Metal_Daze said:
Wrong about what? Can you read or must I use your police for you to understand? Damn I can't find your color but here it is:

- It's entirely possible to ignore French in Montreal and be fully functional.

I didn't say anything else, I didn't bring phony stats into it. Let's argue my point instead of bringing an entirely different matter (which you do not understand) into play.

Thank you.
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OK, I'll do one more lap around Nonsense Lane.

- It is intellectually dishonest to represent it as unusual that someone born and raised in Montreal speaks French. An overwhelming majority of residents speak French as their primary or secondary language.

You wanted to make a thread - OK got it - and you wanted to note that Ariel did a good job with his French in an interview - still with you - then you made up a story about this being something unique or special for someone from Montreal (read: you made up a story line)
 
Metal_Daze said:
I know there are a lot of Spanish-speaking people in the US but I doubt you can find one who completely ignores English for his entire life.

It's frequent here in Québec.
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You can and plenty do in my neighborhood.

I also know a girl--born here, in her mid 20s--whose dad is from China and he speaks no English. Never bothered to learn it; he can function in NYC without it. So Chinese people can get away with it too.

I had a Filipino ex and her grandma was here for at least 30 years prior to passing away a few years ago and she truly didn't know a single word of English.
 
rjmbrd said:
OK, I'll do one more lap around Nonsense Lane.

- It is intellectually dishonest to represent it as unusual that someone born and raised in Montreal speaks French. An overwhelming majority of residents speak French as their primary or secondary language.

You wanted to make a thread - OK got it - and you wanted to note that Ariel did a good job with his French in an interview - still with you - then you made up a story about this being something unique or special for someone from Montreal (read: you made up a story line)
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You act like I sold you something that was misrepresented. Of course it's not unique or special for someone from Montreal to be able to speak French. DUH! It's just that I wanted to avoid something: there's another issue that I don't want to touch with a ten-foot pole. I'll just mention it without giving my opinion or taking sides.

"The Montreal Jewish community is almost entirely English-speaking and rarely bothers learning French."

There, I said it. Click on the spoiler tag if you want to know more. No opinion, no taking side: just facts.

Now don't throw a bunch of statistics and lecture me on immigration history in North America. Don't call me anti-semitic either, I'm just pointing out a fact. Go dig the statistics if you want, it's a well known fact here in Montreal and it's been that way for decades. It's just a fact that we see here in Montreal that would not stand out in the US.

I believe the Jewish community is mostly English-speaking in the US, right? Well it's the same here. They have their own schools which are entirely English with some French classes. They have their own neighborhood and they don't see the need to go shop outside of it. That's where Ariel was raised and that's where he went to school.

It's the main reason why I was surprised to hear him speak French with such fluidity.

Do you get it now?
 
Rex Kwon Do said:
You can and plenty do in my neighborhood.

I also know a girl--born here, in her mid 20s--whose dad is from China and he speaks no English. Never bothered to learn it; he can function in NYC without it. So Chinese people can get away with it too.

I had a Filipino ex and her grandma was here for at least 30 years prior to passing away a few years ago and she truly didn't know a single word of English.
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Thank you for that. I know the stereotype of the Mexican maid who can't speak English after years of working but I didn't know it could go that far. You got to admit that young people rarely fall into that category: most people who can't be bothered to learn English are at least 50 and depending on other people (who speak English) to care for them.

It's not the same thing here. A guy like Ariel could have gone his entire life without ever learning to speak French. He would still be the same man with the same job, same friends, same family.

I believe the same thing would be harder in the US but your example is a good one. Also, NYC can be defined as the cultural capital of the US. Of course it's easier to "make it there" without speaking English...
 
Metal_Daze said:
Thank you for that. I know the stereotype of the Mexican maid who can't speak English after years of working but I didn't know it could go that far. You got to admit that young people rarely fall into that category: most people who can't be bothered to learn English are at least 50 and depending on other people (who speak English) to care for them.

It's not the same thing here. A guy like Ariel could have gone his entire life without ever learning to speak French. He would still be the same man with the same job, same friends, same family.

I believe the same thing would be harder in the US but your example is a good one. Also, NYC can be defined as the cultural capital of the US. Of course it's easier to "make it there" without speaking English...
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Yeah, the young people tend to speak English, but they actually have public schools here that teach in Spanish. Bad idea IMO, as it's just going to make it harder for them to integrate. I think you could function in any mid-sized or larger city or in the US just speaking Spanish. If you only spoke Mongolian you'd be screwed, but with Spanish you'll always find bilingual people around and most paperwork and such has both languages on it.

I thought French was necessary in Montreal. Surprising to hear.
 
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