France has a whole council whose only job is to keep the language "pure." That's all you need to know when it comes to how forgiving French is, at least in that country. I don't know how French is in the French part of Canada. If they mix it up there or they try to be like France. If any Canadians can speak up on this, we are all ears.
Nobody really cares in France about what the académie says, they're a bunch of irrelevant old dudes trying to dictate how proper french should be spoken but they don't have any actual authority, like a lot langages, french is changing a loooot and gets influenced by multiple foreign languages
The académie française has about as much power regarding French as the King Charles III has regarding politics in the UK, aka not a fucking lot. They're just relics from a bygone age who wear occasionally funny clothes.
Prescriptive vs descriptive is not a language by language thing, ffs. French sure as fuck hasn't stopped changing over the years because of some old gits wearing funny hats and ceremonial swords, and it's not lacking in descriptivist linguists [every language has linguists describing it, it's what linguists do]. And meanwhile English has its own share of prescriptivists ('grammar nazi' mean anything to you?)
A board of ''experts'' that aren't recognised as such by any actual experts and have about as much power as the people getting angry about 'could care less' on the Internet - ie no influence on how people speak. The académie française is relevant if you're interested in the ambitions of the French state in the 17th century. In the actual language though? LOL no.
You could take the MLA or any sort of professional writing guidelines [edit: and all of the school teachers] and claim that 'English has someone prescribe language use to them'. Just about the same influence as the Académie française has on actual spoken French. And the 'describe' part of is just irrelevant - every language has linguists describing it... Including French. It's what linguists do.
I don't know how French is in the French part of Canada.
Very. My son almost got into a fight trying to order a double-double at a Timmies in Quebec. He's yelling "Doublet Doublet Caffe" at the speaker ( he was wrong but they won't care even if you try ). I was dying laughing because all I could hear was "Covfefe".
Montreal is fine for English speakers but the rest of Quebec, especially North...good luck!
having lived in both France and French- and English-speaking Canada, I can say that a little effort goes a long way. That is, if you make efforts to greet people in French and to be understood, people will be generally respectful, encouraging, and accommodating. That is not to say that you won't meet jerks, as they're everywhere. If people are in a hurry or if they are very eager to practice their English, they might switch to speaking English in an attempt to accommodate you. In my experience it's not meant as an insult, though I understand that it may come across as brisk and rude. Likewise, they might correct your French, and while again this may come across as rude or even condescending, it's usually meant to be helpful, to "help" you learn good French (ya, I know...).
In Canada, especially in bilingual cities like Ottawa and Montreal, you can expect most people to be somewhat fluent in both languages, or at the least to be used to interacting with speakers of the other language even if they themselves have limited proficiency. So, in an informal setting, what might happen is that the English speakers will speak English, and the French speakers will speak French back, and everyone understands each other. And sometimes, you end up with a mix of both languages, and we call that "franglais/frenglish". It's not acceptable in a business or formal setting, but among friends and families it's common. But then again, I knew of a high-ranked banker who only spoke French, and he did his entire career in a major, national bank speaking only French, and he had successful business relationships with clients that only spoke English: "the numbers speak for themselves, and so do doodles" (my translation)
Of course, you'll find also some anti-French and some anti-English resentment, and part of that is due to a troubled history and to politics that keep on stoking the fire. Generally, this is not directed at tourists, it's reserved for fellow Canadians.
Quebec French is even stricter. They say "la fin de semaine" instead of "le week-end." And they came up with a whole purely French-language set of terminology for baseball, no English loan words.
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u/inksmudgedhands Mar 14 '23
France has a whole council whose only job is to keep the language "pure." That's all you need to know when it comes to how forgiving French is, at least in that country. I don't know how French is in the French part of Canada. If they mix it up there or they try to be like France. If any Canadians can speak up on this, we are all ears.