N has a favorite journalist who publishes half of his material in Ukrainian and half in Russian. Of course, the best and freshest material appears in Ukrainian first. N is eager to find out what the journalist has to say, and as a result, his Ukrainian is improving by leaps and bounds.
In Quebec they went the opposite way. Instead of creating great content in French that people would be desperate to access, they are trying to coerce people into speaking the language through control and harassment.
Language is like nothing else. It comes through love or it doesn’t. I crossed an ocean and changed my life completely to become a Spanish speaker out of love. And stopped being a French-speaker in a Francophone country because my love was spat at.
Ukraine managed to recover Ukrainian as a widely spoken language within a generation precisely because there was no coercion. It became a language that young people find cool to speak. The best music groups are performing in Ukrainian. The coolest influencers speak it.
Quebec effed it up royally, in my opinion. The only way to promote a language is what’s been done in Ukraine.
Clarissa's Blog 
The biggest riot during apartheid happened when the government tried to force schools to teach in Afrikaans as well as English.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soweto_uprising
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Language is identity. Only totalitarian states enforce identity by decree. Is Quebec getting there?
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“Is Quebec getting there?”
I thought the idea is that Quebeckers never wanted immigrants (from Canada or anywhere else) and so they’re nasty about the language to encourage them to be somewhere else.
Also everybody’s mean to them (English speaking Canadians and European French speakers regular mock them ime even to their face) so they pro-actively respond in kind.
It’s weird because I’ve never been but I love a lot of Quebec music (much more entertaining than most Canadian domestic English content
I’ve also seen some really interesting quebec films and hardly any interesting English Canadian films…
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They love the Muslim immigrants from Francophone countries. Downtown Montreal was unlivable for a young woman even 20 years ago. I can’t imagine what it’s like now.
It was very funny how the extremely vocal Montreal #MeToo never mentioned the words “Muslim” or “immigrant.” It’s like talking about death counts in Ukraine today while pretending that Russia doesn’t exist.
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I love Quebec but it’s absolutely the most totalitarian province of Canada. The way the people behaved during COVID, snitching on neighbors, was disgraceful. We had more self-respect in the USSR.
Sorry, people from Quebec, you know I love you but that was not cool.
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Bonne St-Jean, Clarissa! I love it, because this is one of the few points where you and I have different opinions. Of course, as you wrote, learning a language depends on love, but also many times we learn a language because of motivation, because we have no choice to learn it. The problem in many parts of Quebec is that knowing French is a plus, but it is not necessary. I have been laughed at for my accent when I spoke English many times in Quebec and Canada, but I had to learn the language regardless. Not out of love, but out of motivation. Many Québécois are the worst when it comes to encourage the use of the French language, but English speakers do not have this problem, they can be the worst (or not) with learners, because usually people have no choice to learn English in the North American context.
And as for French language content in Québec, I must say that literature has been quite good there in the last five years or so. And as Cliff wrote, Quebec movies and music in general are kind of interesting. Je peux t’envoyer une liste.
As of metoo, expect tons of Quebec-bashing from the ROC if there is a critique of “multiculturalism.” Quebec is Canada’s favorite scapegoat on that issue.
Of course, for Quebec policies during COVID, I completely agree with you.
Saludos de Marruecos
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Marruecos! My sister and her family are there, too, at this very moment. Has the entire Montreal moved to Marruecos this summer? 🙂
Enjoy the stay! I’m glad you are missing the horrible air quality in Montreal over the last few days.
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“Marruecos! ”
Is this some hitherto unbeknownst to me part of Canada or the country in North Africa or something else….?
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These are Canadian Spanish-speakers vacationing in Morocco. :-)))
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I was in Marrakesh for 3 days! I hope they are enjoying their stay in Morocco!
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