Jay and I ripped through Quebec and were amazed at the fabric of this beautiful place. Amazing people were found in every corner, the French language was rich and people were welcoming, kind and interested in our journey.
We felt welcomed. I'm a Quebecker, so I suppose that isn't surprising, but Jay can't speak a word of French. Every time he speaks to a francophone, he says "Je suis un stupide anglophone," because he thinks it's funny. Quebeckers always awkwardly respond in English "No, it's okay I don't mind speaking in English," and they don't understand that Jay is making a self deprecating joke. Too polite are Quebeckers to attack a visitor from Alberta for not speaking French.
Quebeckers are always welcoming to a stranger.
Francophone Ontarian vs Anglophone Quebecker
If I didn't speak French? We'd have a problem.
Something that greatly entertains me is when I go to restaurants with my francophone friends. My best friend, Nicole, is a francophone from Ontario. We've known each other for 19 years now. When you hear her speak French, it's like water running in a stream, a smooth, soft accent that presents no harshness, just a beautiful string of language from someone who is highly educated, and cares deeply for her identity and her heritage.
When she walks into a bar in Montreal, Quebeckers immediately switch to English. Her accent is not from here. Her accent is Ontarian. It doesn't matter that she speaks French more fluently than most Quebeckers. She isn't one of them. While she worked for Parliament, her Quebecker colleagues would speak in English with her, which she sometimes complained was a slight against her. These same colleagues would then ask her to help them write emails, because her French was so excellent.
Contrast that with me. I walk into a bar, and Quebeckers refuse under all circumstances to switch to English. To be clear, I always speak in French with them. Similarly, I worked at 3 Brasseurs in Old Montreal for a year and a bit. When I got there, I had a lot of work to do on my French. I value my time there because it taught me how to speak the language rapidly in complex environments that were exceptionally noisy. Still, most of my colleagues refused to speak in English with me, even when I was unable to express myself in the beginning. They weren't doing me a kindness, I don't think. As far as I could tell, the anglophone Quebecker just isn't welcome to speak English in the province.
When I first started mastering the French language, I assumed that people wouldn't switch to English because I had gotten so good at French that they didn't need to. Now, after radically improving my French, I realize it's because I'm an anglo-Quebecker, and francophones believe that it is my responsibility to speak in French, because it's their nation. My strange Quebec flavoured accent gives me away. I'm one of these people. Either I speak French, or I don't get service.
This doesn't bother me personally, I like speaking French. I like that francophones speak to me in French. I'm published in French after all, and I'm mostly done a French literature degree. Listen, if people didn't speak to me in French, I'd continue to speak with them in French. It's a matter of pride. I want to speak in French.