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Do you think one language is enough for living in Canada? I was thinking so until I visited Germany two years ago. I thought I could communicate in English. But they don't like to speak English in Germany. So I had to brush up what I had learnt at the university. My second foreign language is German. Armenian and Russian are my native languages. Guess what! I hadn't forgotten it though I hadn't used it for 20 years. |
I think it is, as long as you're aware that one language won't allow you to communicate everywhere. Although I would say that English speakers in Canada would be understood by most people, except perhaps in some small French Canadian communities.
The opposite isn't true for French speaker however. I don't want to get into politics but the language issue is an important reason why French Canadians want their own country. If French was indeed spoken by the majority of Canadians (like it should in theory), I think things would be very different.
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Southerners.  Have ya been to the upper parts of BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, or Ontario?  |
As far as being a Southerner, I can tell you French is not that popular North of Quebec. I've been in all the provinces you've mentioned more than once. To be fair, I've visited some towns in Ontario where the official language was French.
As for Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, didn't meet a single soul who spoke good French over there.
Speaking of which, I was in Montreal not that long ago and a bank clerk couldn't speak French, which I thought was quite worrying.