Re:Canada accidentally helped crack computer translation
by cmrdporcupine on Tuesday March 08, 2022 @11:17AM
(#30601620)
We have tried to raise our daughter at least with some bilingualism, and so had her in French immersion from senior kindergarten through to grade 8. In retrospect a mistake for a multitude of reasons. I doubt her French will persist well beyond her school years and without a community other than school to use it in, it's mainly pointless, and many aspects of the curriculum were harder than they should have been for her because of the language barrier. And after 9 years of immersive education she can't listen to a native French speaker and understand or watch TV, because French in the real world and outside of her classroom is spoken much more quickly and accented.
Nevermind that French immersion in Ontario is teaching these kids Parisian French and pronounciation, while 25% of the population of Canada speaks Quebecois dialect so kids here are not learning the French from their own country. Frankly, there's a bias in the education system against Quebecois French generally which reflects a Colonial era mentality (mother country "good" -- and local is a poor imitation, a psychological disease that's all over Canada, especially English Canada).
All of this ranting is just to bring up the challenges of trying to attain bilingualism when you are a native English speaker in an English speaking country. In some ways it's a curse.
These days I'd mostly prefer to live in Quebec for cultural/political/lifestyle reasons. But I was brought up unilingual in Alberta (with some German), and never learned French beyond half-heartedly counting to 10.
Canada's official bilingualism is mostly a thin veneer that is a reality on the ground only in places like Ottawa. Sort of a half-hearted half-completed project just to try to put a cork in separatism.
Nevermind that French immersion in Ontario is teaching these kids Parisian French and pronounciation, while 25% of the population of Canada speaks Quebecois dialect so kids here are not learning the French from their own country. Frankly, there's a bias in the education system against Quebecois French generally which reflects a Colonial era mentality (mother country "good" -- and local is a poor imitation, a psychological disease that's all over Canada, especially English Canada).
All of this ranting is just to bring up the challenges of trying to attain bilingualism when you are a native English speaker in an English speaking country. In some ways it's a curse.
These days I'd mostly prefer to live in Quebec for cultural/political/lifestyle reasons. But I was brought up unilingual in Alberta (with some German), and never learned French beyond half-heartedly counting to 10.
Canada's official bilingualism is mostly a thin veneer that is a reality on the ground only in places like Ottawa. Sort of a half-hearted half-completed project just to try to put a cork in separatism.