About Cannes Festival

[chani]

David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen are on the tv right now...from Cannes.

It's hard to see Aragorn wearing an ugly moustache (he's playing in a film based on "El Capitan Alatriste" by Arturo Perez-Reverte these days) but it's even harder to hear him speak French (what he does very well btw...) with a Quebec accent!

Sounds like Viggo who's from NYC learnt French in Quebec...

But at least he's doing the interview in French what is quite rare from an American actor, while Cronenberg who is Canadian is doing it in English...Isn't French supposed to be an official language in Canada?

Bilingual countries are really weird...N'est-ce pas Frances?

Comments

[comava.livejournal.com]

Je ne suis pas Frances, mais oui - c'est incroyable mais vrai!

And that's about as far as my french goes. Traurig aber wahr. ;-)

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

Je suis d'accord avec vous deux!

Especialy over here with those crazy Flemish people that are better in English than they are in French.

Oops, I'm one of those crazy Flemish people.

P.S.: (about Viggo) Seems he is very good with languages. He also speaks fluently Swedish or something. (At least it's one of those Nordic languages.) Oh, but I forget, he actually IS from one of those Nordic languages.

[candlelightfrot.livejournal.com]

Do you know how many languages are spoken in the United States? Neither do I.

Spanish is definitely a second language here. I had one of those moments with another guy at the grocery store the other day then where you don't know whether to go left or right. When we figured it out, as he passed I turned to him and said - perdóneme - because he and his family were a Mexican and speaking Spanish.

Chinese is definitely up there along with many other ethnic Asian languages... not to mention those languages of Native Americans.

I'm done...

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Yes as a Geography teacher I'm supposed to know a thing or two about that...

And from my little experience French isn't much spoken by American people over there...Those who speak French often come to live here actually.

Chani

[candlelightfrot.livejournal.com]

Yeah... we had some French speakers in Vincennes when I was a kid - mostly the old Belgian glassworkers who came over in around 1910. My grandfather (Belgian Wallon and German, descended from earlier farm families) would sit on my mother's porch and a few of the the Belgian glassworkers would come over and the French (Wallon?) would fly! And you still hear French down in Louisiana Cajun country.

Wallon was spoked in the homes by some of my distant cousins up in Wisconsin (Green Bay, Kewaunee & Door counties) up until recently. I visited several elder (over 90) distant cousins up there in 1990, who still conversed in Wallon. They have a genealogical/family society there in which many from the ancestral area of Brabant (Grez-Doiceau, Bonlez, Chaumont-Gistoux) would often come to visit and alternately members traveled to Belgium. One elder female cousin told me once that their Belgian guests were speaking French at the dinner table at a society gathering and she could not understand them. So she spoke up and said, "Please! Speak Belgian!" She said that, of course, in her best Walloon, which is what she meant by speaking Belgian. A subtle difference, Walloon and French, but enough that to her trained Walloon ear she could not follow the conversation in French. She told me that for the rest of night, 'Belgian' was spoken.

[pjzallday.livejournal.com]

Yes, Chani, French is one of (currently) two official languages in Canada, though we have only one officially bilingual province: New Brunswick.


The teacher with the greatest impact on my second-language learning studied in France. Perhaps as a result of that, when (in high school) I spent three months in Quebec, I was mistaken for une francaise. More than just accent differences, there are MANY differences in the vernacular as well.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Oh I know ther are many differences. It's just that I didn't expect Viggo speaking French with that accent!lol

PS: Quebec isn't officially bilingual?

[pjzallday.livejournal.com]

Oh no, Quebec is most certainly NOT officially bilingual. In fact, under the controversial Bill 101 (http://www2.marianopolis.edu/quebechistory/readings/langlaws.htm) (la Charte de la langue francaise (http://www.olf.gouv.qc.ca/charte/charte/)), use of English on signs was illegal and immigrants to the province (whether from another country or province) HAD to attend French-speaking schools regardless of the first-language unless they had a parent who was educated in an English-speaking school in Quebec.

Some changes have been made, including allowing English --- or other languages --- on signs provided French is more prominent and Canadian citizens moving in from other provinces can attend English schools provided their parents attended them even if not in Quebec, but the province remains officially French only. They're a bit wacko wacky that way.