Living and Learning in a Bilingual Country

In early 2008, SEVEC held 13 forums across Canada on what bilingualism means to Canadian youth living and learning in a bilingual country.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• SEVEC
• youth
• canada
• forum
• learning
• bilingualism
• French
• English
• teenagers

[joker3004]

@skyscraper03 Thank you for such an informative response! It really gave me some perspective on the issue. Since most Canadians I "hang out" with are usually highly proficient in both English and French and quite often a couple more languages they have this "keep 'em coming" attitude which, as I see now, doesn't necessarily reflect the needs of general population ))

By the way, where there any referendums of some sort apart from those actually in Quebec?

[skyscraper03]

@joker3004 There are benefits of bilingualism in terms of linguistic enrichment, but what I'm saying here is a nation does not have to be binlingual or ambidextrous for that. It would have been nicer if the rich English people in Montreal did not crackdown on French people, and French people including Rene Levesque did not backfire. It would have been nicer if they all just spoke English as official communication language in peace& unity, and pick whatever additional languages to learn freely.

[skyscraper03]

@joker3004 There are milions of activities beneficial for brain development and the enrichment. After enforcing bilingualism the bilingual population in the country rose only 3~5% to approx. 23%. This wasteful, inefficient& unnecessary bilingual law exists in Canada virtually for French Quebec, but Quebec itself is French only. It was made not for linguistic previlage, but politically to help the "communication" between people of Quebec and the rest of Canada, even with the more/ extra effort.

[skyscraper03]

@joker3004 Many of the time it makes the people to be traped in only the two designated languages. Most of the case, people learn 1 foregin language and specialize in it (whether it is for a job or somethign else). For Canadians it's always French. It is called homogeneity. It costed hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain official bilingualism since it's established; That $cost is equivalent to high-speed railway from Vancouver to Halifax + upgrading all the infra structure in the country.

[skyscraper03]

@joker3004 In Canada is there is no single/ clear language of "communication" by law like the one in US/France/Japan/Germany/Englan­d/ITALY/Russia/China/UK. Most people stick to one language and learn the other as a second language. And when politicians say in 2 languages for example, half of the time they do not understand what the person is saying in "his/her own word& tone".

[skyscraper03]

@joker3004 Yes,indeed this issue (in Canada) is more complicated than it seems at first glance. It involves not only the knowledge of linguistics, but also of the history of Quebec including the quiet revolution and separatist Rene Levesque, and the Bill 101 introduced by his party. I myself is trilingual, and understand the benefits of it. But overal, I absolutely don't think anyone as a country wants to be/ has to be officially bilingual for the best unless it really can't help it.

[joker3004]

@skyscraper03

I understand your point but just as many other issues this one is more complicated than it seems at first glance. This kind of multilingualism does enrich the culture immensely. "won't work very well" it already does, more or less, doesn't it? ))

"10 years(2 languages) instead of 5(one language)" again, it's not that simple.

[mastttt91]

I don't understand french but I know the kid at 1:02 has a terrible accent..

[Dragosteaw]

i hate multiculturalism

[skyscraper03]

I have hard time voting this video down when people seem to be so happy and positive. But I want to say this won't work for the unity, efficiency, and finally the true prosperity.