Yating
It’s already been five months since I came to Montreal last September, and what makes me feel ashamed and frustrated is the fact that having been living in such a French-dominant environment for nearly half a year, I still found little improvement in my French skill.
Being exposed to everyday life with almost everything in French (eg. menus, food labels, road signs, metro stations, daily communications between people etc.), I couldn’t figure out why such a supportive learning environment made little contribution to my French learning. It was until one day, Chen, a friend of mine, told me that, “You can never truly learn a language if you just stay inside your comfort zone”, that I finally realized that in the matter of language learning (either in French or English), I have to push myself to “seek discomfort” before achieving the desirable outcome I have long been expected.
Chen’s words really impressed me a lot. I couldn’t help reflecting upon my life after I came to Montreal, then I found that I have been used to the feeling of confining myself in my comfort zone: I seldom went to the restaurant to order food by myself, I prefer to sit next to my Chinese classmates when taking courses, I always responded “Hello” to someone who said “Bonjour” to me (even though I know how to say some basic greetings in French), I spent most of my time with my Chinese friends, and I can sense a slight reluctant feeling from my heart when my sister suggested we conducted our conversation in English etc. Consequently, all these signs of fear and discomfort of reaching out to those I’m not quite familiar with contribute to the root cause of my limited language improvement.
There are many Chinese students who are studying overseas (including me) find it hard to integrate into the local communities, and they often attribute this to cultural differences and language barriers, but now I would say this kind of problem boils down to only one thing— the willingness to step out of the comfort zone. People often feel more comfortable and secure to be surrounded with the familiar. The fear of the unknown and the lure of the comfortable are what keep us from stepping out and moving forward. Seeking discomfort during the course of fitting in a new culture or learning a new language won’t be easy, we might not feel good about it at the very beginning, that’s for sure, but now I understand that we have to push ourselves to learn to embrace it, because “nothing worth having comes easy”!
Hi, Yating. I found your post quite interesting, and what you described in your language experience right here in Quebec is actually pretty similar to those of many international students. I got here in 2017, and I was totally new to French language and its culture. The only way I learned French was simply to self-study and work behind the closed doors. However, one day I realized that it is not how we learn a language since I did not learn English and Japanese like that. Then, I became resolute to step out of the shell to grab every opportunity to speak French whenever possible. After all, that is the reason why I am here in a bilingual city – to learn French.
However, things are not as encouraging as I expected and I wonder if you have taken notice one thing so discouraging and frustrating? I am not sure how strong your French is. If you are pretty advanced in French, I would suggest you using French as much as you can while you’re here. If you are a beginner just like many of us, you might have known that it’s actually pretty difficult to speak French with limited proficiency in our real life (e.g., ordering a cup of coffee in Starbucks or getting a ticket in the metro). When people say the typical greeting bonjour hi to you, and you answer bonjour, the following conversation might be in French. However, if you fail to comprehend what the clerk or server’s spoken French, he or she would be quite impatient to you and switch back to English (and that’s the time you might feel so discouraging). I believe this is different from the case of someone trying to learn English because there are no other languages to rely on.
The above situation is what many people once experienced……
-Chingheng
You are so right Chingheng, about impatient clerks and servers switching to English! It’s a well-known phenomenon, often referred to as the “Montreal Switch.”
I have always been wondering if there is a term or phrase to refer to that kind of phenomenon. The “Montreal Switch.” I will always remember it.
-Chingheng
Hi Chingheng! Thank you for your comment! I quite agree with you on the point that the more you practice and use a language, the more fluent and proficient you’ll be in that language.I had the same feeling as you that for people with limited language proficiency like us, it’s unlikely to use French in our daily life as much as possible. Even if we want to, we still have to take the feeling of someone whom we are talking to into consideration. Personally, the fear of being laughed at and the concern of the possible unpleasant feeling and confusion caused by my poor language are what kept me from using the language I’m not quite familiar with, and I think this is the most difficult part we have to overcome in language learning.
-Yating
Today I was at the supermarket and someone did the “Montreal Switch” on me. At first I was almost offended, but then I realized that the baker sounded like an anglophone. This is quite common. I recommend trying to speak French as much as possible, but in my experience it is not intended to be rude when people switch.
When you have an international city like Montreal, I wonder what exactly is meant by “local community.” Such a thing is unlikely to truly exist–even white francophones are likely to come from other parts of Quebec. As an anglophone fluent in French who moved to Montreal in 2015, I have found it much easier to integrate into mixed, multlilingual and multicultural environments than to homogenous francophone ones and I think that is much more desirable.
—Brian
Hi Brian! I didn’t realize the ambiguity and inappropriateness of the expression “local community” until you pointed it out. I want to make it clear that when I mentioned the “local community” in my post, I actually mean the group of people who have been living in a certain place for a long time. They don’t necessarily have to be “native”, but they are quite familiar with the area and consider themselves deeply connected with the land. As an international student studying abroad, I tend to see myself as foreign to this place, so I improperly generalized people other than the international students group as “local”, sorry for the misunderstanding and confusion I brought to you…hope my explanation make sense!
-Yating