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Bilingual Cities | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5175 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 17 of 29 24 January 2012 at 4:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Montréal is certainly a bilingual city. While there might be some animosity towards either group, there is also a large proportion of people who happily go about their day using both languages and who are equally comfortable in both. I'd even venture that you can't truly enjoy the city if you aren't fully bilingual.
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| Alexander86 Tetraglot Senior Member United Kingdom alanguagediary.blogs Joined 4775 days ago 224 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, Catalan Studies: Swedish | Message 18 of 29 25 January 2012 at 8:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well I´m in Barcelona at the moment, and although Spanish is spoken by all, you would only understand a limited part of the culture here if you decided for that language alone. So I´m afraid one has to learn two! But hey, who´s complaining, we´re language geeks!
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| Rykketid Diglot Groupie Italy Joined 4627 days ago 88 posts - 146 votes Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: French | Message 19 of 29 01 February 2012 at 6:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I have been to Alto Adige - Suedtirol on vacation several times, it's a bilingual
province here in Italy, they speak German as well as Italian, well... they actually prefer speaking German rather than Italian in fact they usually speak German among themselves. Well... personally I didn't find any reason why I should have spoken German in my country... yes, I became quite patrioctic whilst there :-P 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Gorgoll2 Senior Member Brazil veritassword.blogspo Joined 4940 days ago 159 posts - 192 votes Speaks: Portuguese* | Message 20 of 29 03 April 2012 at 3:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I´ve a friend living in Lafayette, Louisiana, and she says everything there is written in
English and French. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5175 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 21 of 29 03 April 2012 at 3:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That sounds like a bit of an overstatement... Wikipedia says 11.5% of the population of Lafayette speaks French at home. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4433 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 22 of 29 03 April 2012 at 5:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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A city (and a country) that is fully bilingual, if not trilingual is Luxembourg. I found this on Wikipedia:
"In many other multilingual countries, such as Belgium, Switzerland or Canada, the distribution of the languages is geographic, but in Luxembourg it is functional—that is, the choice of language depends on the situation. At school, all students are taught in all three official languages, although divided by age group and subject matter. At primary school, the course is in German and explanations are often given in Luxembourgish. At secondary school, in general, until the 9th class every subject is in German, except mathematics. From the 10th to the 13th class, it depends on what level the students are in: In the more difficult level, as well as at the commerce and administrative division,the course is mostly in French, but throughout the whole secondary school, explanations are often given in Luxembourgish. The easier level, on the other hand, tends not to switch to French. In the Chamber of Deputies, the language used is Luxembourgish, but sometimes also French (e.g., when laws are cited). In the press, articles are mostly written in German, sometimes also in French. On TV and on the radio, Luxembourgish is mainly used. Generally, in everyday life, when talking to a foreigner, French is usually used because most foreigners working in Luxembourg do not learn Luxembourgish." 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4482 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 23 of 29 03 April 2012 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Since when does being a minority language automatically mean not being used in public signage? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5175 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 24 of 29 03 April 2012 at 6:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
In the US?! The poster said everything is bilingual. That's not even remotely true in major urban centers of Canada. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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