Pro tip: many "tourist-facing francophones" (aren't they all, har har har) are actually bilingual anglophones who will initiate a customer service interaction in French because it's their job to do so. Don't get upset if someone doesn't reply to you in French. They may not, in fact, be French themselves. My advice if you wish to try out a bit of French would be to keep your customer service and tourism French to "bonjour" and "merci" and find a local friend to converse with. Busy customer service people are not paid to humour your fantasies of language proficiency.
― fields of salmon, Saturday, 2 June 2012 16:28 (eleven years ago) link
Busy customer service people are not paid to humour your fantasies of language proficiency.
Sure, they're not "paid" to do so, but decency-- not to mention a desire to propagate a language-- would suggest that it's a better to encourage new French speakers, not discourage them?
― poxen, Saturday, 2 June 2012 16:51 (eleven years ago) link
But otherwise OTM.
― poxen, Saturday, 2 June 2012 16:52 (eleven years ago) link
Thanks for tips. I'm less interested in trying out my French than in not pissing anyone off.
― nagl lack (seandalai), Saturday, 2 June 2012 18:00 (eleven years ago) link
in my experience i didn't understand a blinking word of the Quebecoise French and got the impression they felt exactly the same about the French i learned in school, save for merci, i reckon
― epigram addict (outdoor_miner), Saturday, 2 June 2012 18:21 (eleven years ago) link
At a systemic level, "desire to propagate a language" works out to tax credits and socialized childcare so that white francophone women will have more babies. The only people in Quebec who believe that being able to order a sandwich in French constitutes propagation of the language are McGill students from USA, tourists, and people posting on message boards. The people making your sandwiches, increasingly, don't give a fuck about French anyway and only speak it well enough to take someone's sandwich order.
― fields of salmon, Saturday, 2 June 2012 19:04 (eleven years ago) link
I know no French and have been running around speaking English w/no probs.
The park would be good for running if you like hills!
― mh, Saturday, 2 June 2012 19:35 (eleven years ago) link
@fields I agree with everything you're saying, re: service industry professionals. And your advice is sound. My experience with bilingual Quebeckers-- my family, for example-- has been that many have a profound lack of patience with anybody who is not already fully fluent in the Quebecois dialect. I don't take issue with it but myself try to be more patient with new French speakers
― poxen, Saturday, 2 June 2012 19:57 (eleven years ago) link
My sister hosted an exchange student as a teen and it was always "bien non speak English" in the guy's face, I was like, really?
― poxen, Saturday, 2 June 2012 19:59 (eleven years ago) link
So the language thing has turned out to be more complex than I expected - I've spent lots of instances speaking French because English is clearly the dispreferred option.
More important though: where should we go dancing tomorrow/Friday night?
― nagl lack (seandalai), Friday, 8 June 2012 06:53 (eleven years ago) link
I tried to order Montreal restaurant meals in French a couple of times, but it was apparently obvious I wasn't too fluent because they always responded in English to make it easier for me.
― Lee626, Friday, 8 June 2012 11:13 (eleven years ago) link
What kind of dancing/music? Did you find a downtown bar for work gathering? What part of downtown? Grand prix is on so I would say avoid crescent st and avoid st-Laurent btwn Sherbrooke and Pins - both are that particular brand of swanky-shitty-painful nightclub scene.
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Friday, 8 June 2012 12:16 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/montreal-mirror-to-end-publication-tsx-qbr.a-1672679.htm
June 22, 2012 12:42 ETMontreal Mirror to End Publication
MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwire - June 22, 2012) - It is with great regret that Sun Media Corporation is today compelled to announce the closure of the Montreal Mirror. The current edition of the free English-language cultural weekly will be its last.
The growing popularity of digital media and communications has irremediably changed the context in which free cultural weeklies operate, bringing about economic challenges which have unfortunately compromised The Mirror's viability.
The closure will result in the layoff of seven employees and the transfer of two more into other parts of the corporation.
Sun Media Corporation sincerely wishes to thank these employees who contributed to making the Mirror a true Montreal cultural and journalistic institution.
― carly rae (flopson), Friday, 22 June 2012 17:31 (eleven years ago) link
i am gutted by this miserable news! this paper was my first glimpse into the montreal music scene, and despite some noticeable downsizing in recent years was still an invaluable source for local news & cultural events of all kinds. it will be dearly missed not only by its readers, but by future generations who will miss out on it
RIP
― carly rae (flopson), Friday, 22 June 2012 17:37 (eleven years ago) link
freakin sucks. the weekly i worked for shut down 1.5 years ago, and it was because of profit-above-all-else. but business is business. pretty fucked up that we have no english-language weekly paper now when less than 2 years ago we had two.
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Friday, 22 June 2012 17:38 (eleven years ago) link
plus people losing their jobs and freelance gigs, ugh
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Friday, 22 June 2012 17:39 (eleven years ago) link
i don't even know how i can live in this world anymore
― carly rae (flopson), Friday, 22 June 2012 17:41 (eleven years ago) link
i guess it's time to start a(nother) website
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Friday, 22 June 2012 17:43 (eleven years ago) link
i feel like i have 8 different rants i could go on
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Friday, 22 June 2012 17:47 (eleven years ago) link
i hate quebecor for so many reasons but this is too personal, too close to home
― carly rae (flopson), Friday, 22 June 2012 17:50 (eleven years ago) link
it's a massive fuck-you to anglophones and to anglophone tourists imo
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Friday, 22 June 2012 17:51 (eleven years ago) link
but the paper wasn't making money, that's what counts, not politics, business is business, blahblahblah, rmde, it's not like anyone tried to change the business model at the mirror or at hour
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Friday, 22 June 2012 17:53 (eleven years ago) link
it is massively depressing that such a valuable cultural institution could not make enough money to persist, even in a majority french province the need for such a service feels so great, it felt permanent because it was so necessary
― carly rae (flopson), Friday, 22 June 2012 17:57 (eleven years ago) link
the whole reason these weekly papers started in the first place was to give a voice and some PR to up-and-coming music and culture and the creators of that, the stuff that didn't make it into the dailies and magazines/tv. and then they were bought by companies, who for a while let them do whatever they wanted (lol 90s!) and then slowly but surely started to cut sales team attention/hours and thus cut pages, and here we are...
it's also a big fuck-you to journalists in general
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Friday, 22 June 2012 18:00 (eleven years ago) link
as if facebook and bookmarks for 10 different websites can somehow replace the information provided by these papers
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Friday, 22 June 2012 18:01 (eleven years ago) link
okay i think i've hit 4 rant topics already
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Friday, 22 June 2012 18:02 (eleven years ago) link
energy to be channeled!
― mh, Friday, 22 June 2012 18:03 (eleven years ago) link
yes <3
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Friday, 22 June 2012 18:04 (eleven years ago) link
i want to cry dudes
― carly rae (flopson), Friday, 22 June 2012 18:04 (eleven years ago) link
why not, it's a loss, seriously
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Friday, 22 June 2012 18:09 (eleven years ago) link
This sucks real bad.
― Simon H., Friday, 22 June 2012 18:11 (eleven years ago) link
im so depressed
― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Friday, 22 June 2012 18:42 (eleven years ago) link
10 years that place paid my bills
honestly i dont think its a fuck you to anglos, sun media caters to english douchebags all over the country. it's just another sign of total mismanagement. honestly im amazed that the mirror survived as long as it did as a distant outpost of the quebecor empire, the thing they had no idea what to do with. really gotta hand to the EIC for that.
― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Friday, 22 June 2012 18:45 (eleven years ago) link
well, i think at the very least sun media looks at its consumers/advertisers base in quebec and says that it's not big/$ enough to warrant certain products, e.g. the mirror.
anyway, it is sad :(and the state of media these days is something i am trying to think about in a problem-solving way and not an aargh depressing way
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Friday, 22 June 2012 18:49 (eleven years ago) link
sorry, s1ocki :-(
― carly rae (flopson), Friday, 22 June 2012 19:04 (eleven years ago) link
i guess i'm glad i got out when i did... i knew one day i wouldn't have a job anymore, and i wanted it to be my own decision
― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Friday, 22 June 2012 19:08 (eleven years ago) link
i blogged about it if anyone cares http://markslutsky.com/post/26018910565/montreal-mirror-1985-2012
― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Thursday, 28 June 2012 16:46 (eleven years ago) link
i totally carelast paragraph otm!
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Thursday, 28 June 2012 16:55 (eleven years ago) link
thx!
― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Thursday, 28 June 2012 17:03 (eleven years ago) link
yeah that is the saddest part of the whole thing, really
― carly rae (flopson), Thursday, 28 June 2012 17:37 (eleven years ago) link
ppl havent really gotten that yet i dont think, having been on the 'front lines' of listings & BOM & soundcheck etc for the early part of my career its quite clear to me thats where the impact will be
― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Thursday, 28 June 2012 17:38 (eleven years ago) link
Yeah, not having the Mirror for recommendations for Fringe next year, or Pop, or even just weekly 'what i should be doing in town' will make filtering through the hundreds of things going on in the city much more difficult.
― twinkin' and drinkin' and ready to fly (Alex in Montreal), Thursday, 28 June 2012 20:24 (eleven years ago) link
there wasn't much fringe coverage this year tho?
― carly rae (flopson), Thursday, 28 June 2012 20:30 (eleven years ago) link
honestly facebook sucks
― carly rae (flopson), Thursday, 28 June 2012 20:31 (eleven years ago) link
flopson did you ever start FLOP'S ON
― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Thursday, 28 June 2012 20:31 (eleven years ago) link
haha yeah i did, you mean the dj night right? it's tonight, in fact
― carly rae (flopson), Thursday, 28 June 2012 20:32 (eleven years ago) link
yes, that's what you called it in the end.
― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Thursday, 28 June 2012 20:34 (eleven years ago) link
oh really!
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Thursday, 28 June 2012 20:39 (eleven years ago) link
ugh that huffpo article by will. nothing against him as a person but how obviously untrue is it in montreal that listings are "scattered across other sites which can be reached just as quickly (and cheaply)"? that sentence negates the argument in itself! having a couple of informed, local, comprehensive, descriptive (yes!) arts & culture listings that include lesser-known/indie/anglo/underground events is so important and just doesn't exist now.
it's a big deal to create that kind of listings - that's why people are/were paid to do it. i mean, i kind of slaved over hit list for Hour, going through so much info and writing it up with hardly any space to do so, but we felt it was really important, especially when our page count was down. i do my TM things to do article every week and my email is full of events of all kinds, but that article is hardly the forum for grad student avant art and noise shows in st-henri. and facebook, as useful as it can be for knowing about events, remains a curated news feed and one that has to be monitored constantly - and it still doesn't give much critical (vs PR) information about art/bands/etc. i like to believe that people still want to know what's going on from an informed and aware source. that doesn't have to be by one person but i think it should be in one (or two) places.
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Thursday, 28 June 2012 20:54 (eleven years ago) link