Broken_L_button
Jan 19, 2011, 02:15 PM
...Are total bull, especially those covering advertising/stuff on display and those about the language used in schools.
Let me explain a bit. In Canada, there are two "official" languages: English and French. But, thanks to some stuff that happened a few hundred years ago, most of the french speaking Canadians live in Quebec while the rest of the country pretty much speaks English (except in a few places, but I'm too lazy to try to remember them). And, because of the country's historical background, the French Canadians, as they are called, feel threatened by the fact that they're surrounded by an English speaking majority and fear that they will end up losing their language (French) and their own cultural identity by being steadily diluted by successive tidal waves of immigrating people who don't speak a word of French or prefer to speak English (funny fact, that's how the British tried to assimilate them back in the days when the country newly came into the British Empire's hands).
So, the French Canadians didn't feel like sitting down and being assimilated, so they decided to protect their language, and thus, their own culture and historical background, by implementing a few laws here and there. That's not a bad thing to do; it's perfectly reasonable actually. It's just the way they implemented it and the effect they produce that suck balls, especially -like I wrote earlier- in advertisement and education.
For the advertisement aspect, I'll have to write a bit about myself. I, obviously, like playing video games in my spare time, but my tastes in this kind of media are rather restricted; I prefer RPGs, fighting games and these "oddball" games you can't fit in a certain genre. Thanks to these tastes, most of the games I buy aren't from developers who bother translating their stuff in many languages (only developers/publishers I know who bother with that kind of translation are Ubisoft, Nintendo, and sometimes SEGAC); they most likely end up being only in their original language and English.
BUT wait a sec! Thanks to some law, you can't put on display any product that doesn't have a CLEARLY VISIBLE french translation for its contents. Yep, so imagine my surprise today when I thought of going to my local Gamestop to spend some of the cash I had for some late self Christmas gifts; I thought I'd try out Blazblue CS, Knights in the Nightmare, MH FU (finally got off my lazy arse and decided to buy the thing) and some other titles. What does the clerk say? "Sorry, but we don't have them in stock since we can't put them on display; you'll have to place an order for it." Yeah. And then there's the fact that ordering it won't guarantee me actually getting a copy of the game. And then there's the fact that I just like entering the shop and look at the titles on display too sometimes find one of these "oddball" or "underrated" games.
But these underrated games often come from companies who don't put the french translation for budget issues and whatnot, which means that the only titles I'll ever see on display are the usual popular ones I don't care much about or the cash cow trash like movie-based games or Guitar hero and its never-ending stream of similar titles. And that royally sucks.
Yet, I still managed to screw over that law by purchasing a copy of KitN that one of the clerks left on display, despite the fact that it has no visible french translation whatsoever. For your negligence in observing the provincial government's laws, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, Gamestop.
And then there's the part about education. This one makes cringe so much. To make sure that French doesn't die out, the law says that you cannot go study to an English school in Quebec unless your parents did. Which means that the only way for someone to study at an English school would be to have parents that studied at an English school prior to the law's implementation. It might be a bit harsh, but it's not that horrible...Until you consider a few things:
-Immigrants that can't speak English or French
-The fact that french is one mean bitch of a second language.
So, with this, you'll get less immigrants who want to live in Quebec (well, more like Montreal anyways) unless it's for business because:
1- Their children will waste a bunch of time in some horrible basic french class and end up wasting their potential thanks to the frustration of having to be behind others in their education and because of being laughed at by others because they're in these basic french classes.
2- There's the easier alternative of just living in Ontario (or anywhere else in Canada), learning English (which is so much easier to learn), graduating earlier and making more money faster because they graduated earlier.
So, you get less potential people willing to immigrate in Quebec. Add that to the fact that other education-related immigration policies in Quebec aren't nice to people who had foreign education (a doctor who graduated in Tunisia will most likely not have a single course credited, even if, for some of them, the content is the exact same thing) and that employers here seem to hate hiring people who look/sound like immigrants. Makes you wonder why we have so many Haitian taxi drivers with diplomas in politics and other college degrees, eh?
Okay, so that's all fun and all, but what impact does that have anyways? I'll tell you, but get ready, it's so ironic, you'll laugh and spit your milk through your nose: it reduces the amount of people who speak french. Fantastic, isn't it? With all these policies, you have less potential teachers for french class, and thus, the overall grades in that class drop and people slowly start to not speak the language properly. And even then, there's your fair share of French teachers who aren't that good...How many times did I have to refrain from correcting a mistake Mrs. or Mr. X made while explaining grammar, so that I wouldn't have to waste my time dealing with the other students calling my a "frenchie" (funny thing, I was born in Quebec and these guys calling me "Frenchie" are French Canadians) for not having the peculiar accent Quebec's French has and not wanting to tolerate simple mistakes. Hell, they even tried "dumbing down" the language a bit. Here's an example: the french word for horse is "Cheval". Its plural form is kind of an exception, and thus, instead of just adding an "s" at the end of the word for the plural form, you instead replace the "al" for an "aux", which makes "chevaux".
BUT, seeing that so many students (even some in college, which is pathetic) were having piss-poor grades in french and had this recurring error (despite the fact that french was their first language), the plural form "chevals" is now accepted. Disgusting. The English people who supposedly want to "assimilate" the French Canadians don't even have to move a finger to achieve that goal (as if they ever wanted to do that; such a huge waste of time and money); the French Canadians do it so well by killing their own language.
Oh, thought that my little rant about education in french was over? Nah, I was giving you a bit of space to rest your eyes to thank you for bearing with my condensed writing. Enjoy it.
Okay, break time's over, back to ranting. There's one final fundamental flaw that makes students suck in French class: that course is unattractive and is a downright torture, even if you like reading/writing in French. In all my high school years, I've had a French class, and, in nearly all of them, the class sucked so much that the teacher him/herself seemed to hate it (a few memorable ones seemed to like their job and actually succeeded in making it fun for the students, though, kudos to them) with a burning passion.
The class isn't dynamic at all; the only real interaction there ever is happens when the teacher gets up to GTFO of the hell hole his classroom is -at that time, everyone shares a sigh of relief, both the students and teacher-. French is a hard, mean language that likes to hide its beauty behind thick barbed wire; thus, there's ton of content in the class, and the teachers don't bother making it more bearable. They just vomit it on your face as a bland pre-digested gunk. There's no variety in the way you learn the grammar or the different currents in French literature. Heck, taking a nap in French class is actually more of an investment than staying awake to submerge your head in the cesspool that it is; at least, while napping, you're actually doing something good for your body and your brain. Know what's funny about all that? Most of the English classes in high school are a complete opposite of this crap. Even the worst English teachers I've had seemed to have enthusiasm in their work. Not to mention there was a lot of variety in the projects we had to do in English class.
In short, Quebec's laws that supposedly "protect" French have the opposite effect thanks to some poor implementation and just make it a pain for anyone to actually learn (and even like) the language or adapt to a society that speaks it. Whew. Well, possible reader(s), thanks for bearing with my rant all this time. I hope I didn't waste too much of your valuable time and that my numerous syntax and grammar errors didn't make you want to rip your eyes out and scratch your throat until you bleed to death.
...Man, this rant was totally out of character for me, but, it was actually fun to let that out. Thank you, DHS. Now excuse me while I happily give the middle finger to Quebec's policies on French while I enjoy my copy of Knights in the Nightmare that was totally devoid of a French translation and on display in the PSP section, right in front of my eyes after entering, doing 3 steps forward and turning at a 90 degree angle.
Let me explain a bit. In Canada, there are two "official" languages: English and French. But, thanks to some stuff that happened a few hundred years ago, most of the french speaking Canadians live in Quebec while the rest of the country pretty much speaks English (except in a few places, but I'm too lazy to try to remember them). And, because of the country's historical background, the French Canadians, as they are called, feel threatened by the fact that they're surrounded by an English speaking majority and fear that they will end up losing their language (French) and their own cultural identity by being steadily diluted by successive tidal waves of immigrating people who don't speak a word of French or prefer to speak English (funny fact, that's how the British tried to assimilate them back in the days when the country newly came into the British Empire's hands).
So, the French Canadians didn't feel like sitting down and being assimilated, so they decided to protect their language, and thus, their own culture and historical background, by implementing a few laws here and there. That's not a bad thing to do; it's perfectly reasonable actually. It's just the way they implemented it and the effect they produce that suck balls, especially -like I wrote earlier- in advertisement and education.
For the advertisement aspect, I'll have to write a bit about myself. I, obviously, like playing video games in my spare time, but my tastes in this kind of media are rather restricted; I prefer RPGs, fighting games and these "oddball" games you can't fit in a certain genre. Thanks to these tastes, most of the games I buy aren't from developers who bother translating their stuff in many languages (only developers/publishers I know who bother with that kind of translation are Ubisoft, Nintendo, and sometimes SEGAC); they most likely end up being only in their original language and English.
BUT wait a sec! Thanks to some law, you can't put on display any product that doesn't have a CLEARLY VISIBLE french translation for its contents. Yep, so imagine my surprise today when I thought of going to my local Gamestop to spend some of the cash I had for some late self Christmas gifts; I thought I'd try out Blazblue CS, Knights in the Nightmare, MH FU (finally got off my lazy arse and decided to buy the thing) and some other titles. What does the clerk say? "Sorry, but we don't have them in stock since we can't put them on display; you'll have to place an order for it." Yeah. And then there's the fact that ordering it won't guarantee me actually getting a copy of the game. And then there's the fact that I just like entering the shop and look at the titles on display too sometimes find one of these "oddball" or "underrated" games.
But these underrated games often come from companies who don't put the french translation for budget issues and whatnot, which means that the only titles I'll ever see on display are the usual popular ones I don't care much about or the cash cow trash like movie-based games or Guitar hero and its never-ending stream of similar titles. And that royally sucks.
Yet, I still managed to screw over that law by purchasing a copy of KitN that one of the clerks left on display, despite the fact that it has no visible french translation whatsoever. For your negligence in observing the provincial government's laws, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, Gamestop.
And then there's the part about education. This one makes cringe so much. To make sure that French doesn't die out, the law says that you cannot go study to an English school in Quebec unless your parents did. Which means that the only way for someone to study at an English school would be to have parents that studied at an English school prior to the law's implementation. It might be a bit harsh, but it's not that horrible...Until you consider a few things:
-Immigrants that can't speak English or French
-The fact that french is one mean bitch of a second language.
So, with this, you'll get less immigrants who want to live in Quebec (well, more like Montreal anyways) unless it's for business because:
1- Their children will waste a bunch of time in some horrible basic french class and end up wasting their potential thanks to the frustration of having to be behind others in their education and because of being laughed at by others because they're in these basic french classes.
2- There's the easier alternative of just living in Ontario (or anywhere else in Canada), learning English (which is so much easier to learn), graduating earlier and making more money faster because they graduated earlier.
So, you get less potential people willing to immigrate in Quebec. Add that to the fact that other education-related immigration policies in Quebec aren't nice to people who had foreign education (a doctor who graduated in Tunisia will most likely not have a single course credited, even if, for some of them, the content is the exact same thing) and that employers here seem to hate hiring people who look/sound like immigrants. Makes you wonder why we have so many Haitian taxi drivers with diplomas in politics and other college degrees, eh?
Okay, so that's all fun and all, but what impact does that have anyways? I'll tell you, but get ready, it's so ironic, you'll laugh and spit your milk through your nose: it reduces the amount of people who speak french. Fantastic, isn't it? With all these policies, you have less potential teachers for french class, and thus, the overall grades in that class drop and people slowly start to not speak the language properly. And even then, there's your fair share of French teachers who aren't that good...How many times did I have to refrain from correcting a mistake Mrs. or Mr. X made while explaining grammar, so that I wouldn't have to waste my time dealing with the other students calling my a "frenchie" (funny thing, I was born in Quebec and these guys calling me "Frenchie" are French Canadians) for not having the peculiar accent Quebec's French has and not wanting to tolerate simple mistakes. Hell, they even tried "dumbing down" the language a bit. Here's an example: the french word for horse is "Cheval". Its plural form is kind of an exception, and thus, instead of just adding an "s" at the end of the word for the plural form, you instead replace the "al" for an "aux", which makes "chevaux".
BUT, seeing that so many students (even some in college, which is pathetic) were having piss-poor grades in french and had this recurring error (despite the fact that french was their first language), the plural form "chevals" is now accepted. Disgusting. The English people who supposedly want to "assimilate" the French Canadians don't even have to move a finger to achieve that goal (as if they ever wanted to do that; such a huge waste of time and money); the French Canadians do it so well by killing their own language.
Oh, thought that my little rant about education in french was over? Nah, I was giving you a bit of space to rest your eyes to thank you for bearing with my condensed writing. Enjoy it.
Okay, break time's over, back to ranting. There's one final fundamental flaw that makes students suck in French class: that course is unattractive and is a downright torture, even if you like reading/writing in French. In all my high school years, I've had a French class, and, in nearly all of them, the class sucked so much that the teacher him/herself seemed to hate it (a few memorable ones seemed to like their job and actually succeeded in making it fun for the students, though, kudos to them) with a burning passion.
The class isn't dynamic at all; the only real interaction there ever is happens when the teacher gets up to GTFO of the hell hole his classroom is -at that time, everyone shares a sigh of relief, both the students and teacher-. French is a hard, mean language that likes to hide its beauty behind thick barbed wire; thus, there's ton of content in the class, and the teachers don't bother making it more bearable. They just vomit it on your face as a bland pre-digested gunk. There's no variety in the way you learn the grammar or the different currents in French literature. Heck, taking a nap in French class is actually more of an investment than staying awake to submerge your head in the cesspool that it is; at least, while napping, you're actually doing something good for your body and your brain. Know what's funny about all that? Most of the English classes in high school are a complete opposite of this crap. Even the worst English teachers I've had seemed to have enthusiasm in their work. Not to mention there was a lot of variety in the projects we had to do in English class.
In short, Quebec's laws that supposedly "protect" French have the opposite effect thanks to some poor implementation and just make it a pain for anyone to actually learn (and even like) the language or adapt to a society that speaks it. Whew. Well, possible reader(s), thanks for bearing with my rant all this time. I hope I didn't waste too much of your valuable time and that my numerous syntax and grammar errors didn't make you want to rip your eyes out and scratch your throat until you bleed to death.
...Man, this rant was totally out of character for me, but, it was actually fun to let that out. Thank you, DHS. Now excuse me while I happily give the middle finger to Quebec's policies on French while I enjoy my copy of Knights in the Nightmare that was totally devoid of a French translation and on display in the PSP section, right in front of my eyes after entering, doing 3 steps forward and turning at a 90 degree angle.