The Wonders Of English Words In Canadian French

The more I read about Canada, the more I want to go there and see for myself what it’s all about. It’s fascinating! Canadian French is a weird mix of English and French, they eat their fries with gravy and cheese curds and call it poutine, and I just can’t avoid finding people raving about how nice the Canadians are.
So, I thought I would put together a few interesting and fun facts about Canada.

If you want to pay for something in Canada, it has to be in Loonies. Seriously. The front of the coin has of course the head of Queen Elizabeth II, but the back shows a bird called the ‘common loon’. You would have thought that they would have called their dollar queenie or lizzie, but the Canadians thought differently.

Canadian French is full of English words, and very often, you wouldn’t even know it. Because of the history and location of Canada, there has always been a lot of interaction between Canada and the USA.

Canada was originally French territory, which is why they still speak French. But France had to let go of Canada in 1759 after long struggles with Britain and so a whole new culture started acting on Canada. Add to that the long border with the USA and you will see how easily English words could get adopted in Canadian French.

Some examples? Here you go:
•If your have a flat tire, and you want to patch it, you say ‘patcher’ in Canadian French.
•You know what a pantry is, right? Well in Canadian French they say ‘pentré’ but they mean kitchen counter.
•If you need to visit the smallest room, you could ask for the ‘toilette’, but to Canadians that just sounds so pompous. They say ‘bécousse’. You know, what we used to call the backhouse.

The list is endless and once you start paying attention, you will notice in which weird ways languages can mix. It’s a lot of fun to learn how Canadian differs from Metropolitan French. And the best thing of it is, if you show French Canadians that you’ve tried to learn their language, they’ll love it! They’ll be much more open to you and you’ll be able to experience the famous Canadian friendliness personally.

By: Martin Stellar

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Martin Stellar is a copywriter and marketing consultant. Martin's patron will pay him to write a free custom article for your site. To request your free article click here.