I generally got through Quebec well with my French. Montréal is basically bilingual anyway, It felt like the mishmash we speak in the office.

People speak mostly French to me, but switch over to English fast once they realize I can’t follow. Young people are easier, and have less of a Quebecois accent. There’s also lots of French immigrants, especially in my neighborhood in the Plateau, so I do hear a lot of French French here, too.

It’s mostly in the countryside and with older people that I do have some problems in understanding, mostly because they speak incredibly fast, and shorten words and swallow an ending here and there…

But there’s also a number of funny new words I learned, my favorite being ma blonde, meaning ‘my girlfriend’, whether or not she’s a real or fake bond, or a brunette. The male version is mon chum, which to me sounds more like a drinking buddy.

Some words also totally changed meaning, like the diner which means lunch here. I would have been royally late for that appointment if we hadn’t clarified the confusion with a precise timing.

Other than that: swearwords are fascinating… many have a religious meaning, like crisse de (then add the target of your anger) from Christ!, or, my favorite, tabernak, a word that is used in various situations, to express major discontent, maybe comparable to the French putain!

Stemming from tabernacle, it hints at a rather difficult relationship the Quebecois have with their church today. Montréal, and indeed the province, is full of churches, some now being abandoned and transformed into restaurants or spas.

The church played an important role in the Quebec society for a long time, until a major secularization movement in the 1960s.

In the so-called Quiet Revolution, the church lost its dominant role in education and as a provider of social services.

The Quebecois seem to have little respect for those ancient authorities today. You can read about the religious swearwords on wikipedia, and learn how to express yourself here like a real Québecois!

And in general, seem to be less ‘uptight’ and strict as the French (pardon me, my French friends). To me, they are like the buddy, chummy version of France.