On 10/01/2013 10:33 AM, Hendrik Boom wrote:
Fluency in French is essential.
I would put a precision on that. Functional French is required. Montreal like most large international cities is used to hearing its dominant language (in this case French) spoken with many accents and at many levels of competence. You will encounter people who speak only French and then the onus is on you to make yourself understood, no matter how inelegantly. This being said Montreal is big enough to host many communities with many different voices not being perfectly bilingual does not mean you will never get a chance to express yourself.
I am not trying to down play the added difficulty that anyone who does not have French as a mother tongue (let alone an immigrant) has in finding work in the Quebec right now but if you are skilled that goes a long way to overcoming those difficulties.
They used to call Quebec two solitudes meaning English and French. I think it is still two solitudes but now it is the island of Montreal (openness to others)and off island (fear of loosing self) but that is a whole other story and like any generalization this is way over simplified.
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