A quick question for French speakers.

[Simply]

I have had replies from several potential au pairs who are Canadian. As I would like our future au pair to help ds with the French he is learning in school and will take for GCSE, would having a Canadian au pair who speaks Quebecois French confuse him? Should I stick to having au pairs from France only? TIA

Ooops, sorry, that was two questions!

Quebecois french isn't that different (ok, a different accent, but there are loads of different French accents), and people from Quebec do fine with French French.

That's great, thanks NQC. I can reply to them now!

It's like asking an aussie to assist with english lessons...should be no problem.

I went to see a Canadian film a while ago and had to read the (french) subtitles as I found the accents too difficult to follow. Like that book 'the fat woman upstairs is pregnant' or something, the language is v hard to follow. Apparently 'purer' than contemporary hexagon french though.

Oh, there's a film of that? It's by Michel Tremblay.

His stuff is very strongly accented, though. People who are native French speakers can understand Quebecois just fine. (Trust me, I speak Quebecois!)

How did they portray the three fates? I love that book.

Actually NCQ, my dh said he found the Trembley hard going and so I never even bothered to really read it, so I am cheating un peu in my assumption that it is hard to read........

He is native french speaking.

Btw, he is currently plodding through De Gaulles account of ww2 ( and keeps reading me excerpts [zzzzzz emoticon], which is another literary gem that I am going to pass over.

I wish i could remember the name of that film. The surname of a singer.

Oh, no, the book is hard to read if you're not used to the Quebecois accent, it's written in dialect. So it would be like trying to read, say 'Trainspotters' without knowing the Scottish accent, iyswim. But that's not the same as saying you wouldn't understand a Scottish person.