Tell us how you learned your second language

Here’s what readers answered to the question we asked in the fall 2008 issue of Beyond Words. We thank everyone who took a few moments to answer.

You can also read the comments that we received in French.

Your feedback:

French is my first language and I don’t remember a time when I did not understand or speak English. It helped growing up in a bilingual community. I had friends and was involved in activities that were in French and English. Now living in an Anglophone community I’m teaching my daughter French and how important it is to be bilingual.

Natalie
St. Andrews, New Brunswick 

I learned my second language when I moved to Ottawa with my mother when I was 14 years old. Having grown up in Gatineau, I never had the chance to speak or learn English. The neighborhood kids spoke French, thus there was no occasion or need to learn English. My family is 100% French, although we have an English last name—somewhere my ancestors must have been Anglophones, but it got lost along the way.

I still went to French high school, but I made new friends around our house and they spoke English only or both French and English and, within one summer, I could understand them and converse also. It was the best thing that happened to me: now I can work in both official languages for the Department of Finance and strongly believe that every Canadian should speak both official languages.

Sophie
Ottawa, Ontario

I moved to Montréal after college having learned core French in Ottawa. I signed up for an evening oral French course at a downtown high school—I think four hours a week for eight weeks. But the best French lessons came from René Lecavalier—an articulate sports announcer whose impeccable French made listening to the game as much fun as it was to watch it. M. Lecavalier is credited for inventing many of the terms used to describe hockey in French, and set a very high standard for other sports journalists. It is a shame that young people across Canada don’t have access to hockey broadcasts in French—a sport that so many follow.   

Lawrence
Montréal, Quebec