Bilingual by choice VS By need
**Caution; this is a quite sensible topic for me and I may get a little “aggressive” or too taken by – Please know I am not in any way reffering to anybody in specific and It’s not to shame or attack anybody. I am aware it’s not always the case everywhere; This is just my very own perception and history.**
Good morning!
Welcome onto my first post of March. I had this idea while I was working, which is a major problem we face as french canadians in my province in particular. Thus, I wanted to talk a bit more about my bilinguality on my blog.
As you can see in my title, there’s mainly two different kind of bilinguals: thoses by choice, and thoses by need.
- The bilinguals (or multilinguals) by choice are the ones who decide themselves to learn a new language. May it be for fun, for travelling or for comunicating with specific people (Children of parents having two different languages for exemple, mom would be french but dad would be english).
- On the other hand, bilinguals by need are the ones who has no other choice but to learn said language. Wether because of deportation, or because of social conflicts within surrounding society. Pressure to learn targetted language is higher, as the person cannot get away without actually learning it.
I am one of thoses bilingual by need, unfortunately. You see, english has been pushed on us french kids since as early as elementary school (6-7years old, approximately) when however; the same hasn’t been done with the english kids.
As I come from a small city where all of us were french to begin with, not much differences could be seen. The other kids would go to school the next city over and in my town, people only ever had to communicate through french; that being said, our english classes was in no way “good enough” for us to be properly bilingual with that. And as I’ve said many times before, I was a late bloomer onto learning that second language, as i’ve only started to properly understood at 17years old; despite having been learning it since ~10years.
The difference really started showing when we moved with my parents over to the city we are now; 3hours more south of the province. We switched from being on Quebec’s border (which is internationally known for being THE french province, though we have multiples), to being surrounded by english speaking town and provinces.
This town is legally “bilingual”; meaning customers has the right to be served in both french and english, and all writtings of stores and etc. has to be in both languages. This is not quite the reality, and to this day the french community still has to fight for our right to be equal. (I’ve seen some even declare that we should be all deported back into Quebec’s province.. despite not actually being BORN in quebec.. *aherm*)
I won’t go in too too deeply in this, because boy I get aggressive on that topic. All that to say that even in 2019 we are having double standards upon our language spoken; us “frenchies” must learn english since we are young when alot more english people can just speak one language.. even being born in that same bilingual city as I am. The more frustrating part is that same people ARGUING that it’s not fair that us bilingual are paid more than them (mostly in call-center though..) because we speak two languages, and that we are stealing jobs away from them.
I used to be so salty against english people in general when I was younger; when really, thanksfully!, only a few of them are bad to that extend. Just like any other thing in this world – One bad apple doesn’t have to spoil the whole bucket. Though it is very frustrating stumbling among one of thoses while at work (retail/service jobs, hey!) and to be frank.. alot of us french are assholes in their way to fight for our rights, even to some of them that don’t really has done anything wrong.
For my fellow bilinguals.. which one of the two are you?
What are your spoken/understood languages?
I think I’m Multilingual by choice, it’s true that we had to learn some languages in school (like French and english) but I really love learning/speaking different languages. Currently, I can speak Arabic, French, and English and some basic stuff from Turkish, also some words from here and there, so Yeah, I think that’s all 😊😅.
That’s really impressive!!
With how hard it was for me learning english, im not sure id do well in another one .. xD
I love this post so much, thank you for writing it. I’m a bilingual by choice. Although I have been having English classes (mandatory) for almost 16 years, I have kept learning the language for my personal enjoyment and to further my career. My country is monolingual in the sense that there is only one language spoken here (officially there is a second official language, but less than 100 people speak it, as it is regional). Honestly, I’m grateful to speak two languages, not only because it opens more doors to me but also because it gives me more freedom of thought. I know this is not true for everyone, especially not for people who were forced to learn a language due to relocation… It was lovely to hear your thoughts on this, and it’s so sad that French Canadian speakers have so many hurdles to fight against. I remember reading something about the conservative linguistic laws passed there to preserve the language in one of my classes, and it opened up my eyes to the fact that Canada *isn’t* just a country where English is spoken…
Thank you! Im so happy it passed well!
Right now they wanna change how early english kids have « french second language » at school (for not having enough teachers..) AND a fight onto if our bilingual law is even worth it (??!!) — When I was working at the sexshop, I was needed to speak english even more than I did french ..
I am bilingual bu need (Frend mother language and Dutch second national language) and multilingual (English, Portuguese and some Italian) by choice! We do have also some conflicts in my country if you live in some “bilingual” regions (like our capital city) so I am used to it but honestly I find it so sad. If everyone tries to speak (some) of the other language and shows good faith we should get along fine! I love English and learned it by choice! Same with Portuguese (even if I forgot some by now) and Italian! I plan on learning Russian one day too as I find languages fascinating (like listening to music). Honestly I speak better English than Dutch.
That’s impressive!
See, I know.. the thing is here the englishs thinks they are better; so most of the time they don’t even want to and we have to do all the work (though yes, I agree bilinguality is a nice asset to have!) but then they go even further as to bash us for wanting to stand against our rights to use our frenchs and to be paid more BECAUSE we can do both. ((NOT all of them, i am aware – but like, the older generation and stuff))
Okay I’m not bilingual but I’m also from Canada and honestly I wish language education was taken a little more seriously. I’ve always wanted to be able to speak French, and it seems ridiculous to me that English is pushed so much on pretty much everyone else, but French isn’t pushed as much on English-speakers
Right ?? Apparently now they have french courses (choosed by parents) from 1st graders .. but then they wanna delay it as “it isn’t good” or something, and they are missing on french teachers to teach them .. yet french schools learns english super early and nobody bat an eye??
When I lived in ON, I took French from when I was 3, but I think it’s standard to only require it from Grade 4 to Grade 6, which is a little ridiculous tbh. And then I moved to AB, and I don’t even think it’s required in AB???
I have no idea as I am in NB.. but yeah they were saying how after 10th grade they dont even HAVE any french class anymore ..
I had english classes up until I graduated college 🙃 mendatory
I’m a Malaysian and we’re a country comprised of diverse races with their own cultures and languages so by default everyone can speak more than 1 language so I guess that makes us multilingual by need? Lol
Mmh… that’s.. that’s a good one xD I don’t know actually ahaha, mix of both??
We speak malay, english, basic chinese, and some of our district have their own kind of slang (or language), yeah by considering all of that definitely multilingual by need. Hehe.
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Ooooh wow! Thats an impressive set of languages!
Ugh, this sucks ☹️. I’m sorry. Whether it’s official second language or not, I do not see why they couldn’t teach the other half of the people French. Learning a second language is always a good thing in my opinion.
I don’t have kids, but if i will, they will be born most likely in England, and speak English but will also learn greek cuz my bf would want them to. (Meaning i will have to as well, hehe). I don’t think i will teach them my language cuz that’d be a bit too much 🙈
Iknow.. they do for a few years but not as much and i’ve heard they have basically none after the first year of high school so.. how many would make the effort to keep it?
Yeah xD ahaha if I were to have kids (though I dont want to, at the moment) they would get both
Damn that sucks. I still think learning a second language when your first language is English should be mandatory. It just strikes me as unfair to expect people to learn English for “our” ease when we’re capable of learning another language ourselves.
I’m multilingual by choice I guess? I’m not great at speaking French or German though, I can probably read it aloud alright. I’m able to pick out certain words to get the gist of what the sentence means, but overall I’m not fluent in either. I wish I was but when we got taught them in school it was taught from an academic stand point. Not a “you can speak this language and do so without it being obvious you were taught it in school”
I know my dad’s multilingual in several languages, I do want to work on a specific language one day to become more fluent in it. But that’ll be later on, I also found German easier to pick up than French for some reason.
I’m sorry you have to go through that and also bilingual people getting paid more makes sense, they can speak/understand two languages.
Yeah.. everybody, no matter the “base” language should be treated equals.. if we can do it, youd think they could aswell eh? make it more like a “common” among both parties.
Yeah- I learned spanish that way so eeeh, I all forgot it XD Even when you are fluent, you always have things to learn .. pretty much an on-going process.. Very easy to forget a language if you dont use it sadly..
People who speak more than two always impress me!! I’m not sure i’d be able to pull it off xD Yeah- it depend on which one is closer to which .. like i’ve heard spanish is easier when you speak french first because alot of the things are relatively close..
This is such an important post, thank you for sharing your experiences and I am sorry that despite being in a bilingual area legally, in practice it is completely different. Having grown up in the United States close to the Mexican Border (within 20 miles), I have seen similar and racist reactions in regards to Spanish. Except for you, speaking French is supposed to be protected and given equal rights to English. I can’t imagine how frustrating that would be.
I think everyone who speaks English as a native language should learn a second language. I always wished I lived in a place that required people to be bilingual. Learning English as a second language is HARD and I think a lot of people that look down on non-Native speakers fail to realize how difficult it is. Even when you learn the rules and vocabulary, it’s still not rocket science.
I wound up taking yeaaars of Spanish because of my proximity to Mexico and I thought being bilingual would get me more money. Not really. For me the most amusing thing is sometimes i speak in two languages; and I’ve started mostly talking to my cat in Spanish for some reason.
It is very frustrating.
Maybe it’s part of our region being fought for by england and France in wars; ending up in england winning us at the very end. it kept switching Canada from hand to hand.. between being “ruled” by the Queen of England & the King of France – technically the English Queen is our ruler, but don’t really care about us Xd we only have her holiday.. 🤷🏽♀️ English people have tried to deported us acadians from our lands in the past (talkin’ 1755s), moving us to Louisiana and other states … Maybe some has kept the same old mindset of us french — but really, wtf. LEGALLY, they are no better than us; no matter what happened in the past, right?
I was the one who struggled the most out of my peers, but it is so hard ! One of our teachers insisted upon teaching us the right way of things even if born english speakers don’t speak/write it like that – because when you learn something one way.. it is VERY hard to correct it afterward. No matter what I still pronounce words in a french way, or mix both xd Had a laugh with Alex as I wanted to say “banana” and it ended up “A Banane” ..which is basically the french word with the english accent ahaha
Ahah ! I took spanish too, however I forgotten the tad bit of it I had.. woops.
I’m from Quebec so I didn’t get a choice to be bilingual. When i was a kid i realized pretty quickly that if I wanted to have career I needed to learn English. At 13 I started to read in English and when I had to chose a cegep I picked an anglo one because there were more options of top universities in English than in french. I loved cegep but after a year at a very well known anglo uni i dropped out. I hated it there. Most profs set up the class for out of province (ie ROC and american) students and ignored that some of up came from cegep (you know, the institution of this province…) we had one french student newspaper and at least 5 English one but there was a vote to see if the french one would be dismantled. I heard so many students bragging about studying abroad while also refusing to go much further than downtown. French french students would shit on the Quebec accent (in french), thinking no one would understand them. One day i went to get a donut at a coffee shop (est ce que je peux avoir un donut s’il te plait) and not only did the person
refuse to serve me in french, they also though i wanted a hot chocolate (i literally said ”donut”)
Anyway, in the fall im going back to school in a much smaller, not high ranking french uni and while it might not give me as many opportunities it will be better for my mental health.
Oh wow.. I know if we go there with our chiac accent, Quebec frenchs would serve us in english XD that’s wild – mostly because it’s well known as the “only” french province by outsiders; wow, guess some englishs discriminate us in mostly all our provinces eh.. good to know 🤔 that blows me away ..
Good choice, I don’t think I could hangle it either.. seems too much of a toxic envirnment.. no thanks! you do not need that.
Thank you for your imput xx
Thanks for this post. I appreciate this distinction of bilingual by need vs. bilingual by want. Anglophones have largely not had to learn other languages and they’re mostly led by keeners when they do. I also do support protectionism for language. As troubling as the state of French in Quebec might be today, it would be much worse if Quebec had not enacted strict protections.
English dominates international education and the majority of students in international schools are from non-native English speaking backgrounds. The children, as a result of their parents’ choice and powerful market forces, often become bilinguals by need. What’s even more troubling is that in many cases they become MONOLINGUAL as a result of immersion in English medium schools.
English is here to stay, but I hope, and I advocate for spaces where it’s English AND another language. I also suspect that being bilingual will eventually be considered higher status than being a native English speaker. Much work to be done for sure. I look forward to browsing your blog!
Thank you.
I however wouldn’t know about Quebec strict protection because I am not from that province.
I didn’t mean to suggest that you should know about Quebec. I was just saying that if Quebec didn’t take those steps to protect French, there would be even less French today.
My mum’s side are Anglophones from Quebec. I only spent two years there and I was in the “dummy” French class of my English public school. I think for the vast majority of Anglophones, if they do become bilingual, it’s almost always out of want. Around the world it’s the Anglophones who tend to have the lowest levels of bilingualism. Across Canada, there is more interest in French immersion. This too is out of “want” but I think it’s a good perception because I really think it will be a better world if there are more bilinguals. Once again, thank-you for this post and hi-lighting the difference between “want” and “need”.
Globally, i guess you’re right. However, that’s only one province out of the many that do have a % of francophones to them; as of which I do not know if steps have been taken elsewhere or not ..
Right- most english that i’ve seen either stay unilingual because they dont have the drive to learn french, OR are bilinguals because they choosed to learn. I was working with one girl in particular with whom we spoke english to between us, but she would approach customers in french if they needed. Though of course, her french wasn’t as « high » and some stuff was hard to understand for her. But I gotta say thoses people inspire me, they are willing to try, and I respect that.
You’re right. We should applaud anyone who is putting an effort in to learn another language. If you have a chance, read this blog post where I provide some defence for monolinguals, particularly Anglophones: https://grahamnoble.com/2018/10/18/dont-bemoan-your-lack-of-a-second-language/
They do have more privilege than any of us, though I believe they aren’t in any way superior than us. And specially not when we live in a bilingual town by law such as mine.
I am in a relationship with a monolingual. Not having the desire to learn is fine, as long as my right to be born french and using it is respected.. know what I mean? Monolinguals themselves aren’t really a problem, but choosing to be disrespectful towards someone who speaks broken english/stands on their grounds of their linguistic rights.. that’s where the line is crossed.
Completely agree! It’s a double standard. By Anglo standards I’ve got quite decent Chinese and French, but it’s still relatively rare for me to encounter native French and Chinese speakers in professional circles whose English is worse than my Chinese. I’ve heard Westerners boast about their foreign language beer ordering abilities and at the same time be critical of the English in the foreign country they live in! As you say, it doesn’t mean they’re wrong for not picking up more language, they haven’t needed to. But they must show more humility.