I just read in the newspaper this morning

[pumba]

that our town that was made up of 99 percent Canadians lost their language when they moved here.......My daddy was from Canada and he didnt' teach us to speak French either.......I now sit here and wonder why all the French Canadians here did this .......Some of the reasoning that I read was that they had come to America and had to act like Americans......what do you think......I am upset now because I am a one language person.......My grandkids are taking French now in school.....it is Parisian french and not Canadian french...I guess we missed the boat on this great opprotunity

 

[CathyCanada]

My maternal grandparents are French and both French and English was spoken in their home.

When I was really young my Mom taught me French but we used it less and less when I started school. In school, when taking Parisian French, it was hard for me not to pronounce French Canadian-style.

Since both of my grandparents have passed away even my Mom is losing her French.
CC

 

[helenabear]

I know that something similar happened to my dad's home town when he was young. Because of WWII, they were prohibited from teaching German in school like they used to. They still spoke it at home a lot but because of a lot of the anti-German sentiment going on there, his town (which was all German) was forced to act more "American" kind of sad because the first words out of my dad's mouth were German and now he hardly knows anything.

 

[nativetxn]

Isn't that interesting, Pumba? I wonder why they wanted to get rid of French?

I used to be fluent but after 35 years I've lost most of my ability to speak French. No one I know speaks French. If you don't use a foreign language you will lose it after a while.

 

[Grog]

My paternal Grandfather came here from Quebec but never passed on the French language to my Dad. My Maternal Grandmother was born in Ireland, and although I heard her speak Gaelic to her siblings a few times, she never passed it along to my Mom.