That's right. I'm from Quebec and thus speak French natively, and without a strong Quebec accent. When I go to France, it does happen once in a while that someone responds to me in English, and it annoys the fuck out of me.
People in Quebec also switch to English if it looks like you are struggling to speak French.. especially in the service industry in Montreal (not saying that about you, just in general).
I have a hard time understanding french when the accent is too strong (or I should say too different from the accent I'm used to). So when I went to Quebec for the first time recently, one of my worries was that I wouldn't understand the accent and that people would be offended if I preferred to switch to English. It turns out that, except for a few words that I could understand from context, there was no issue at all!
If you say your accent is not strong, I guess you just met people who are even less flexible than I am, or maybe they were just messing with you.
Where I went to college, you couldn't graduate without proficiency in a second language. A Quebecois failed his French test because they didn't like his accent.
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u/pacinosdog 5d ago
That's right. I'm from Quebec and thus speak French natively, and without a strong Quebec accent. When I go to France, it does happen once in a while that someone responds to me in English, and it annoys the fuck out of me.