Claude Montpetit -- Montpetit.net -- en

Tim Bray, a Canadian, comme moi, goes like this on his weblog:

I have no gift for foreign languages but due to having grown up overseas can limp along in bad French. [ ...]

In case it is still a well hidden secret, French is not a foreign language in Canada, but the other official language of this officially bilingual country. The University of Guelph, in Ontario, where Tim studied, is located at a couple of hours drive from the province of Quebec were most people can speak French. The east part of Ontario even has a majority of French speaking Canadian citizens. Normally in Canada, no need to have grown up overseas to be in contact with another language.

if you walk into a café or restaurant or store in France with a copy of Libération stuffed under your arm, the locals will instantly assume you’re not a gringo and you’ll probably get treated a lot better. Try it, it works.

And you do not need to buy any French newspaper to get a warm welcome in our mostly French province.