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#jobs-discuss
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2018-12-20
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heefoo05:12:07

very temped to move to Canada

heefoo05:12:28

I leave in Greece but i have a Canadia citizenship

bballant16:12:10

If Trump wins election in 2020, I know more than a few American programmers who will be looking very seriously at a move to Canada.

bballant16:12:01

Also, I've only been to Quebec City once as a tourist, and it is a beautiful little city. My guess it's a pretty good place to live (although I bet winters are long and cold).

chrisulloa16:12:53

I don’t know how easy it would be for an anglo american to immigrate to Quebec haha

enforser16:12:17

Montreal would likely be fine for non-french speakers, but Quebec City is quite french!

dpsutton16:12:20

Montreal is an amazing city btw

bballant16:12:56

The French-speaking is a plus in my mind. No better way to learn a language than immerse yourself in it.

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seancorfield16:12:11

I gather Canada isn't exactly the easiest country to emigrate to? My wife would be fine in QC -- she speaks fluent French and has lived in France (two years, taken separately) but I'd struggle. My German is better than my French and my German is very rusty!

chrisulloa16:12:50

Not if you’re American from what I’ve heard…

bballant16:12:08

The QC listing from #jobs says, "we sponsor visas"

seancorfield16:12:18

I'm from England originally but we wouldn't want to emigrate there (Brexit). Might try for Eire, since I was born in Northern Ireland and that might make it easier... maybe... 🙂

chrisulloa16:12:52

Anglos in Quebec get the option of raising kids in anglo schools which kind of goes against the Quebec govt wants

chrisulloa16:12:12

I’m not an expert or anything on the issue so correct me if I’m wrong

bballant16:12:15

"Anglos"? You mean white Americans?

chrisulloa16:12:24

No just people who are native english speakers

chrisulloa16:12:48

Not necessarily anything to do with race

bballant16:12:58

Ah, the term, I thought, does.

chrisulloa16:12:22

Here’s a guideline for whose kids are allowed to go to strictly english schools: https://www.educaloi.qc.ca/en/capsules/access-english-schools-quebec

Conor16:12:28

@seancorfield assuming you were born before 2004 😉 you are entitled to Irish citizenship AFAIK

chrisulloa16:12:01

Which includes temporary workers, so it’s notoriously hard for English speaking Americans to get long term work or permanent residency in Quebec compared to other parts of Canada

Conor16:12:04

Also nobody apart from British people calls it Eire 🙂

chrisulloa16:12:27

They also make you take a French proficiency exam during the visa process I think

manutter5116:12:06

You guys are really making me want to move to Quebec 😄

seancorfield16:12:43

@conor.p.farrell Growing up in N.I. and making regular trips across the (militarized) border to the south, "Eire" is kinda burned into my mind. We had to leave (and move back to the mainland) because my dad became a target for the IRA 😞

chrisulloa16:12:15

@manutter51 I wanted to move there for a long time. After doing a study abroad for a few months in Montreal fell in love with it. It’s an interesting place, very political though.

Conor16:12:20

I remember crossing that border the other way, it was a particularly odd experience to have machine-gun toting soldiers use a mirror to look under your car

seancorfield16:12:45

Yeah, we tended to pick a lot of honeysuckle in the south and "smuggle" it back through all that 🙂

bballant16:12:50

Most of the US has been turned into a strip mall, so without really knowing anything or reasoning about the implications, I like the fact that Quebec is attempting to preserve their unique culture.

chrisulloa16:12:49

It can be a little ridiculous sometimes, though. Fining italian restaurants for not renaming their pasta dishes to French.

bballant16:12:05

Heh, yeah, that's pretty ridiculous

chrisulloa16:12:24

imagine having language police in your city 😂

chrisulloa16:12:27

One of my friends said some places in Quebec, like video game companies, write all their code in French too!

bballant16:12:24

Ah, but French is one of the most beautiful languages in the world!

kardan17:12:21

Seen some jobs in Finland, heard that they also code in their native language (Reitit, Sieppari etc) so there is another option if you want to learn a beautiful language and are up for a challenge :thinking_face:

chrisulloa17:12:30

If you’re ever looking for a new country to work in haha

dpsutton17:12:55

i think this was normalized per capita and colin mentioned that the US dwarfed the other countries in raw numbers though

enforser17:12:15

european french may be beautiful, but I believe french-canadians have quite a different way of speaking the language which is generally considered a little rougher

enforser17:12:04

I do like quebec, but when visiting it has a very different culture from other Canadian cities I've lived in or spent time in (Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary).

nilrecurring17:12:36

@kardan there are codebases that contain Finnish here, but it’s usually for government stuff that has a lot of domain-specific aspects. You definitely don’t want to translate them to english, that would double the amount of concepts you’d have to learn while coding the logic 😄 (and I say this as a non-finnish speaker)

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dpsutton17:12:52

i'm from the heart of cajun country and i hate the sound of cajun french 😞

enforser17:12:10

which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I'd bet most americans would find it easier to emigrate into a non-quebec province.

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chrisulloa17:12:09

definitely a challenge learning quebecois accents if you already know french… there’s an asymmetric comprehension between the two

enforser17:12:49

I grew up in Ontario learning french, and they teach us the France way - so I know what you mean 🙂

dpsutton17:12:16

yeah at my highschool i had like 7 years of french from a canadian and belgian but it was always Parisian french that we learned

chrisulloa17:12:26

it’s more like an american trying to understand an old scottish person than a british person, but this goes for more quebec city than montreal where the accents are thicker

enforser17:12:58

yeah, Montreal is an exception. I have many anglo-friends who live in Montreal with no problems at all

dpsutton17:12:06

my french is nonexistent and my girlfriend and i were able to get around in the city quite easily last december

scriptor18:12:11

how easy is it to get around/live in quebec city if you don’t speak french?

chrisulloa18:12:47

pretty easy to get around, but to live in, generally looked down upon if you don’t speak french or at least try

chrisulloa18:12:21

there’s plenty of english signs around for public transport and stuff

chrisulloa18:12:29

or government related things

chrisulloa19:12:10

a good amount of the population speaks at least some english but it’s not uncommon to find someone that speaks no english at all

scriptor19:12:35

makes sense, my french is workable, but like others said I’d be at a disadvantage with the accent

chrisulloa19:12:37

you’d be fine, people are really patient with beginners and will acknowledge that you’re trying

chrisulloa19:12:53

at least from my experience, they will switch to english if they can

mpenet20:12:31

I remember seeing french subtitles on canadian tv series on french tv channels. The accent takes a bit to get used to. On the other hand they use also a good amount of english expressions if I recall.

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dpsutton20:12:45

are you a native french speaker?

mpenet20:12:49

French is my first language and it definitely takes some effort to understand

dpsutton20:12:27

i didn't know it had drifted so far

mpenet20:12:39

It's quite nice, I like it personally. It seems they kept stuff from old french and evolved the language their own way in some cases

scriptor20:12:04

hm, I’d heard Quebecois speakers actively tried to avoid english loanwords, but maybe that doesn’t happen in more informal language

mpenet20:12:26

You might be right. I just noticed that on tv basically. It might not be very representative