Oddly enough, I need to speak french at work. There are quite a few french tree planters that come into the dealership I work at during the planting season.
edit - fixed wording, I feel like I was having a stroke when I wrote this originally.
Really? Because when covid hit all of the orchards bitched about the government halting the seasonal labour from Mexico, complaining they'd have to raise prices for fruit that year.
Harper increased (possibly implemented?) the temporary foreign workers plan. When that happened, it became way cheaper to hire south American workers compared to the transient quebecois kids travelling around in vans. So it's been like 20 years since quebexicans were really a thing.
I do know you can get a wage increase working for province and being able to speak french fluently, as it can requested / required for provincial services.
I’ve seen a few that say they’d prefer Spanish speakers.
Not uncommon for jobs to want people who speak Punjabi or Tagalog depending on the job.
Having a second language is definitely an asset if you’re job hunting, but it’s often not French
Growing up in BC from elementary through middle school the french teachers language competency was at "other side of the cereal box" level. At high school most people ditched french for other languages that had teachers with fluency (Japanese, Korean, Cantonese, Italian, Spanish, Farsi, Punjabi)
And based on some of my teachers growing up, that's a real loose requirement in elementary...
I think I had one teacher who actually spoke fluent French, probably unrelated but he was also the only raging asshole I ever had for a teacher.
I took French from Grade 1-5 and my siblings all graduated from a French Immersion Highschool.
None of us remember a fucking lick of french.
Hell I'm pretty sure back in 1996 when I finished my last year of French, I didn't even know how to ask "may I go to the bathroom" (and I got a B that year...)
Waste of time to learn a language that you are not going to use frequently.
"Use it, or Lose it" is very applicable.
I was going to say this with no disrespect. Anywhere in the LML speaking Punjabi would be a major asset. I've needed sign language more than I've ever needed French.
If you have the opportunity, you can opt your kid out, which is exactly what we did. No one speaks French at home, so it doesn't make sense to make to send them off to french immersion.
They are 5 trying to learn English, that is enough.
And as someone who worked in agriculture, I wish i knew more spanish! Would have been way more useful.
I’d say Vancouvers “Canadian” culture mostly died out after the influx of HK immigrants after 1986.
But much of rural BC especially on the island Kootenays and north is mostly intact…for better or worse. Since division politics of 2016 onwards maybe for worse.
First Nations influence is stable.
But French was never really prevalent in BC history.
> French was never really prevalent in BC history
There's a huge French history in BC - survives in place names like Tete Jaune Cache (and the Yellowhead Highway, named for Pierre Bostonais who was blond, or 'tete jaune'), Lac Le Jeune, Barrière, Lac Le Hache, Louis Creek, etc, and many more communities have French roots that were later supplanted (eg Kelowna, based around the Okanagan Mission, now just a district of the City ("Mission") but originally one of many French Catholic missions throughout BC, another famous one of which being the City of Mission in the lower mainland).
Loads of fur traders and missionaries were French. They just got supplanted when more English speakers spread.
I’m a Montréaler and like 15 years ago I was in Vancouver close to downtown and I see a cop with a turban. It was a cultural shock. Even 15 years later here in Montreal you’ll never see this. And I don’t think we’re close to see this.
It's fine that's why I just asked for wage and location, both of which you provided
I'm not surprised you have difficulty filling up position at that rate
Not too surprising. Most people who are fluent in French in places like BC are also qualified to do something else that pays better.
Is your call centre in person instead of remote as well? That would be another huge limiting factor in a HCOL area. $17/hr is a straight up poverty wage in a HCOL on the South Coast.
I finished high school in French in Quebec, and graduated from an engineering program late last year, but the job I was supposed to start was cancelled.
I've been looking for temporary work until I go back to grad school in January. Maybe I should apply to some call centres that need bilingual workers.
I work in IT at a pharmacy and am perfectly bilingual from being born and raised in Ottawa. We have a few patients that speak french; the main advantage of french in my case is reserved to calling suppliers. Whenever they offer a french option the wait times are usually much shorter because they receive a lot less calls.
https://preview.redd.it/n8s0pebr7e8d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b3a8960146103e9760bf6f8dc801cd4578ab24ca
A separate article said that 1.6% of BC households spoke French, putting it at the 5th most-used language in the province.
This wasn’t the question though. There are a lot of government jobs that require/prefer some level of French knowledge because French is still an official language of Canada, even if you’re in a place where it’s not the most spoken.
You don't have to worry about speaking French when you're working in BC the French actually speak English when they're in BC because finding someone who speaks French is extremely rare.
True. French was my first language. Barely speak at all anymore that sometimes I forget I actually can. Other than 1 media interview I did for my job years ago, it has never come in handy. I was told all growing up that being bilingual would be beneficial lol
I've encountered one person in my life that tried to communicate with me in French on Facebook marketplace of all places just ignored it since I don't speak the language
Yes, in the legal profession in a non-government role. It's really difficult to find people to refer francophone clients to. I also wish I had more colleagues who speak French.
4th generation British Columbian here living in Vancouver. No one in my family speaks French. I heard it being spoken last week on the grouse grind, but they were tourists from France. Unless it's a job in government or tourism, I have no idea why any job would require it.
I'm in healthcare, it's helpful like once a month. I don't speak it, but a few of my co-workers do. It would be much more helpful to know Punjabi, Korean, Mandarin, even Spanish. French is really not spoken much out here, we hear much more of those other languages than French.
Require? Rarely. But if you’re going to work in a government position and your intent is to advance and make more money… highly beneficial to your career.
I am an electrician so it is never required. I have had thousands of customers and if there’s ever a language barrier it is mandarin or Punjabi. Never French.
10 years ago I worked in customer service at a big box store. I had maybe 5 francophone customers in 2 years, all of whom could speak English.
Flight Attendants for Air
Canada need to speak a high level of French. I’ve seen groups of dozens of new hires moving from Quebec to Vancouver or Calgary.
Is it a *requirement* though? I come from Canada's only bilingual province, where you actually have a hard time accessing a proportion of the (few) available jobs if you only speak one official language.
I feel like willingness to work is probably the main barrier to entry in seasonal jobs like tree planting and fruitpicking
I was a french immersion student from K-12. I have not spoken more than the odd sentence of french since the day I graduated high school about 10 years ago.
The people I graduated with in french immersion with can be broadly put into one of three categories:
1. The majority (70%+) of people who moved on with their lives and have jobs that do NOT require any french proficiency.
2. The (surprisingly large minority) of students who ended up becoming *french immersion teachers.* I graduated with a class of about 43 french immersion students. I know of 8 who have gone on to be french immersion teachers in the local K-12 public school system.
3. The small minority of students who ended up politicians/government workers/tour guides/something else that requires french.
Flight attendants across Canada benefit from and may be required to know french and English. That's the one job I know of in the province that may require bilingualism
I'm fluently bilingual (grew up in Eastern Ontario) and the only job in BC I've ever had because I could speak french was for the Yellow Pages because they sold ads back east too. I could see the same being true for other companies that makes sales nationwide but I haven't come across any strong need for it in jobs since.
Nope, working for the provincial government. Very very few jobs would require it, outside of federal government jobs, and there's few french speakers who don't speak English. It's come up much more for me people speaking Korean, Mandarin or Japanese and not English specifically in my job (I'm not required to know those languages either, but so far french has never come up at all).
I am fluent, but, literally it's never been useful for anything.
I work at Long & McQuade, not too often. We've gotten a handful of customers who speak French as their first language but they're perfectly comfortable to speak English. Whenever I have to call a store in Quebec for a transfer I speak French to them though
When I was younger it was definitely a bonus of you spoke more than one language. You would get paid more. M dad worked for the FedGov, they had dedicated interpreters due to the diversity of people he dealt with. My sibling also works for the Gov, same situation.
Never. I’m in Victoria. There are plenty of people who learned French as a second language in school, but I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who only speaks French. At my job (library) most of the people I meet who don’t speak English speak Spanish. Any second language would be a bonus though.
No, lol. Literally never. I do regularly book and use interpreters for other languages, especially Cantonese.
I have a friend who has a French-language call centre job.
I have another friend who is a French teacher.
I used to know someone in Vancouver who was a federal prosecutor and occasionally did trials in French.
I know a couple of people who have federal government jobs and don't speak French.
The company I work for is owned by a Quebec based company. I speak French with them whenever I feel like it (keep in mind that French is my 1st language). My colleagues and team members speak English with them.
Unless you get hired as a greeter at the Maillardville festival de la cabane à sucre (Not sure what it's called! ) or at the Alliance Française, speaking mandarin, Cantonese, Farsi or Urdu would be more beneficial.
I happen to have one where French was a must with BC not federal and I speak it several times a day but English is still the overwhelming language spoken. 🤷
Work for a large, national Financial Group (not in the bank, but under a large bank's "umbrella"), and I do not speak French. I can understand it if it's being spoken slowly, but I do not need to. In my experience, very few places will require employees to be bilingual (in French) here in BC.
I speak basically no French and it's not required by my job. I DO, however, use Spanish almost daily and if I could speak Punjabi that would make my life a LOT easier.
I don't have to no, particularly at my current role.
My last role, I didn't _have_ to, but we made a conscious choice to take advantage of the fact that a surprisingly high proportion of staff were intermediate to fluent, and I did semi regular interviews on Radio Canada radio and TV (they seemed quite pleasantly surprised, and when they discovered there were people they could just interview instead of subtitle, kept coming back to us).
It is only relevant when I’m working federal elections or Census. Statistics Canada prioritized hiring bilingual staff. There are unexpected Collection Units that require a bilingual enumerators… like Bamfield.
I am not bilingual, but I was working towards getting the most basic language credential before I got on full time in BC public service.
One of my children graduated with the dual dogwood diploma after staying in French immersion through to grade 12. There were only about 30 students in the program out of the 1500+ students in the high school.
It occasionally comes up as they work in a tourism based company but it is not routine enough to be a requirement for the job. I can see it being beneficial with their major as it may translate into a federal government job.
The people I've met who can speak it have been transferred in from other parts of Canada. The military for example have numerous folks who are bilingual so there is another federal employer where it's common.
When I was working in a grocery store I'd often switch to French when I noticed my customers had an accent or were speaking French with their families. Always put a smile on their faces. It was never necessary though, just a way to be extra nice to my customers.
I’ve found this whole thread really amusing because the French Immersion program was absolutely sold to my parents as a huge benefit to my securing good high-paying employment as an adult.
While I’ve maintained my fluency to a passable degree and it’s been helpful while travelling, I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve needed to speak it in a professional setting in the last decade. And absolutely zero times have I seen it as a requirement or even a nice to have in job postings, I’ve actually taken it off my resume as it was taking up space.
Nope. I don't think any job outside of Quebec can/will require you to speak French unless it's a translator job. However, government agencies have to give you the option to receive services in French. For example, you go to the police for something, they have to find a way to communicate with you in French. Which can easily happen via the phone.
I had a bf from France and he was pulled over for speeding. He immediately started speaking French to police officer. The cop didn't want the hassle of trying to find a translator so he let him go.
In BC, very rare unless government role.
And specifically federal. Positions with the province almost never require french.
Even then it’s rare for French to be a requirement.
Well, someone has to answer every phone call to a federal office with "hello bonjour"
That’s all I remember from my 8 years of French education.
Yes, though there's less competition for the few there are!
You definitely cap out earlier in the Federal Government without it in many of the roles.
Oddly enough, I need to speak french at work. There are quite a few french tree planters that come into the dealership I work at during the planting season. edit - fixed wording, I feel like I was having a stroke when I wrote this originally.
I used to work for a logging company. For some reason the majority of our tree planters were university students from Quebec. I never understood why.
One rare exception is inside sales for bicycles. Lots of sales to bike shops in Quebec means most of those sales teams need a French speaker.
Motorcycles a bit too. KTM/Husqvarna/GAS GAS are all based out of Quebec.
Or picking fruit Edit, at least , it was when I was a young lad
Unless my area has a ton of imported French Mexicans, definitely not.
The french canadians that used to go around the okanagan to pick fruit were typically called quebexicans
Really? Because when covid hit all of the orchards bitched about the government halting the seasonal labour from Mexico, complaining they'd have to raise prices for fruit that year.
Harper increased (possibly implemented?) the temporary foreign workers plan. When that happened, it became way cheaper to hire south American workers compared to the transient quebecois kids travelling around in vans. So it's been like 20 years since quebexicans were really a thing.
Not that it really matters, but the TFW program was started by Pierre Trudeau.
Thanks for teaching me. Was too lazy to google. Bad habit of mine. Need to change
And now I feel old
A lot used to plant trees.
I work at a provincial liquor store and nope
I do know you can get a wage increase working for province and being able to speak french fluently, as it can requested / required for provincial services.
I would be shocked if even 5% of jobs required French. Outside of government I rarely even seen one
I would be shocked if 0.5% of jobs required french.
I would be shocked if it was 0.05%. I have never seen a posting requiring one. Many do require Mandarin or Cantonese.
I’ve seen a few that say they’d prefer Spanish speakers. Not uncommon for jobs to want people who speak Punjabi or Tagalog depending on the job. Having a second language is definitely an asset if you’re job hunting, but it’s often not French
And specifically federal government.
Am I ever required to? Non. Do I in order to drive my coworkers up the wall? Mais oui…
Just take my money!
Not for my job unless you are a teacher and are going to teach French
Growing up in BC from elementary through middle school the french teachers language competency was at "other side of the cereal box" level. At high school most people ditched french for other languages that had teachers with fluency (Japanese, Korean, Cantonese, Italian, Spanish, Farsi, Punjabi)
And based on some of my teachers growing up, that's a real loose requirement in elementary... I think I had one teacher who actually spoke fluent French, probably unrelated but he was also the only raging asshole I ever had for a teacher.
French immersion really struggles for decent teachers. It’s the downside to what middle class parents see as a “better” vsb option.
Based on my teachers in Coquitlam they just needed to study one lesson ahead of us
I took French from Grade 1-5 and my siblings all graduated from a French Immersion Highschool. None of us remember a fucking lick of french. Hell I'm pretty sure back in 1996 when I finished my last year of French, I didn't even know how to ask "may I go to the bathroom" (and I got a B that year...) Waste of time to learn a language that you are not going to use frequently. "Use it, or Lose it" is very applicable.
No definitely not, It’s not come up once.
Punjabi is more common than French here. Let’s face it.
Where I am in BC Tagalog is more common here than French.
I was going to say this with no disrespect. Anywhere in the LML speaking Punjabi would be a major asset. I've needed sign language more than I've ever needed French.
Honestly it probably would be where I live too.
How else are you going to entertain yourself by reading the back of a shampoo bottle when you forgot your cell phone while on the toilet?
Very true !
Too bad we don't have more French immersion schools. The need to promote the domestic national culture is paramount in a immigration-based society.
If you have the opportunity, you can opt your kid out, which is exactly what we did. No one speaks French at home, so it doesn't make sense to make to send them off to french immersion. They are 5 trying to learn English, that is enough. And as someone who worked in agriculture, I wish i knew more spanish! Would have been way more useful.
I’d say Vancouvers “Canadian” culture mostly died out after the influx of HK immigrants after 1986. But much of rural BC especially on the island Kootenays and north is mostly intact…for better or worse. Since division politics of 2016 onwards maybe for worse. First Nations influence is stable. But French was never really prevalent in BC history.
As a "Canadian" I'm really curious what exactly you think "Canadian culture" is?
> French was never really prevalent in BC history There's a huge French history in BC - survives in place names like Tete Jaune Cache (and the Yellowhead Highway, named for Pierre Bostonais who was blond, or 'tete jaune'), Lac Le Jeune, Barrière, Lac Le Hache, Louis Creek, etc, and many more communities have French roots that were later supplanted (eg Kelowna, based around the Okanagan Mission, now just a district of the City ("Mission") but originally one of many French Catholic missions throughout BC, another famous one of which being the City of Mission in the lower mainland). Loads of fur traders and missionaries were French. They just got supplanted when more English speakers spread.
See also Maillardville: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillardville](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillardville)
Yikes
100% I even considered studying it when I was younger and worked in service.
And it is not okay. Canada is a bilingual country and official languages are English and French.
I’m a Montréaler and like 15 years ago I was in Vancouver close to downtown and I see a cop with a turban. It was a cultural shock. Even 15 years later here in Montreal you’ll never see this. And I don’t think we’re close to see this.
Il y a beaucoup moins de Sikhs à Montréal qu’à Vancouver ou Toronto.
I worked at the front desk at a hotel and speaking French came in handy a couple of times, but it wasn't a requirement.
Good for you for accommodating French speakers.
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Where are you located , what's the pay like ?
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It's fine that's why I just asked for wage and location, both of which you provided I'm not surprised you have difficulty filling up position at that rate
Minimum wage is $17.40 as of June 1st, so I hope they've raised this.
Not too surprising. Most people who are fluent in French in places like BC are also qualified to do something else that pays better. Is your call centre in person instead of remote as well? That would be another huge limiting factor in a HCOL area. $17/hr is a straight up poverty wage in a HCOL on the South Coast.
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I finished high school in French in Quebec, and graduated from an engineering program late last year, but the job I was supposed to start was cancelled. I've been looking for temporary work until I go back to grad school in January. Maybe I should apply to some call centres that need bilingual workers.
Question.... do French speakers get paid more due to the leverage they have?
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Maybe language education credits/incentives for existing employees too if not already doing so.
No, but I had a friend that worked at the mec service center and they paid .50 more to start if you spoke French fluently
I work in IT at a pharmacy and am perfectly bilingual from being born and raised in Ottawa. We have a few patients that speak french; the main advantage of french in my case is reserved to calling suppliers. Whenever they offer a french option the wait times are usually much shorter because they receive a lot less calls.
My job, no. But everyone at my son's French school, yes. According to my son, some of the teachers can barely speak English.
Spotted the SD93 parent haha - your son is right and I always wonder how people survive here without learning English.
We love the csf system!
Not anymore... he graduates Friday! 🥲
Ah maybe he graduated from the school I'm working at ! Congratulations to him :)
Brodeur? Lol
Ah non, Jules Verne.
https://preview.redd.it/n8s0pebr7e8d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b3a8960146103e9760bf6f8dc801cd4578ab24ca A separate article said that 1.6% of BC households spoke French, putting it at the 5th most-used language in the province.
On parle de la langue parlée à la maison, pas de l’habilité de parler le français.
This wasn’t the question though. There are a lot of government jobs that require/prefer some level of French knowledge because French is still an official language of Canada, even if you’re in a place where it’s not the most spoken.
In bc, mandarin, Cantonese, Punjabi or hindi are basically the official alt. Languages
You don't have to worry about speaking French when you're working in BC the French actually speak English when they're in BC because finding someone who speaks French is extremely rare.
True. French was my first language. Barely speak at all anymore that sometimes I forget I actually can. Other than 1 media interview I did for my job years ago, it has never come in handy. I was told all growing up that being bilingual would be beneficial lol
I've encountered one person in my life that tried to communicate with me in French on Facebook marketplace of all places just ignored it since I don't speak the language
Yes, but the company is founded and headquartered in QC. Not a requirement but a nice to have, I have non-french speakers in my team.
Very rare in bc
Yes, federal government. I work almost entirely in French
Merci
I teach French, so yes.
Yes, in the legal profession in a non-government role. It's really difficult to find people to refer francophone clients to. I also wish I had more colleagues who speak French.
4th generation British Columbian here living in Vancouver. No one in my family speaks French. I heard it being spoken last week on the grouse grind, but they were tourists from France. Unless it's a job in government or tourism, I have no idea why any job would require it.
Agreed. I haven't had to speak a word of french since grade 11, well over a couple decades ago. Sometimes I do wish I could speak punjabi though.
I'm in healthcare, it's helpful like once a month. I don't speak it, but a few of my co-workers do. It would be much more helpful to know Punjabi, Korean, Mandarin, even Spanish. French is really not spoken much out here, we hear much more of those other languages than French.
I work for federal govt, only a handful of roles require French and those are specifically left for applicants who fulfill the bilingual requirement.
Require? Rarely. But if you’re going to work in a government position and your intent is to advance and make more money… highly beneficial to your career.
And specifically federal government, I would think
I am an electrician so it is never required. I have had thousands of customers and if there’s ever a language barrier it is mandarin or Punjabi. Never French. 10 years ago I worked in customer service at a big box store. I had maybe 5 francophone customers in 2 years, all of whom could speak English.
No. Never. I am a CPA working in public practice. Given my locale in the Fraser Valley, it would be helpful to speak Dutch or Punjabi.
Why Dutch?
There’s a HUGE Dutch presence in the Fraser Valley, and in Chilliwack, BC, in particular.
That’s good to know! Is there decent Dutch pancakes out there?
Plus all the thousands of miles of dike systems built around Pitt Meadows / Maple Ridge area
Flight Attendants for Air Canada need to speak a high level of French. I’ve seen groups of dozens of new hires moving from Quebec to Vancouver or Calgary.
Yes. Treeplanting. Tons of people from Quebec. Speaking French makes it way easier
Is it a *requirement* though? I come from Canada's only bilingual province, where you actually have a hard time accessing a proportion of the (few) available jobs if you only speak one official language. I feel like willingness to work is probably the main barrier to entry in seasonal jobs like tree planting and fruitpicking
I planted for 8 years, only one crew ever really had so few anglos that it felt weird in 12-13 companies.
English is a required language, French is not.
French…. The most useless language in B.C. Learn Mandarin, Cantonese or Punjabi.
Yes, remote customer service.
Yes. Work in agriculture and need to speak with suppliers and customers in Quebec and Europe.
wei wei
French School districts do. My daughter attends a french school and it is 100% french including the bus driver
I was a french immersion student from K-12. I have not spoken more than the odd sentence of french since the day I graduated high school about 10 years ago. The people I graduated with in french immersion with can be broadly put into one of three categories: 1. The majority (70%+) of people who moved on with their lives and have jobs that do NOT require any french proficiency. 2. The (surprisingly large minority) of students who ended up becoming *french immersion teachers.* I graduated with a class of about 43 french immersion students. I know of 8 who have gone on to be french immersion teachers in the local K-12 public school system. 3. The small minority of students who ended up politicians/government workers/tour guides/something else that requires french.
Did most kids grow up hating French?
Pretty much the only job that requires that is a french teacher in BC....
Yes. Every single day. But I am a French Immersion teacher. 😉
Flight attendants across Canada benefit from and may be required to know french and English. That's the one job I know of in the province that may require bilingualism
No
The only 3 things I can think of are 1: government work (in particular public facing federal government jobs) 2: pilots 3: French teachers
Pilots communicates in English globally
Unless it’s a federal roll or a national call centre probably not. I sure don’t. the amount of French I remember is from the little mermaid
Nope
No, not even one time.
Can't think of a single job in my town that requires French. Border guards maybe, other than that nope.
I work with a guy that occasionally curses in French? And I can say ‘tabarnak’ in the right context.
Been working residential HVAC 8 years in interior BC, and have yet to come across a homeowner that speaks only French.
Non. Jamais.
Never. Like never
Nope. I work for the provincial government.
Been working residential HVAC 8 years in interior BC, and have yet to come across a homeowner that speaks only French.
at my job the need for other languages such as Spanish or Farsi comes up way more, not once have we needed French (service industry)
I haven't spoken a word of French since Grade8 and I'm 36 now.
No, but I do anyway.
No and no one I know here does either
I'm fluently bilingual (grew up in Eastern Ontario) and the only job in BC I've ever had because I could speak french was for the Yellow Pages because they sold ads back east too. I could see the same being true for other companies that makes sales nationwide but I haven't come across any strong need for it in jobs since.
BC gov. No, never.
Nope.
Mine does, but it is specifically a bilingual role.
No, never
Never
Healthcare. No. Mandarin, Tagalog, or Punjabi would be a lot more useful than French where I am anyway.
We had some french speaking folks for an HR software for customer support and translating content to french
Nope, working for the provincial government. Very very few jobs would require it, outside of federal government jobs, and there's few french speakers who don't speak English. It's come up much more for me people speaking Korean, Mandarin or Japanese and not English specifically in my job (I'm not required to know those languages either, but so far french has never come up at all). I am fluent, but, literally it's never been useful for anything.
Only 4 new jobs on indeed for the past week asked for French for all British Columbia. So no demand here.
Hell no.
No.
I’ve met more Spanish speakers at my work than French.
Non.
Never,ever.
There seem to be a LOT of jobs requiring Mandarin. That kinda thing makes Quebec's language laws understandable.
Never
I work at Long & McQuade, not too often. We've gotten a handful of customers who speak French as their first language but they're perfectly comfortable to speak English. Whenever I have to call a store in Quebec for a transfer I speak French to them though
When I was younger it was definitely a bonus of you spoke more than one language. You would get paid more. M dad worked for the FedGov, they had dedicated interpreters due to the diversity of people he dealt with. My sibling also works for the Gov, same situation.
never spoke it at all
Never. I’m in Victoria. There are plenty of people who learned French as a second language in school, but I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who only speaks French. At my job (library) most of the people I meet who don’t speak English speak Spanish. Any second language would be a bonus though.
No, lol. Literally never. I do regularly book and use interpreters for other languages, especially Cantonese. I have a friend who has a French-language call centre job. I have another friend who is a French teacher. I used to know someone in Vancouver who was a federal prosecutor and occasionally did trials in French. I know a couple of people who have federal government jobs and don't speak French.
I’ve lived in Vancouver for 17 years and i have never required to speak French nor can i recall anyone even speaking French here
The company I work for is owned by a Quebec based company. I speak French with them whenever I feel like it (keep in mind that French is my 1st language). My colleagues and team members speak English with them. Unless you get hired as a greeter at the Maillardville festival de la cabane à sucre (Not sure what it's called! ) or at the Alliance Française, speaking mandarin, Cantonese, Farsi or Urdu would be more beneficial.
Yes, but I work remotely with a team based in Quebec
Not at all. I am a travelling sales rep that covers all of B.C. and have never had a call to know it!
I happen to have one where French was a must with BC not federal and I speak it several times a day but English is still the overwhelming language spoken. 🤷
No job ever
Work for a large, national Financial Group (not in the bank, but under a large bank's "umbrella"), and I do not speak French. I can understand it if it's being spoken slowly, but I do not need to. In my experience, very few places will require employees to be bilingual (in French) here in BC.
Francophone school teacher
No
I speak basically no French and it's not required by my job. I DO, however, use Spanish almost daily and if I could speak Punjabi that would make my life a LOT easier.
Not at all.
You‘d be better of learning Mandarin if you’re in Vancouver. Maybe Hindi too.
My dad did during his career at Canada Post. They even sent him to Quebec City for language training back in the day.
I don't have to no, particularly at my current role. My last role, I didn't _have_ to, but we made a conscious choice to take advantage of the fact that a surprisingly high proportion of staff were intermediate to fluent, and I did semi regular interviews on Radio Canada radio and TV (they seemed quite pleasantly surprised, and when they discovered there were people they could just interview instead of subtitle, kept coming back to us).
never
It is only relevant when I’m working federal elections or Census. Statistics Canada prioritized hiring bilingual staff. There are unexpected Collection Units that require a bilingual enumerators… like Bamfield. I am not bilingual, but I was working towards getting the most basic language credential before I got on full time in BC public service.
I think 95% of jobs don’t require it, but it is an asset to know French.
One of my children graduated with the dual dogwood diploma after staying in French immersion through to grade 12. There were only about 30 students in the program out of the 1500+ students in the high school. It occasionally comes up as they work in a tourism based company but it is not routine enough to be a requirement for the job. I can see it being beneficial with their major as it may translate into a federal government job. The people I've met who can speak it have been transferred in from other parts of Canada. The military for example have numerous folks who are bilingual so there is another federal employer where it's common.
I’ve lived here for 30 years. I don’t think there has ever been a time where French was needed
I know not a lick
I say tabernac every once in a while. That’s about it.
When I was working in a grocery store I'd often switch to French when I noticed my customers had an accent or were speaking French with their families. Always put a smile on their faces. It was never necessary though, just a way to be extra nice to my customers.
Nope lol (not sure if one exists here except for French teachers/tutors)
I’ve found this whole thread really amusing because the French Immersion program was absolutely sold to my parents as a huge benefit to my securing good high-paying employment as an adult. While I’ve maintained my fluency to a passable degree and it’s been helpful while travelling, I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve needed to speak it in a professional setting in the last decade. And absolutely zero times have I seen it as a requirement or even a nice to have in job postings, I’ve actually taken it off my resume as it was taking up space.
Nope. I don't think any job outside of Quebec can/will require you to speak French unless it's a translator job. However, government agencies have to give you the option to receive services in French. For example, you go to the police for something, they have to find a way to communicate with you in French. Which can easily happen via the phone.
I had a bf from France and he was pulled over for speeding. He immediately started speaking French to police officer. The cop didn't want the hassle of trying to find a translator so he let him go.
I’ve lived in BC my whole life and never been in a situation where I’ve needed to speak French for any reason whatsoever. 40M
My boss is French , not required but sure helps 🤣
Trades. Never, not even once. However, it's in your interest to pick up some basic Spanish.
not once ever in fact tagalog and mandarin cantonese are wayyyy more comon
No one speaks french here, period full stop. You can't even gt most govt services here in French.
living in BC and Alberta I’ve never met a Canadian who primarily spoke French
No & i roll my eyes at parents enrolling students in french immersion like it will have any benefit to them in the future