Xref: utzoo can.general:1786 can.politics:2798
Path: utzoo!mnetor!philmtl!zap!fortin
From: fortin@zap.UUCP (Denis Fortin)
Newsgroups: can.general,can.politics
Subject: Re: postings in the French language
Message-ID: <1151@zap.UUCP>
Date: 28 Sep 89 02:08:18 GMT
References: <1989Sep6.222038.2707@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <1178@mannix.iros1.UUCP> <3837.251eb4d9@uwovax.uwo.ca> <1989Sep26.132533.12660@utzoo.uucp> <22345@looking.on.ca>
Reply-To: fortin@zap.UUCP (Denis Fortin)
Organization: (none), Montreal QC, Canada
Lines: 34

In article <22345@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes:
>In fact, since nobody who doesn't read English would be reading this group,
>one can only assume that posting en Francais is done to make a point.

Maybe, then again maybe not.  It is possible to be able to read & understand
a language, but not feel comfortable enough about writing it to want to
take a chance to have your ideas misinterpreted.  (For example, I've noticed
that a number of people respond in English to postings in French adding a
note to the effect that they can understand what is written, but they are
not conversant enough with French to reply in the original poster's
language...  That's sounds fine to me.)

>Canada has two official languages, but if somebody came to you and asked
>directions in English, to respond in French (when you know English) would
>be rude.

True.... to a certain extent.  This is generally the policy that I try
to follow (respond to a posting in its original language -- which is
why I'm posting this in English), but then again it is conceivable that
some people might feel more comfortable writing in their mother tongue
even when they respond to a posting in some other language.  The only
risk that they expose themselves to is that the original poster might
not be able to read the response -- but then again, there's nothing so
terrible about that (I'd object if somebody was using a foreign language
to insult or attack somebody who could not respond, but in all other
cases, it would most probably not matter).

Actually, I have had conversations with people where I spoke French and
they spoke English, and it ended up working pretty well (I'll admit it's
fairly rare, but it's happened to me on a few occasions).
-- 
 Denis Fortin,                            | fortin@zap.uucp
 CAE Electronics Ltd                      | uunet!philmtl!zap!fortin
 The opinions expressed above are my own. | fortin%zap@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu