Are the people of Montreal accepting and friendly to American students?

Question

Is the quebecois dialect hard to understand? Which language do most college-aged students speak with friends? (I'll be attending an english-language college there in winter)

Answer 1

I went to Concordia for 2 years and my experience in Montreal was overall wonderful. If you speak no French, you may find yourself in a pickle once in awhile (especially if you are in East Montreal) but most of Montrealers are bilingual and are very welcoming. I went there with minimal French knowledge and by the time I left, I can read/understand pretty much anything. Quebecois takes some getting used to, there's a lot more hockineg and guttural noises than Francais but every language has different dialects. Most friends speak whatever language they've grown up with, although my boyfriend/his family are half English half French so sometimes their sentences are Frenglish ;-S. Actually, most of the time they are Frenglish. Haha! Good luck on your stay in Montreal.

Answer 2

Montreal is open to american students because there are 2 english universities so there are a lot of english students. as for understanding french, I think you should pick some of it up, although from experience its hard to learn french in the english school "milieu". but anyways, montreal is a good city for students, you should have fun.

Answer 3

Which college?

For your information, I love Americans!

So much so that I even ended up marrying one!

What does that tell you, huh?

And by the way, if you're friendly towards us, we'll be friendly towards you so stop worrying!

Good luck to you though!

Answer 4

Some do some don't. That is life for you.

Answer 5

As a person of Montreal, I went out with 2 American students in my three years at McGill--so that's not bad, right?

Yes you may find the accent hard to understand.

Most of the students at the English-language colleges and universities speak English most of the time, either because it's their first language (probably 3/4 of them) or because they're there to improve their English, or because the friends don't speak their language.