Scene: A downtown shoe store, mid-afternoon, out shopping with a good friend of mine. She’s francophone with perfect English, I’m anglophone with pretty good French and we usually speak English whenever we hang out, though we switch back and forth a lot. Typical Montreal, right?
Only the sales clerk seemed very confused by it all when, after chatting in English about various shoes for a while, she asked him for a couple of pairs to try on in her size, in French.
“How is it that you speak such good French,” he asked her (in French).
“Well, I’m francophone,” she answered.
He didn’t seem to get it. Maybe he assumed by the way we were speaking English, just a couple of blocks from the comedy fest, that we were tourists. Maybe he’s not local and just hasn’t been here long enough to realize that franglais is as much a part of Montreal as poutine and potholes.
Whatever the case, this was definitely another Montreal “first”. Especially when we got asked for impromptu English lessons.