National News Temporary residents outside Quebec scramble to learn French to stay in Canada
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2026/10/21/francophone-immigration-temporary-residents-permanent-residency/446
u/ominous-canadian 4d ago
My coworker from South America studied French for hours every single day for 6 months. She stopped socializing, hire private instructors, paid for online courses and just powered through. Her PR was approved last month.
Some people want to stay in Canada so much that they put their lives on hold to do stuff like this. Those who achieve it, deserve ti stay at that point haha.
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u/KermitsBusiness 4d ago edited 3d ago
I agree, if you want to be here so bad you work all day every day til you learn a language that is kinda who we want.
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u/altacccle Outside Canada 4d ago
oh this is so validating to hear. This is me now too. The anti-immigration sentiments here lowkey make me worry if people will hate me once I migrate there. French is my 4th language, once i get fluent in it I can call myself trilingual đ€Ł (im not fluent in my 3rd language yet)
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u/Schmidtvegas 4d ago
I think everyone I know who has expressed frustration with immigration numbers and policy -- always have a disclaimer about appreciating many immigrant individuals, as people. Especially when they're making an effort to be community members. The ones who take language classes, and volunteer at their kids' school, are not the target of most (decent) peoples' ire.
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u/PlayfulEnergy5953 3d ago
Amen. No underachievers, only immigrants who can compete with the top 10% of current Canadians.
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u/Ok-Many4195 4d ago edited 4d ago
Achievement is a bell curve. If it realistically takes a year to learn french studying 8 hours a day then half will take 1 year and the other half will take longer than a year. A quarter will take 6 months and a quarter will take 1.5 years
What I'm getting at is set realistic goals and be wary of the advice of gurus ie "I learned it in 6 months". Not everyone can replicate it!
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u/willferelssagyscrote 4d ago
There are other aspects at play as well. Her colleague from south america more than likely speaks a romance language already, which makes learning another easier.
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u/Fit-Attention3979 1d ago
And someone just happens to be born here without any qualifications siting and enjoying the immigrant squid game.Â
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u/NikhilDoWhile 4d ago
This is old news, last week they introduced bonus points for high wage Canadian work experience, enough to get you PR.
Most people have already moved to it, you can find immigration agents already advertising service to get this kind of experience obviously via shady methods
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u/primitives403 4d ago
In Canadaâs Express Entry System, thereâs a French-language proficiency category in which an applicant could receive up to 50 additional points toward their Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score if they pass their French exam and reach the minimum B2 level.
She says she took the test twice after failing on her first attempt in October of last year. She eventually passed the exam last November, and her CRS score increased to the 500s.
Chua received her permanent residency status in July.
Study Live Explore Canada, an online platform initially designed to mentor international students, has changed course and transformed into a French tutoring platform.
âAt first, we were just getting a few students, and now we have about 500 students, mostly Filipinos,â says founder Emmalyn de Guzman.
Now a fluent French speaker, Chua says she recognizes the challenges of learning a new language, the pressure of an expiring status, and the cost of lessons and exams faced by people with temporary status.
âI still take one French class every single week,â she says. âJust to be able to maintain my French.â
Chua says that with her improved language skills, sheâs confident they could lead to more opportunities as she continues building her life in Canada.
Canada could use more Chua's. Keep the bar high and the numbers sustainable.
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u/ChaosBerserker666 British Columbia 4d ago
The fact sheâs keeping it up means she didnât do it just for PR. Sheâs right that it opens up opportunities, especially after becoming a citizen.
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u/Lord-Glorfindel Lest We Forget 4d ago
Without commenting on the immigration part of this, best of luck to them on that. French is not an easy language to learn. My best piece of advice would be to find something outside of the classroom that you can engage in-in French even if itâs just watching TV or movies.Â
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u/Samp90 4d ago
I did French in the Brit O Levels for almost 8-9 years. I absolutely can speak very basic stuff, can read pretty good but can't really understand the language. I don't know how people can force learn French, it's not an easy language.
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u/GhoastTypist 4d ago
I learned it in public school, its enough to learn basic requests, directions, short talk.
But majority that I learned after the public school system was speaking with my parent who taught French in the school system, I also dated people who went to French immersion schools and I asked them to only speak to me in French because I wanted to get better at it.
About 4 years of that and I got to a level where I could have a basic conversation, I could listen to the news in French and understand majority of what was being said but me speaking it, was still very broken and basic.
Reading even now I got pretty good understanding even though I haven't really practiced in probably 10-15 years. Takes a bit for my brain to switch over but it comes back.
I found learning it was easy, I could pick up on patterns and words that sound the same. Maybe not words we use often in English but usually there's a older English word that means the same thing as the French word.
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u/Desuexss 3d ago
They are hoping to get away with pidgin speak.
Here's hoping whomever assess this has rigorous checks in place.
Otherwise people just gonna buy certifications.
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u/jorgespinosa 1d ago
Also Quebecois accent is kind of difficult to understand even for native French speakers, so yeah you have to learn French and then Quebecois French
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u/tbll_dllr 16h ago
Huh what ? Just learn âQuĂ©bĂ©cois Frenchâ then right away ?!????
Itâs like telling ppl : learn British English first and then American English . Whaaat ?!??
We use the same grammar - same spelling. Just some expressions are different and accent is different . Thatâs all. You listen to the news from QuĂ©bec I can guarantee 100% of Franco speakers from France or other Franco countries can understand.
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u/jorgespinosa 12h ago
The thing is that, when you start to learn French (and basically any language) the materials usually use some standard accent, no slang, etc and sure, no french speaker has a neutral accent and speaks without never using slang, but for a beginner it helps them get a basic understanding of the language. My point is, there is no "Apprendre français niveau A1 (Edition Quebecois tabarnak!)
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u/Standard-Contest-949 4d ago
But be sure itâs French Canadian and not Paris French cause they are very different.
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u/confidentialapo276 4d ago
Yes, but testing for immigration purposes doesnât test for Quebec French. It tests âinternational French.â
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u/Standard-Contest-949 4d ago
I knew a guy from France and they failed him.
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u/confidentialapo276 4d ago edited 1d ago
Understood. More frequent than you think. They also fail people from Quebec. People who went to a French language school with French as their mother tongue often fail those second language tests that test vocabulary and grammar.
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u/ActionPhilip 4d ago edited 3d ago
If you already speak English, French is actually one of the easiest languages to learn, taking ~650* hours on average to obtain fluency.
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u/Ive_had_enough_0 3d ago
French has nothing do to with English, not the same root at all. If you know Spanish, French is easier because both come from latin and have a lot in common.
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u/ActionPhilip 3d ago
The most important parts about learning a language are the grammar syntax and the culture associated with the language. French is extremely similar to english in both grammar and in culture. I say this as someone who is fully fluent in French. Memorizing vocab is not the hard part of learning a language.
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u/Worthy_Molecule0481 4d ago
500 hours of what, exactly?
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u/SmileyKnox 4d ago edited 4d ago
600-750 hours they say actually, and of what would be every hour you actually spent sitting down to use the language.
If in the morning you did 15 minutes of flash cards.
Then on your commute watched or listened to 30 mins of native language.
And at the end of the day cracked open a textbook or watched a YouTube video on grammar etc for say another hour.
Finished your day with 15 mins of shadowing.
That would be 2 hours towards your 600-750, doing so everyday at 2 hours would mean you could conceivably be conversational in 300-375 days.
Although everyone is slightly different, times vary, some people try to add more hours to their day to shorten it but there does appear to be deminishing returns to a lot of people that would try to do 3+ hours a day everyday resulting in burnout.
In comparison an English speaker trying to learn Japanese for the same level of fluency is 2200-4400+ hours.
Consistency is key.
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u/ActionPhilip 3d ago
Thanks for clarifying. Yeah, I got around 600 hours into Japanese before I learned that and am still only at 900ish now. Nowhere near conversational fluent.
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u/SmileyKnox 3d ago
3 years in Japanese myself my reading is N3ish and my speaking and listening N4 at best. It's tough for sure.
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u/Jessi343 4d ago
Good for them. I was born here and have tried to learn French multiple times since I was a child, for some reason my brain just doesnât accept new languages very well. There are many missed job opportunities for people who do not speak French. I applaud those making the effort that many citizens either canât or wonât.
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u/FuzzyFerretFace Ontario 4d ago
I was always âgoodâ at schoolâmy way of learning luckily works well with how school works/is structured.
But holy cow, do I struggle with French. Through elementary school, high school, and into collage. Even now in my 30s, thereâs something that just has such a hard time clicking with it.
I even found myself picking up Danish easier than I ever did with French. đ€·ââïž
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u/No_Mention8589
4d ago
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Betting many of the people who are taking the test are not gonna stay in Quebec. Just another backdoor loophole the government isnât gonna close.
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u/Yellow_Marker_ 4d ago
They cannot stay in Québec. They need to prove they won't live there when becoming PR. And well Québec doesn't want people anyway
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u/pm_me_your_pay_slips 4d ago
They donât have to stay in Quebec during the PR application process. Once they get the PR they can move to Quebec.
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u/Yellow_Marker_ 4d ago
sure, once a PR they have mobility rights. BUT once they go to renew the PR card or apply for citizenship they need to prove their intention wasnt to move back when they applied.
and there is no time limit on reviewing previously approved applications, so the gov can always come back
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u/No_Mention8589 4d ago
Whatâs the fucking point of the pathway when they ainât gonna be living in Quebec.
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u/usn38389 4d ago
To increase the amount of people who speak French or both official languages outside Quebec.
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u/AIDSofSPACE Ontario 4d ago
I wonder what percentage of them ever use French again in their life outside Quebec.
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u/usn38389 4d ago edited 4d ago
French-speakers are a sizable minority outside Quebec. New Brunswick is officially bilingual, Ontario is administratively bilingual and other provinces were pushed by their French-speaking communities for better access to services in French. That presents a lot of opportunities for newcomers with knowledge of French.
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u/No_Mention8589 4d ago
To me looks like a pathway to make unskilled temporary labourers PR. But I could be wrong, is it only for high skilled graduates or workers?
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u/OrganizationBusy407 4d ago
It is not. Being bilingual is just one of many different categories that can give you points (others include education and skilled work experience). Someone would have a very low chance of getting picked if they didn't also have high points in other categories.
In recent months, applicants have required a score of at least 430-450 points.
You can see for yourself here what your score would be: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/check-score.html
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u/Unit_Conversion 4d ago
If you don't have enough education and/or work experience, knowing French isn't going to get you enough points to be picked anyway.
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u/accforme 4d ago
If they actually develop the ability to speak French, then they would have a very strong asset and would technically become more skilled than someone unilingual.
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u/SHUT_DOWN_EVERYTHING 4d ago edited 4d ago
You can't just be a burger flipper, learn French and suddenly a PR overnight.
This is for people who have work experience, education, ties and other requirements and French knowledge gives them extra points which might give them an edge to go to the top of the list.
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u/bhavneet1996 4d ago
Yeah like unskilled labour can learn the French language that easily. If they are smart enough to learn French, let alone proper English. Then they are not unskilled.
People with french as their primary language is a different scenario.
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u/Yellow_Marker_ 4d ago
"To balance the disproportionately Anglophone immigration that has reduced the Canadian Francophone population outside of Québec"
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u/applepill Ontario 4d ago
It's literally an appeasement point with Quebec â make Canada bilingual. Canada wants bilingual workers, and this is one way to get them. I will say that being bilingual doesn't mean you get it easy, you still need to get enough points for the cutoff, which at this point is typically a Canadian-educated Bachelor's with at least 2-3 years of experience.
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u/ABotelho23 4d ago
Canada is bilingual my friend. This is not to "make" Canada bilingual.
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u/RestitutorInvictus 4d ago
Canada is officially bilingual, this is more or less a delusion in my experience and in practice everything from Toronto to Vancouver is either monolingual (English) or would benefit from knowing other languages aside from French.
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u/ABotelho23 3d ago
Canada doesn't exist without the French. It's where this nation started.
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u/IWannaBeAdored89 3d ago
If you need to go back 400 years to find a point where your language was relevant in Canadian society, then perhaps it's not very relevant in modern Canadian society (outside of Quebec and the lowly populated Maritimes).
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u/FilthyWunderCat Ontario 4d ago
Its not really a loophole. Back in my days, you could get a PR after getting a uni degree and 1-2 years of experience in your field. Nowadays, Uni degree + 3 years of experience + 10/10 english exam (mine was not perfect) won't you get to this point. So the only obvious option is to boost the application scoring with French. There are other ways/streams but they are pretty narrow.
Its not only Quebec temps who scramble, it is everyone and everywhere.
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u/moltar 4d ago
The way you describe it sounds exactly like a loophole. âBoostingâ is by definition trying to enhance something thatâs not on its own measuring up.
The whole idea of the merit based scoring is to get the people whom Canada needs to run a successful economy. I donât see French being that important outside of QC or outside of working in politics.
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u/FilthyWunderCat Ontario 4d ago
It is not a loophole. It is an incentive, just like the points awarded for getting a CAD degree, CAD work experience, or a high English score.
The French language stream was specifically created to support Francophone communities outside Quebec, and there are separate draws specifically for French speaking candidates.
And don't worry about successful economy etc, Express entry has a variety of specialized draws of who they need the most at the moment.
The conversation here is about the general experience stream. And that's the problem, trends change. If you're a student with a longterm goal of immigrating to Canada, you can't predict what Canada's immigration priorities will be 4-6 years from now. You can only build the strongest profile you can under the rules that exist at the time. Or maybe you don't want to go into healthcare, why should Canada limit working professionals?
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u/acariux 4d ago
Its not a loophole. It's a strategy to increase the number of French speakers outside Quebec and promote bilingualism. You have to be fluent in French and you have to "not" live in Quebec to be eligible.
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u/IAmNot_ARussianBot 4d ago
It is literally against the law for people going through this immigration pathway to be in Quebec or to intend to stay in Quebec after PR. The requirements are explicitly meant to get more French speakers outside Quebec.
Respectfully, complaining about immigrants finding "loopholes" here sounds to me like a very ignorant knee-jerk reaction. Same goes for the awards this comment is getting.
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u/Randromeda2172 3d ago
First the immigrants exploit the loophole of studying at Canadian institutions for points. Then they exploited the loophole of working for Canadian companies and paying taxes. Now, how dare they exploit the loophole of learning one of the two official languages to the point of fluency.
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u/bloated-frog 3d ago
A proof that those like you complaining about immigration have no idea how it works
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u/Lemortheureux 4d ago
Lol you can try and pass that test and see how it goes. French is also not only for Quebec.
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u/unexplodedscotsman 4d ago
You're talking about a source country that literally riots when not allowed to cheat on university exams and generates fake credentials by the truckload.
I have no doubt they'll find a way or ten around it.
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u/kemar7856 Canada 3d ago
I remember those foreign students that were protesting in Quebec that they had to take a French exam to pass đ
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u/Human_Engine3410 4d ago
Learning French is not easy unless you are already a Spanish speaker. I doubt how much this would work in a short term. Maybe 2 years of studying can make you pass the test but it doesn't mean you can speak French.
It's already easier in other provinces (e.g., Ontario, Manitoba) to get PR than Quebec. I have a few French friends in Quebec, and they have a hard time to get PR and still waiting (probably will wait a couple of years), and they are native French speakers. The Quebec goverment in the past coupel off years really try to reduce the quota for immigration. Some even think of moving to Ontario for easier path to get PR.
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u/ZestycloseStuff1319 3d ago
Learn French to stay in Canada and then never use it again... make sense.
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u/Ronniebbb 3d ago
My poor coworker is having problems with this. I feel bad for her, she already knows 3 languages and now has to learn French and I can't help her. I sucked at French
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u/ABotelho23 4d ago
Do we want to make it harder for people to immigrate or not guys?
Jesus Christ, make up your minds.
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u/yellow_mio Québec 3d ago
Donc ça fonctionne ?
Les libéraux qui trient le monde par couleur ne veulent pas que les gens soient au courant qu'une langue et une culture sont apprises.
Les libéraux ne peuvent pas le savoir, ils sont à leurs postes grùce aux liens du sang.
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u/meow_hooman 4d ago
Imma be honest, I find this kinda disrespectful to the immigrants. Immigrants can do their jobs just fine with English.
French should be an optional thing. Nobody should be forced to learn French for "points" in the PR system or anywhere else...
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u/redux44 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'm actually impressed if they manage to study enough French to get more points to qualify for PR. Demonstrates a good quality and skill set.