Moving to Montreal?

[Anonymous]

Bit of a long shot, but does anyone on here in live or used to live in Montreal? I’m planning to move there next summer and trying to get a sense of what neighborhoods would be good for a young family and any insight into the school system — I would want to put my kids in French elementary when they’re old enough (we don’t meet the criteria for an English school I’m pretty sure and bilingualism for the kids is definitely one of the motivations for the move). I’m not fluent in French myself if that matters.

[Anonymous]

Start Duo Lingo right now to learn French.

[Anonymous]

Look at Outremont.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look at Outremont.

Thanks can you provide any more context on why you recommend it?

[Anonymous]

Moving to Montreal in hopes your kids will be fluent is insane. You don't even speak French!

[Anonymous]

OP here. Since it apparently wasn’t sufficiently clear in my post: I do understand French. I am not fluent in French. I am confident in my ability to manage government paperwork and to make friends and am very forward to having the chance to improve my language skills, but I’m not fluent.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Since it apparently wasn’t sufficiently clear in my post: I do understand French. I am not fluent in French. I am confident in my ability to manage government paperwork and to make friends and am very much looking forward to having the chance to improve my language skills, but I’m not fluent.

[Anonymous]

Look very closely at French language laws and how they will impact you and your family. I live two hours from Montreal in Ottawa and I would not move there as an Anglophone now. I do speak French as well, but I am not Francophone and that makes a difference.

[Anonymous]

Do you have " papers" to live in Montreal?

[Anonymous]

Actually, Westmount may be better than Outremont.

https://barnes-quebec.com/en/live-invest-apartment-house-luxury-real-estate-westmount-montreal-quebec/#:~:text=Westmount%20is%20the%20residential%20area,nicknamed%20%E2%80%9CLa%20Ville%20Jardin.%E2%80%9D

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look very closely at French language laws and how they will impact you and your family. I live two hours from Montreal in Ottawa and I would not move there as an Anglophone now. I do speak French as well, but I am not Francophone and that makes a difference.

OP here. What would be your concerns about the French language laws? As I understand it, they mean I have to do all my government business in French (annoying but manageable) and my kids have to go to school in French (desirable in my opinion). But it sounds like there’s a bigger cultural concern? Do you see the anglophone/francophone divide getting more fraught in recent years?

[Anonymous]

I’m so confused. Why do you think that your kids would not qualify for the English schools? Do they not know how to speak English?

[Anonymous]

DP. Is this a done deal? Or are you just thinking about moving to Montreal?

I used to live in Montreal many years ago when there was a referendum to separate Quebec from Canada. The vote was 49.4 yes and 50.6 no or something like that. So Quebec stayed. But there was tension for many years before that.

Things were calm for a while but in recent years, Quebec has passed several laws and adopted practices that are frankly discriminatory.

I echo the other PP who said as an anglophone, I would not live there with a family. I speak French and it improved while living in Montreal. I was single when I lived there and I still love Montreal - but to visit, not to live there. It is hard to live in a place where you are treated as a second class citizen, even if you speak French. You're still not "pure laine".

But you asked about neighborhoods - Westmount is a nice area for Anglophones. Outremont is also nice - many orthodox Jews live here.

[Anonymous]

I lived in Montreal for ten years and I can tell you that this is a terrible idea.

Quebec is culturally very different from the rest of Canada. Montreal is less different from the rest of the province but it’s still in Quebec. There are reasons why they want to secede. It will be a big culture shock, Americans are not well liked, and the French you’ve learned will not help you at all there. It’s also one of the coldest places on earth and things do not work efficiently the way you’re used to.

[Anonymous]

You don’t need to move in order for your kids to be bilingual. But if you want to move, wouldn’t it make more sense to move somewhere within the US where they might better learn Spanish?

In Montreal, you’ll either live in an anglophone enclave (many are Jewish) where your kids will learn French from anglophones and have anglophone friends, and they’ll never be truly comfortable with Quebecois French or fully immersed in Quebec culture. (Nothing necessarily wrong with this…unless the next referendum is “yes”). Or, you can try to fully immerse yourself, you won’t make friends easily and your kids will be bullied, but eventually they’ll be proper Francophones…and when they travel to France or any other French speaking country, everyone will be rude to them and ask them to speak English.