Quebec is in Canada, it’s also not the only Francophone region in Canada. There are also most certainly major economic zones in Canada where you would need to know French to conduct business. And I assume you could also hire a translator for Spanish, no?
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 19 hours ago
But we’re talking about economic utility. Quebec isn’t Canada; it is much smaller.
In contrast, Mexico has a GDP near Canada as a whole and there isn’t a bilingual legal framework to support business deals. Furthermore, there are more Spanish speaking countries to make deals with in the Western Hemisphere; the closest that French has is Haiti.
ageedizzle@piefed.ca 19 hours ago
Quebec is one of the most economically active regions in Canada. But we can out that aside for now because, again, Quebec is not the only francophone region in Canada. The province I’m from doesn’t even recognize French as an official language, yet there are people who live here who are born here, are educated here, and work here, and die here, all without ever achieving more that basic English proficiency because they are so immersed in the Francophone subculture here.
So if what you are worried about is legal frameworks, then yes, you don’t need your lawyer to be bilingual to do business with Canada in some cases. But that doesn’t diminish the fact that the people who you hope to do business with, and your potential customer base, might not know anything beyond broken English (if they know any English at all).
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 18 hours ago
But if you’re looking at an American choosing a language based on potential job opportunities, Spanish is likely going to offer far more upside than French unless that American has certain ties which would make French more relevant to them. For large parts of the USA, knowing Spanish will be more locally relevant than knowing French.
It isn’t saying that French is a bad language for Americans to learn, but that most of the country would likely see Spanish as more economically useful.
ageedizzle@piefed.ca 17 hours ago
Well I think that would depend, right? If you’re from a region of the States where there’s more economic activity with Mexico, then sure it makes more sense to learn Spanish. But there are also areas in the States where you have comparatively more economic activity with Canada, then it makes more sense to learn French.
Can we at least agree that it makes more sense for an American to learn French than Portuguese, contrary to what was suggested earlier in the conversation?