Is it possible to live in Montreal without knowing French?

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pomme de terre

I am an immigrant of Montreal and I've been here for more than 5 years now. Living here is a paradise if they don't require you to speak French. I'm not saying they don't speak english, but they prefer you to speak there native language which is French although it's english/french here. Yes they say it's bilingual here in Quebec but finding a good job for english speakers is difficult.

But then, you'll learn the language eventually. In the beginning it's hard but you'll adopt to the environment.

As for jobs, english speaking people can work at call centers which requires you to call english clients (Americans) or you can work in a small time job like cleaning services or factories which don't require speaking French. (Sucks!)

Any ways, come join me here and welcome to the club!

I grew up in Montreal and didn't speak any French until I was 12. I can assure you of two things:

1. knowing French is not necessary, especially if you are living on the West Island (ie Pierrefonds, Dollard des Ormeaux)

2. you will pick up some French and you won't even be aware of it until someone says something that you will understand

Bonne chance et bienvenue a Montreal

freeside49

Montreal is fully bi-lingual and you won't have issue getting around day to day in English but employment for a unilingual person might prove difficult. In any kind of customer service or direct public type job you would need French. You'll pick up French quick enough if you live there. Soon you'll be like other montrealers who seem to switch french to english sometimes a couple times in a sentence. Quebec city is even more french thahn Montreal. .
Ottawa and any cities west from toronto to vancouver in the west are pretty much uniligually english

Goddess of Grammar

Public services are typically in French, but you're generally allowed to get them in English if you ask. Leases and other contracts, for example, may be in English as long as they include a clause stating that both parties agree to that. Things like announcements in the Metro will be in French, but if there's an actual emergency, they'll use English too.

You should be able to find a doctor who can speak English (natively or very well). There are some English hospitals (Royal Victoria, St. Mary's, Montreal Children's) where the nurses must speak English (as well as French), so you'll find that doctors associated with those hospitals often have English as their mother tongue.

Jobs are a bit harder--most places of employment are required to have French as the language of work, but exceptions are made for other-language cultural/media/educational institutions (like the English newspaper The Gazette or an English-language college) as well as for small businesses (don't know how small).

Bonne chance and enjoy Montreal!

itssoeasy

yes, you can live there without knowing french. however, I think you should try your best to learn it because that way you will have more opportunities in the future.

i think we're lucky here to be able to learn french, i dunno about everyone else, but i think its a really nice language. haha
but anyways, good luck!

orange

yes you'll eventually catch u p

Stargazer

You can get away with it if you go live in the west island of montreal, Pointe Claire, Kirland, or on the south shore in Greenfeild park. but eventually you will learn some french and get by, people in montreal are very nice people, if they see you are trying to speak french, they will do their best to speak to you in english

Jim B

With all the other great places to live in Canada, where the working language is English, why would you put yourself in a situation where you are at a huge dis-advantage ?

Although Montreal is a nice place to live, face the facts, you will be seriously handicapped by your lack of French language ability. Why not take advantage of your obvious English language skills, and go some where else, in Canada.

Jim B.

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