If you want to learn French in Montreal, you should be very careful about which part of
the city you live in or visit. French isn’t as dominant everywhere in the city, and if
you’re new to Montreal the language differences between neighbourhoods are not obvious at
all.
Here’s a language map of the island of Montreal. It shows how many people speak French as their
first official language, which basically means that their French is stronger than their English,
ignoring any other languages they speak.
These obviously aren’t the only people who can speak French, but they’re the best people
to have around for French exposure and practice, so they’re going to be the basis of our
neighbourhood recommendations.
Green areas on the map show neighbourhoods where people who are stronger in French than
English make up at least 50% of the population, which is light green, or at least 75% of the
population, which is dark green. If you’re serious about learning French, you should
try to at least live in a light green area, but ideally a dark green area if possible.
If it helps get you oriented, here’s the Montreal Metro system on the map. We’ll
come back to this view later for a summary at the end, but first we’re going to cover
the good and bad areas for French across the island of Montreal.
Let’s start with the places you want to avoid. These areas are different from each
other in a lot of ways, but they share one thing: they act like anglophone or multilingual
bubbles that won’t give you the typical Montreal or Quebec experience.
The first place to avoid is downtown. The areas around McGill and Concordia, the two
English universities, are among the least French places in the city. What’s worse
for aspiring French learners is that people and businesses downtown are very used to using
English with tourists and visitors.
Another area to avoid is the big block of English to the west of downtown. It spans
much of the neighbourhoods of Côte-Des-Neiges, Notre-Dame-De-Grâce, and LaSalle, and then
the independent cities of Westmount, Hamstead, Côte Saint-Luc, and Montreal West.
Other less French areas to watch out for are the neighbourhood of Park Extension in the
city and also the West Island, which is the large but less populated suburban area to
the west of the airport.
The problem with these more English parts of the city isn’t that there’s no one
who can speak French to you. Even the traditional English enclave of Westmount still has 25%
of the population stronger in French than English and 80% of the population capable
of speaking French.
The problem with these areas is that they make it so easy and natural to speak English
in most contexts. You’re already going out of your comfort zone when you practice your
second language; you’ll make it even harder for yourself if you choose to live in an area
where English is the default.
The easiest way to guarantee a more French area is to go to the large eastern portion
of the city, starting at Saint-Laurent Boulevard. It’s really northeast geographically, but
directions in Montreal are skewed by the road layout and the flow of the river.
This includes the neighbourhoods of the Plateau, Rosemont, Villeray, Ahuntsic, and Hochelaga-Maisonneuve,
extending to most of the rest of the island in that direction. Most of these areas are
dark green, which means that people who are French dominant outnumber, by 3 to 1, everyone
else---meaning people who are English dominant or equally strong in French and English.
This is a great language learning environment because French will be the default language
that most people will use in most contexts. You’ll hear a lot of French around you,
and defaulting to French yourself will feel more natural and less awkward here than in
other parts of the city.
Other concentrations of French around the city include Verdun, St-Henri, Ville-Émard,
Côte-Saint-Paul, Nun’s Island, LaChine, the area around the University of Montreal,
much of Outremont, and then most of the independent Town of Mont-Royal.
But these areas aren’t as large or as French as the eastern portion of the city, so learning
French here might take more effort and dedication on your end. Still, they’re a lot better
than the orange and red areas on the map that we recommended against earlier.
Another consideration, whether you’re moving to Montreal or just visiting, is being close
to a metro station. The top choice for concentration of French speakers is the eastern stretch
of the Green Line, with the eastern side of the Orange Line coming in second.
Tied for third we have the southwestern portion of the Green Line and most of the Blue Line,
which are less solidly French and are closer to more English areas. You probably want to
avoid the downtown portions of the Green and Orange Lines, as well as most of the western
side of the Orange Line.
Here’s a regular metro map that we modified to only show stations in areas where at least
50% of people are stronger in French than English. With this starting point, hopefully
you can narrow down which area is right for you based on other factors like atmosphere,
price, and employment.