Spanish in the U.S. vs. French in Canada, which is used more?

9 comments

1. We have “42 million people aged five or older speak Spanish at home” per Wikipedia.

   Canada has 41 million people _total_.

   As a percentage, Canada is probably higher. But in sheer numbers, it’s not even close.

2. French in Canada, easily. French enjoys co-official status, with most (all?) government employees being required to speak it. There are all sorts of legal protections to uphold French that Americans would never accept for Spanish. Hell, it wouldn’t even be legal- the gov’t can’t tell a business what language to put their signage in.

   Quite frankly, I think it’s ridiculous how many concessions French Canadians have and many *still want to leave.* They would never get nearly as good of a deal from us.

3. On population? The US. By percentage, Canada by far

4. According to [this](https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/official-languages-bilingualism/publications/facts-canadian-francophonie.html#), 10.7 million Canadians can have a conversation in French. That’s roughly 29% of the population using that 37 million figure.

   [In the US](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language_in_the_United_States), there’s an estimated 57 million Spanish speakers, or roughly 17% of the population.

5. French in Quebec is used more than Spanish in say California or Florida.

6. More people speak Spanish in the US than speak French in Canada, but percentages of population who speak the language is higher in Canada.

   We do not legally have any region that requires people to speak Spanish the way Quebec does with French.

   So it is based upon what metric you wish to use.

7. So this is actually more complicated. The United States has no official language, while Canada recognizes both English and French. The difference is that there are Canadians that push for French and even a province that tries to make it the only language despite a dual-language country. The United States has no states, organizations, or people pushing for Spanish to be more than what it is today; everything runs in the de-facto language of English.

   So while there are more Spanish speakers in the United States, it is French in Canada that is used more because they are making those efforts to do so.

8. I’m as white as white can be. I use Spanish phrases all the time. My service dog was even taught No Mas when I didn’t have anything else to give him.

9. What everyone else said. As a bilingual speaker in both English and Spanish, I don’t expect my children and following generations to continue speaking Spanish. It would be nice if they did but like other immigrant groups, the further down a generation settles in this country, less likely they will feel the need to learn their native language. However, if I was from Quebec, the French language would continue to be used for future generations.