It can't seem to differentiate between French and "French spoken with my most deliberate American accent", so I wouldn't hold my breath.

I just imagined an Acadian Cajun from Louisiana giving it some Creole and started giggling.

I used to have TV6 Monde here in California back when I had cable.

The Quebecois programming was inevitably subtitled in (real) French, which was an endless source of humor for me.

Well it's similar to US and UK English. c.f. how confused people in the US can be when they hear UK English for the first time if they were not exposed to it when growing up.

On the other hand, while Quebec French has its regional expressions (as do most US, UK and French regions), it's fascinating how the language and accent has changed in 30-40 years only.

This archive video from 1963 church-era is hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HjSfZWI-ZA -- Radio-Canada interviewing a bunch of people at the municipal pool asking them about short shorts. Lots of different accents.

You probably mean TV5 Monde.

My wife (we're American) watches a lot of British programming, and for some shows she has to put on the subtitles. Between certain English accents and slang, it's hard to follow sometimes.

As a French I never found an American TV show that I had difficulties with (love the Appalachian accent btw) but English shows were another matter (usually when there are criminals).

But if you tell me it's difficult even for Americans I'm a bit reassured about my abilities ;-)

Rest assured, there are American accents I can't even understand. The most recent example on American TV that comes to mind is some of the characters in the first season of True Detective. Some of those Deep South accents, particularly from the bayou in Louisiana are beyond my comprehension.

BBC America used to have a banner before certain programs suggesting that some people may want to put on closed captioning for the show.

This was the first question that came to mind: what dialects does it support? I assume it is standard Parisian French.

"standard"

>standard

Uh huh, whatever that is. Even Paris has more than one accent. (St Denis for example)

It's interesting how pronunciation in France shifted after the revolution.[1]

Before that, everyone from the terroir to the king spoke mostly the same way. It was called the "Bel usage."

When the king said: "La loi c'est moi" it probably came out more like: "La loi c'est moé."

There was a more formal, accent reserved for public speeches, and sermons at church called the: "Grand usage."

After the revolution the new ruling class adopted the "Grand usage" in day to day speech and it became Parisian French.

In Québec, we were cut off from France after the British won the war, so our accent remained closer to the "Bel Usage."

In my linguistics classes it was always drilled into us that no accent is 'better' than any other. However ...

I personally prefer my accent, It is more demotic and earthy, it's the language of my grandmother and my ancestors, not of the village priest or the politician making a speech.

I find it funny how Parisians almost twist themselves in knots to over-pronounce every written letter of every word. It's almost as if it references the _written_ word more than the spoken one.

[1]: http://legoutdufrancais.org/dou-vient-laccent-des-quebecois-...

> I find it funny how Parisians almost twist themselves in knots to over-pronounce every written letter of every word. It's almost as if it references the _written_ word more than the spoken one.

While in my opinion it's generally true that in France (and not especially in Paris) the written language constitutes the reference more than it does Québec, I think you might be slightly biased here:

Nobody in France would pronounce the final "t" in "tout" or the "i" in "envoie" for example :)

>Nobody in France would pronounce the final "t" in "tout" or the "i" in "envoie" for example

That's true there are still silent letters.

Ironically in Québec you sometimes hear the 'i' in «envoie».

I find that Québec french in general tends to have preserved a lot of dipthongs that Parisian french has eliminated.

I would still describe Parisian french as «une prononciation recherchée»

Or in 'plat', or in the conjugation of 'haïr', or... yup, he pretty much got that one the wrong way around.

Indeed, much like English, which is possibly worse, French is known precisely for the fact that it sounds so different from the way it's written.

'There was a more formal, accent reserved for public speeches, and sermons at church called the: "Grand usage." After the revolution the new ruling class adopted the "Grand usage" in day to day speech and it became Parisian French.'

It's interesting how many languages standardized based on the variant spoken by the ruling elites, often imposed by revolutionaries. That's how Standard Chinese came to be based off of the courtly tongue of the Mandarins.