Bonjour de Quebec (also)

I bought my Swing 2005 this year after a trip to Italy. There is so many of these beauty over there. I drove 5000km (3000 miles) since July 1 and we're in love with it. We're planing a 2000 miles trip for next summer.
Thanks you for this forum where we can have so many information on so many topics.

Welcome to the best SilverWing forum on the internet. Follow this link and if you do your own work on your scooter almost everything you may need to know can be found here. The search here works pretty good too. And you can always ask for help and you will usually get plenty of answers fast. Also a service manual is one of the best tools you can buy.

Welcome to the site and congrats on your Swing. As Roger said, there is a lot of good info and people here on the site.

Welcome to the forum.

I've always wanted to scooter tour Gaspe' and Charlevoix. But it seem that unless your are with a 'commercial' tour group or riding along with a Francophone then no one in those parts is willing to reply in English. Yeah, yeah, I know, the Quebecois are duly proud of their French heritage, but isn't Quebec supposed to be bilingual like the rest of Canada?

Tim

Cosmic_Jumper wrote:

Welcome to the forum.

I've always wanted to scooter tour Gaspe' and Charlevoix. But it seem that unless your are with a 'commercial' tour group or riding along with a Francophone then no one in those parts is willing to reply in English. Yeah, yeah, I know, the Quebecois are duly proud of their French heritage, but isn't Quebec supposed to be bilingual like the rest of Canada?

Tim

The can of worms has been opened, Tim.
I have found that when in Quebec, if you as a visitor at least attempt to start the conversation in French, the Francophones will willingly shift to English for you. However, open in English, and you will be ignored.
It is what it is.

Parlez-vous anglais My sister taught me this, is that enough?

Bienvenue, Alain59. Welcome to the forum. Lots of SW owners who know your bike really well. Can't go wrong hanging out here.

model28a wrote:

Parlez-vous anglais My sister taught me this, is that enough?  

Hopefully it's enough to break the thick Quebecois ice.

Welcome alain59. Great site here.

bigbird wrote:

The can of worms has been opened, Tim.
I have found that when in Quebec, if you as a visitor at least attempt to start the conversation in French, the Francophones will willingly shift to English for you. However, open in English, and you will be ignored.
It is what it is.

Oops! Thanks, Terry. I stand corrected and enlightened. But I thought that it was duck that came in can in Quebec. Just let one of them guys show up here in Philly trying to order le Steak Fromage though...

Cosmic_Jumper wrote:

Welcome to the forum.

I've always wanted to scooter tour Gaspe' and Charlevoix. But it seem that unless your are with a 'commercial' tour group or riding along with a Francophone then no one in those parts is willing to reply in English. Yeah, yeah, I know, the Quebecois are duly proud of their French heritage, but isn't Quebec supposed to be bilingual like the rest of Canada?

Tim

Last June, my wife and I spent 2 weeks in Italy. We were in Tuscany . In the village we were most of our time (Sovicille, near Sienna), no one spoke French, neither English (OMG!!!) … and guess what…we survived and came back with the best souvenirs of our life. People were friendly, showing us some italian words and within few days, my wife (who doesn’t speak a word in Italian nore English) was able to order her ‘’caffe, letche calde‘’ (coffee with warm milk)…

For your information, in Gaspésie, there’s many villages where peoples live in English , and many others where peoples speak only French but will do their very best to help you . If you want to get back home with some special souvenirs, just learn how to say ‘Bonjour’ and you’ll realize that almost half the ‘Quebecois’ are bilingual (or as me, try to be).
And please, please, don’t tell me that you would miss a wonderful trip to Paris, Rome, Prague or else because of the language!!!!