Telly, it's not a nice accent at all, in fact, it's very harsh and in some ways, weird. As I said, the accent I have in French is not Parisian, in fact, the majority of people ask me if I'm Algerian, Tunisian, or Moroccan. (my wife is from Morocco) It's still a much better accent however in my honest opinion than Quebecois. There are also a lot of expressions that I have trouble understanding, when Quebecois speak to each other.
I know people used to Quebecois/Patois might not see an issue but I've heard more of what Jeff said. In fact, French speakers from France, Algeria, Belgium, etc. have cringed just telling me about it. As I've said, French is a very pompous language. It has that special "je ne sais quoi." Explaining it to me, they all considered it crass.
I once got criticized by a Quebecois guy in a town north of Montreal for the way I spoke to his mother, the owner of a grocery store. He called me a lousy damned immigrant.
I wonder if he knows, or cares, that nowhere else in the world is that form of French well regarded. Oh well..
I speak French with no accent, which is not the Parisian accent. There’s a lingua franca you can find in every French region, even those where people speak with the thickest accent you can imagine. That’s all thanks to our beloved French centralism. The Québécois accent is no more bizarre than say the Walloon, Waldensian or chtimi ones.
I sure did. I also had to exercise mega-extreme restraint, because I'm not only big and strong, I have an extremely, extremely explosive temper, and it doesn't take a hell of a lot for me to fly off the table.
