People aren't reacting well to Quebec's new "speak French at work" ad

Now that Quebec’s controversial Bill 96 language law has passed, get used to seeing more government-funded ads coercing you to speak French.

Since the new law was passed, speaking French is now mandated in companies with more than 25 employees across the province.

The Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ) has released a 15-second ad demonstrating the differences between at-work French and English.

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It’s fickle to literally translate sentences into other languages because… that’s not how languages work.

Here, the FTQ — the largest federation of labour in Quebec — uses the French term “j’en ai plein mon casque du trafic” (my helmet is full of traffic) and literally translates it to English, “my helmet is full of traffic” — a statement that makes no literal sense in English.

At the end of the ad, the French words “le Français au travail, c’est toujour mieux” (French at work is always better).

The FTQ ad essentially says that some terms sound better in French than they do in English and should therefore be spoken more.

In French, the federation captioned “new ad for the right to work in French.”