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O Canada in Montreal: bilingual version


Daniel

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Here is the national anthem as it is sung at Montreal sporting events. It would be nice if we could all be singing the same thing before the game:

Ô Canada!

Terre de nos aïeux,

Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!

Car ton bras sait porter l'épée,

Il sait porter la croix!

Ton histoire est une épopée

Des plus brillants exploits.

God keep our land glorious and free!

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

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Come on guys, it's not that difficult... and a great way to all be on the same page. I think it would be a great show or respect and appreciation for what the Impact and Saputo and the Province of Quebec generally, have done for Canadian soccer. It would look great on TV to see pan shots of anglo and franco Canadians all singing together in the same language in support of our MNT.

I think handing out songsheets beforehand is a must. Perhaps Daniel you and the rest of the Montreal supporters might be able to have a few hundred photocopies to hand out at the pregame get-together? One suggestion - since many Anglophones find French pronunciation to be confusing, it might be a good idea to write things out phonetically for the songsheets if you go that route. As an example, a few years ago many anglophone hockey commentators found it difficult to pronounce Patrick Roy's name correctly. The problem was solved by teaching them how to pronounce it using phonetic spelling, for example instead of writing "Roy" you write "Roo-aw" -- yeah I know it might look ridiculous to some people, but if you have trouble with French pronunciation that sort of thing is really helpful. Anyway, just a thought.

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Just had a flashback to the late 70s, old Montreal Forum... who was that great singer that used to sing O Canada at the Canadiens games? Roger Doucet??? Can't quite remember his name.

Anyway, being quite young at the time, the part where he sang

"Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!"

I used to think it was something about Guy Lafleur, maybe like "Lafleur is Glorious" or something.

Used to piss me off to no end, since Lafleur would generally get at least a couple of goals whenever he played the Leafs.

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quote:Originally posted by Dave

Come on guys, it's not that difficult... and a great way to all be on the same page. I think it would be a great show or respect and appreciation for what the Impact and Saputo and the Province of Quebec generally, have done for Canadian soccer. It would look great on TV to see pan shots of anglo and franco Canadians all singing together in the same language in support of our MNT.

I think handing out songsheets beforehand is a must. Perhaps Daniel you and the rest of the Montreal supporters might be able to have a few hundred photocopies to hand out at the pregame get-together? One suggestion - since many Anglophones find French pronunciation to be confusing, it might be a good idea to write things out phonetically for the songsheets if you go that route. As an example, a few years ago many anglophone hockey commentators found it difficult to pronounce Patrick Roy's name correctly. The problem was solved by teaching them how to pronounce it using phonetic spelling, for example instead of writing "Roy" you write "Roo-aw" -- yeah I know it might look ridiculous to some people, but if you have trouble with French pronunciation that sort of thing is really helpful. Anyway, just a thought.

Nothing to do w/ snubbing Quebec. I did suggest just doing it in French. But if the group concensus is 3/4 French and 1/4 English, I'll certainly try.

I mean I was able to do it in elementary school afterall.

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Practice before the game as well.

Ô Canada!

Terre de nos aïeux,

Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!

Car ton bras sait porter l'épée,

Il sait porter la croix!

Ton histoire est une épopée

Des plus brillants exploits.

O canada

tear de nos aye-uuh

ton fron eh sayn de flur-ons glo-ri-euh

car(soft end) tone brahs say por-t-eh lep-eh

il say por-t-eh la craw

ton histoire eh une eh-pop-eh

Deh plu bril-ants exploy(patrick roy)

someone can polish that up more.

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That works just fine...I'd just change a couple things (but I don't know if its just how I was taught to sing it):

O Canada

Tear(like rip)-euh de nos aye-uuh

Tahn frahn eh sayn, de flur-on glo-ri-euh

Car-tone brahs, say port-eh lep-eh-euh

Eel say por-teh la craw

Ton hist-uare eht une eh-po-pay-uh

Deh plu bri-ants explwaaaa

Damn, I'm happy I know the words, because I think I'd be pretty clueless as to what I just typed otherwise.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_canada

I was curious about the french words, not a direct translation. Does the french version sound more harsh?

O Canada!

Land of our forefathers

Thy brow is wreathed with a glorious garland of flowers.

As in thy arm ready to wield the sword,

So also is it ready to carry the cross.

Thy history is an epic

Of the most brilliant exploits.

Thy valour steeped in faith

Will protect our homes and our rights

Will protect our homes and our rights.

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quote:Originally posted by Daniel

The version I posted is the version sung at sporting events in Montreal. It is never sung completely in English or in French.

Hopefully we'll have the words on the giant screen.

Pretty much the same in Ottawa. It's 1st verse in english then french verse then back to english for "God keep" on

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I'm a British Columbian and I can sing, very badly mind you, the whole bloody thing in French, so we're not all unilingual out here.

These days people can't sing the last *three notes correctly, which seems like a simple thing, so getting western Canadians to say anything beyond "oui" is a bit of a stretch.

What ever happened to the other bilingual version with English first, French in the middle and then English at the end again?

*It goes up, down, up at the end, not up, up, WAY UP. Save that for the Friendly Giant.

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quote:

What ever happened to the other bilingual version with English first, French in the middle and then English at the end again?

you mean the official Bilingual version?

----------

O Canada!

Our home and native land!

True patriot love in all thy sons command.

Car ton bras sait porter l'épée,

Il sait porter la croix!

Ton histoire est une épopée

Des plus brillants exploits.

God keep our land glorious and free!

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

----------

ya this is the one song at Ottawa sporting events.

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quote:Originally posted by coppercanuck

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_canada

I was curious about the french words, not a direct translation. Does the french version sound more harsh?

O Canada!

Land of our forefathers

Thy brow is wreathed with a glorious garland of flowers.

As in thy arm ready to wield the sword,

So also is it ready to carry the cross.

Thy history is an epic

Of the most brilliant exploits.

Thy valour steeped in faith

Will protect our homes and our rights

Will protect our homes and our rights.

French is original, it's english that isn't a translated version.

[8D]

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I hated the Habs at the time, mostly because they were so much better than the rest of the league, but I used to really get into Roger Doucet's rendition of O Canada. I remember that at one point (before the feds changed the words around) there used to be around a half-dozen "Stand on Guards", in the lyrics, which quite frankly was around 4 or 5 too many. Roger decided he would change things, so he went ahead on his own and started singing a modified version of O Canada. I remember that he had something in there about "we stand on guard for rights and liberty" or somesuch. I thought it was a pretty cool improvement, but some people thought it sounded too American (with the word "liberty" being kind of one of their buzzwords).

Anyhow, to bring this rambling post back to the subject at hand... whatever you though of Roger Doucet, he really knew how to bring some life into our national anthem. I still get chills up my spine whenever I hear an old recording of him. I was thinking it would be kind of cool if sometime for a crucial WCQ game a nice professionally recorded version, with video played on the scoreboard, could (Just for once) replace the CSA's steel drum bands and other pandering to our opponent's national traditions.

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The best O Canada I ever heard was at a Canada rugby test match against ...who cares. Anyway, people waited and waited for the anthems, and the announcer guy said "we're sorry, we can't do the anthems blah blah" Maybe the needle on the record player broke? Then some guy in front stood up and yelled "Are you kidding? Come on people" and the whole stadium, except for the usual foreign support of people who live in this country and don't like it (strange, eh? Why not leave?) sang O Canada at the top of our lungs with not scratchy recording or five year old kid with a mic drowning us out.

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The O Canada in French was done well before the English part. Basile Routhier's lyrics came way before the lyrics by Robert Weir. O Canada was actually a patrtot chant before which is kind of weird because it has become the national anthem of Canada.

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for some reason I'd feel alot more comfertable if all boys on the pitch sang the anthem too (in whatever words they know it of course), I always get a bad luck feeling when the other team really sings there anthem and we don't; course, it might be snotty of me to suggest someone to sing if it made them really uneasy but I always thought a little humility was apart of the whole anthem importance, maybe I'm just a douche though?

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quote:Originally posted by Blackdude

The O Canada in French was done well before the English part. Basile Routhier's lyrics came way before the lyrics by Robert Weir. O Canada was actually a patrtot chant before which is kind of weird because it has become the national anthem of Canada.

Not really, the Brits/EarlyCanadian government was really set on stripping them of their symbols, so it doesn't really seem too odd.

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As I said, "we're not all unilingual out here".

I have nothing against languages other than French and English (or Inuktitut or native languages). I also speak (sort of) a Pacific Rim language, but I just find it a bit sad that more people in the west don't speak French.

I don't want to open any debate on this, but I just wanted to make it clear that I don't disrespect other languages.

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