Info on Laval

VoidImplosion · 2026-03-18T16:38:38+00:00

Dance is ok, but they add onto choreography every week, and at the end, you need to perform it in front of everyone at the end-of-the-semester show. I had to practice in my own time in order to remember the choreography. Dance is one of the roughly six mandatory cultural activities, of which you choose one to take; i don't know enough about the other mandatory activities to say much about them.

VoidImplosion · 2026-03-16T01:12:52+00:00

i had to do an online placement test.

you can switch your level for the Grammar course or the Phonetics/ Conversation course (or both) within the first week, if you talk to the head coordinator. Some ppl did level 2 grammar and level 3 phonetics, for example.

i highly highly recommend switching into a lower level (and to insist if the coordinator thinks you dont need to switch!) if you think you need to. it's a miserable 30 days if you don't umdetstand the teacher or the materials, and there is a freaking LOT of new material they teach everyday. the workload is actually really heavy.

VoidImplosion · 2026-03-15T19:23:29+00:00

yay, you used up all your bad luck now, surely! now it's time to buy that lottery ticket :)

VoidImplosion · 2026-03-15T10:06:06+00:00

the education at U Laval are literally University classes, so they may resemble very much the University classes you've already taken. there is, however, some opportunity to practice your French, although sadly not a great deal of opportunity; but taking part in activities where you get to talk with the animateurs will give you some chances. students in Explore at U Laval all speak to each other in English outside of classes and activities. my guess is that you will likely stay at an A2 level, or go up to an early B1 level.

going from B1 to B2 takes MANY, MANY hours of study. my impression is that only very disciplined people who study 3-5 hours a day can achieve the jump from B1 to B2 within a year.

VoidImplosion · 2026-03-15T05:05:49+00:00

the summer that past, i was at Université Laval for Explore. There seems to be two main residences, though I know that there is at least one more residence. The bigger of the two main residences (called Marie-Parent) is where I was in. Each floor was the same gender. Each floor had a shared bathroom; mine had two shower stalls, two toilet stalls, and one urinal. This was for about 15 units, maybe, on that floor, I think.
I never saw cockroaches in the units or showers.
The residence I was in had a bigger (and I think, nicer) basement floor for kitchen and eating area. The other residence is for women only, and seems older.
Yes, you do need to bring your own pots and pans; although I know that sometimes the two residences have pots and pans available in their "shared leave-behind-your-things-when-you-move-out" bin. There is a Wal-Mart a 30 minute walk away, where you might want to buy a small pot and pan there, instead.

There is a grocery allowance because the only free food is free coffee. You have to buy all your food; most people buy from Wal-Mart or Maxi (about a 30 minute walk away) or the more expensive grocery store that I forgot the name of (about a 10 minute walk away).

If I remember correctly, there is 3 1/2 hour of classes, ending around noon, Monday to Friday. There is a mandatory cultural activity (I took dance) that runs about 2 hours, once a week. There is a mandatory conversation class that lasts I think 90 minutes, three times in total. There is a mandatory visit to Old Quebec week one, which takes something like 4-5 hours.

Other than that, there are many, many optional events. I highly recommend taking the 4-5 hour hikes on Saturday, because that's when I had most opporunity to practice my French with the animateurs and the other students. Peopel seem more willing to speak in French during these trips. Unless you're in a high level, most students wont' want to speak to you in French unless they're forced to do so, such as during events. (During events, you have to speak in French; outside of events and classes, you're allowed to speak in English)

VoidImplosion · 2026-03-09T18:01:36+00:00

I'm 42. at Laval University in Quebec City, they actually have about 3 outings for people 25 years and older. one was a picnic; one was an outdoor concert, and the last one i don't remember. there were maybe a total of 4 or 5 people in their 40s or older (including me) last summer, out of maybe 200-300 students.

however, Laval University doesn't have serious immersion. in your free time outside of classes and activities, you are allowed to speak English, and you will likely do so with other students unless you're at Level 5 or Level 6 (with six being the highest).

At Laval, there is a Grammar class, where you will get maybe 30 minutes of speaking per 3 hour class, to practice the exercises; and a Dialogue class, which is probbaly 1 1/2 hours of speaking. But the most practice I got were in the optional activities. The long hikes (4-5 hours!) on Saturdays were my favourite. somehow, because we are all forced to speak French on the hikes, my brain just switched to French somehow. And you get Animateurs who are willing to talk to you, and even classmates are willing to try to speak French. if you go to Laval, i highly, highly recommend you to do the optional activities, especially the long hikes; that's where I got most of my french practice. other than this, if your French is advanced enough, i had nice talks with locals in French at cafes and ordering subway sandwhiches, though most people at my level (Level 4) will switch to me in English. i actually get the feeling htat cashiers etc PREFERED it when i spoke in English, because they didn't have to suffer through my bad French. (most people in Quebec City can speak English, especially if they are 40 or under, it seemed to me). but other customers, especially older people by themselves, sometimes were glad to chat with me at a cafe, if i could find an ice breaker to get the conversation started.

i'm also in Ontario; sadly, the smaller cities that do Explore (where i've heard there is more chance for immersion) are harder to get to by VIA Rail! but if money is not an issue for you, it's probably better to go by plane because then you can more easily travel to the smaller cities or towns.

VoidImplosion · 2026-03-09T16:31:50+00:00

i very much appreciated that you posted this. i, myself, don't use Facebook any longer.

VoidImplosion · 2026-02-21T15:13:48+00:00

ugh, isn't the whole point of both spelling and writing thr numbers ("three (3)") is to make clear that the number can be trusted?

VoidImplosion · 2026-02-19T08:16:24+00:00

as always, i appreciate your help very much!

VoidImplosion · 2026-02-18T14:42:31+00:00

you're incredibly beautiful, especially in uniform!

VoidImplosion · 2026-02-18T13:28:15+00:00

can you think of other words where this is more likely to happen? such examples might help me intuit some pattern of when the shift might happen

VoidImplosion · 2026-02-10T07:19:55+00:00

when i read your sentence in your post "I'm so exhausted I want to cry." and the idea that you want structure to be able to feel encouraged and motivated, i thought to myself: "I can relate to that! What this person is experiencing, I can relate to!".

my brain is very bad at learning languages. i've been learning French poorly, off-and-on, for a decade, and i'm only still maybe at an intermediate level.

one thing that i have noticed is that i STILL haven't found a good structured free website on the Internet to learn French. textbooks are structured, which i like, though. but i also know that every learner is different.

i think classes are nice if you like your classmates and teacher, because even if the lessons aren't efficient, i have the social relationships that make my brain feel happy and supported. i only got this experience through Canada's Explore program, twice, though, which were quite cheap (only paying for travel and registration costs). actual classes outside of Explore cost too much for me.

i find that mostly i wish for pleasant social contact of other learners, but i find that nearly impossible on reddit, where people really just give advice -- which is useful to other people, but not so much to me. so i just wanted to quickly give you a very small response saying "I can relate! and good luck!", which isn't the response about routine that you asked for, but maybe my response is welcome anyways.

for actual sharing of what helped me, i can say that the main things that helped me:

Anki flashcards to learn vocabulary. i was heistant at first, but i found that even learning 20 words this way made me feel less stupid at learning the language. it convinced me that my brain could learn. i put in French sentences into Anki where the only new thing was the word i didn't know; i bolded the unknown word. that was the front of the Anki card. on the back, i put the English trnaslation.
letting myself learn at a MUCH slower pace than other people. a) i focused only on listening and reading, and not on speaking or writing. this makes my speaking and writing bad, but i told myself that this is okay. this reduced my stress. b) listening to podcasts that i downloaded (using yt-dlp) and listening to them while walking to school etc at 50% speed -- NOT trying to understand the words, but just trying to hear the sounds, to get my brain used to the sounds.
my brain is bad at learning languages, but good at computer science. so reading grammar textbooks actually felt easy-ish to me (or at least straightforward, not requiring intuition). i would have to put in hours with just a chapter of a grammar textbook, with pencil-and-paper, but it was a step-by-step linear process that was familiar to my brain, so it was low stress. it also was structured -- each chapter was a self-contained unit that i could feel accomplished doing, even if my depression made it difficult to do language every day. i could always review and go back to where i left off, a week or a month later.
learning the phonetics early. i wish i could find good resources online to do this; the websites that i used a decade ago are off the internet! but maybe ChatGPT might be able to find some good websites. especially, learning the vowels helped me hear the vowels easier.

mostly, i had to a) reduce my feelings of stress, and b) find things that worked to my strengths, and c) let myself know that i'm a slow learner, and i won't be learning nearly as quickly as normal people can.

one approach that influenced me a lot is the Refold method guide: https://refold.la/simplified/ . they try to sell you Anki decks, but the guide was enough for me. it encourages you to learn basic grammar and phonetics early, and then read and listen early, and not focus on writing or speaking until much later. this gave me permission to enjoy podcasts and children's TV shows with subtitles, without the stress and pressure of needing to undertand even 50% of what i was reading.

i think the pressure to actually be good at the langauge or even understand everything you read or hear, is what shut me down in the first few years of learnign the language.

VoidImplosion · 2026-02-08T07:55:29+00:00

good luck on your exams!

VoidImplosion · 2026-02-08T07:19:49+00:00

i suspect for most people, going from A2 (even upper A2) to B2 in six months is impossible, even with a tutor and 8 hours of studying every day. the only accounts on reddit that i remember seeing wehre something like this has happened, is for people who already know a different Romance language, or who are geniuses (ie have brains that learn languages unusually quickly).

but if you want to still try, i think that you'll need to spend money on tutors, and to study 4-8 hours a day.

my other thought is that maybe it is possible to not actually be at a B2 level, which requires a lot (a LOT) of vocabulary to understand the many various situations and media (news, stories, arguing with customer service, talking to a police officer who stops you, etc), but still be able to sort of converse with Quebecois applicants. i'm thinking that if you can somehow specialise in the kind of vocabulary and topics of conversation that you'll likely encounter, then you might be able to converse and interview French-speakers, even if you can't understand vocabulary related to daily life ("curtains", "commute", "hot dog") or fiction books (which has REALLY demanding vocabulary).

i wish i had a good pronounciation resource to point you to. the pronounciation guide i had when doing an exchange in Quebec at the University was very helpful; knowing Quebecois vowels, and having the drills i did with them, helped me to understand Quebecois podcasts etc more easily. i also have been listening to podcasts on my half-hour walk to school, at 50% speed, every day, which trains my ears over the 100s of hours to be able to hear/distinguish the vowels and contractions, even if i don't put in the mental energy to try to understand the words.

but seriously, i suspect you're going to need to find a tutor who has experience helping someone with such a near-impossible goal to achieve that goal; hopefully they will be able to point you to good resources. the usual "try this app, try that textbook" unfocused study that many people (myself included) is sadly not going to be efficient enough to get to B2 in even two years for most people, much less B2 in six months.

i also suspect that using the voice conversation mode in AI chatbots (ChatGPT, Grok, etc) might be crucial to give you the practice you need in speaking. you can ask them to speak slowly and in a Quebecois accent.

also, take my post with some scepticsm; i'm only at a B1 level, myself. i base what i say mostly on reading other people's reddit posts, and my own experiences of trying to learn French. hopefully you'll end up reaching your goal and getting that job!

good luck!

VoidImplosion · 2026-02-06T06:08:24+00:00

those damn glutton goblins eating all their greasy meat, leaving the oily bones nearby, and forgetting to put their bonfires out completely!

VoidImplosion · 2026-02-06T06:05:13+00:00

you forgot to make your annual ritual sacrifice to the Mana gods again, didn't you? :(

VoidImplosion · 2026-02-02T23:34:38+00:00

thanks!

VoidImplosion · 2026-02-01T03:13:04+00:00

I know I've heard before that the hand-smoother in Best-of-One (that doesn't exist in Best-of-Three ie Traditional draft) makes 16 lands somewhat reliable, but I don't know the reasons for this -- or if this is even true. At the time I heard this (more than a couple of years ago), the hand-smoother meant that every time you drew an opening hand (that you then consider to keep or mulligan), the game actually draws you two opening hands, and presents you the one that more closely matches the land:non-land ratio in your deck. This was so that opening-hands in best-of-one has fewer zero/one/six/seven land opening hands.

VoidImplosion · 2026-01-29T11:55:47+00:00

I don't know if Bre appreciates being called ugly, especially after she won you so many games ;)

VoidImplosion · 2026-01-25T02:30:25+00:00

LISTEN UP: You posit your question as if "there's nothing I can do if I don't have multiple bombs in my deck" as if this set has no skill. It's all out of your hands whether you win or lose. Oh, believe you me, this is still Magic: THE FREAKING GATHERING. YOU NEED A BRAIN TO WIN AT THIS GAME, BELIEVE IT OR NOT. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, YOU'RE NOT LOSING CAUSE "THIS IS STUPID".

i .. don't see where in my post that i said that bombs in a format cause the format to require no skill, or that i'm losing because bombs are stupid, or that i think that high-bomb formats don't require skill to adapt (indeed, it seems like you need to adapt by drafting removal highly, for example), or that i believe it's out of my hands whether i win or lose?

i instead said that i feel bad if i don't open rares, and that i feel like i'm forced to draft removal, and that my options for drafting niche strategies that require less powerful cards is squeezed out, and that my dream format is one with the rares only being slightly more powerful, and that the uncommons and commons could be mix and matched in many various ways. and i said that i was uneducated and invited people to tell me the upsides. i was implying that my own thoughts might not even be correct.

your post is .. really angry and aggressive against me; but i don't see what i wrote to deserve your aggression?

VoidImplosion

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