ooo, that makes sense about quebec and haiti. i hadn't thought of that

and you're right, i think (i mean about not always having a native speaker). (obviously i'm referring to native speakers who speak excellent french, which i have it on good authority you do ;-) it's good also in terms of understanding how to teach children the language in question - to natives things seem obvious that don't to non-natives. like, i could see a french native speaker having a lot of trouble explaining l'imparfait - i had a latin teacher once who had a /lot/ of trouble explaining it, even though he obviously understood it himself.