University students from outside Quebec will have to achieve Level 5 French. Easier said than done?

Some are calling Quebec's latest tuition announcement unrealistic, with the government obliging English universities to make students from outside Quebec learn French by graduation.

The move will affect students looking to attend Quebec's three English-language universities starting in the fall of 2025.

Announced by Quebec's higher education minister, Pascale Déry, the deal aims to address what she and the CAQ government have described as the decline of French in the province.

Reaching that level of bilingualism is something Carolyn Moore, a McGill law student from Whitby, Ont., says could be "very difficult" for some students.

Moore studied for five weeks in Trois-Pistoles Que. at Western University's French Immersion School with the goal of reaching a passable level of bilingualism.

It's something she says she couldn't have achieved solely through apps like Duolingo.

"I had gone through the Ontario French curriculum," said Moore. "But then it had been six years since I had even tried to speak French."

With the help of the summer program, she says the ability to reach a Level 5 proficiency was "more than doable," but for students who don't have the opportunity to practise in an immersive environment, she thinks hitting that level of bilingualism will be tricky.

"I've been in Montreal now since September and I'm even taking two courses in French at the moment and I don't feel like my French has improved at all being in Montreal because there's a lot of English around," said Moore.

"You can get by going to restaurants [and] ordering in English. People will talk to you in English. So there aren't a lot of opportunities."

WATCH | What out-of-province students will have to pay to study in Quebec:

Quebec's language proficiency scale goes up to 12 levels, with Level 5 the start of the intermediate level.

According to Quebec's guide on competence levels in French, at oral Level 5 comprehension, an individual understands varied vocabulary and the gist of conversations on everyday topics.

Taylor Ireland, president and general director of ACA-Formation Linguistique, a French language school in Quebec City, says by the end of their studies, students might be expected to answer a series of straightforward questions.