"Learn French" is not a useful instruction. It is the equivalent of saying "move to Europe." The answer to "which one?" determines almost everything about what you need to learn, who you need to sound like, and whether your training will transfer to real use.
What dialect actually means
Dialect is not slang. It is not an informal version of a language. Dialect refers to a variety of a language with its own phonology, lexis, grammar, and pragmatic conventions. Québécois French and Metropolitan French are dialects of French in the same way that Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese are dialects of Portuguese.
The phonological differences between Québécois and Metropolitan French are significant. Vowels in closed syllables are more open in Québécois. The dental stops /t/ and /d/ become affricates before high front vowels — a Québécois "tu" sounds like "tsu" to a Metropolitan French speaker. Verbal morphology differs: "tu manges-tu?" (Québécois interrogative) versus "est-ce que tu manges?" (formal standard).
The comprehension gap
A person trained exclusively in Metropolitan French will struggle significantly in Montréal. Not because Québécois speakers are using a degraded or simplified form of the language — but because they are using a different variety with its own phonological and lexical system.
This gap is not theoretical. Studies of cross-dialect comprehension in French consistently show that Metropolitan French speakers need substantial exposure time to parse Québécois at natural speed. The inverse is also true but less severe, because Québécois speakers encounter Metropolitan French through media and formal contexts.
Why apps default to standard
Building for one standard variety is a market decision. A single French course serves the largest possible audience. Dialect-specific content requires different recordings, different curriculum, different scoring calibration. It costs more to build and serves a smaller initial audience.
The implicit assumption is that learners can start with standard and adjust for dialect later. This assumption is often wrong. The phonological patterns that automatize during training are the ones that persist. If you train for six months on Metropolitan French phonology and then move to Montreal, you are not starting from zero — you are working against established patterns.
Why Voicely is dialect-specific
When you select French in Voicely, you specify: Québécois, Metropolitan, West African, or another variety. Your content, recordings, and pronunciation scoring are calibrated to that variety. HEXI's model of target phonology is the actual phonology of your chosen dialect, not a generic standard.
The Cultural Immersion™ module goes further: dialect-specific register, slang, pragmatic conventions, and the social contexts in which each variety is used. The goal is not "French." It is functional competence in the specific community you are joining.
Kramsch (1993): proficiency is always situated — it is competence in a specific community of practice, not competence in an abstract language system. "Learn French" means nothing until you specify which French community you are aiming to function in.