Number 1: Where it is spoken.
French is the official language of France and it’s also spoken inMonaco, Luxembourg, some parts of Belgium and Switzerland, in the Canadian province of Québec, parts of North and Central Africa, Vietnam, Cambodia, Madagascar and the French Overseas Departments and Territories.
It can still be heard in some communities of French origin in the USA, in Maine and Louisiana
Number 2: Most of us already know some French.
Since a large number of English words and expressions are of French origin, you’re actually already au fait with quite a lot of French vocabulary
Had a déjà vu lately? Did that glass of wine have a certain je ne sais quoi? In a restaurant or café, you might find olives, pâté, omeletteon the menu, along with soufflé or chocolate mousse for dessert. Feeling flush? Wash it all down with champagne. Ah, c’est la vie !
Number 3: Is it similar to other languages?
French is a Romance language, ie of Latin origin. Romance languages share a similar grammatical structure and there are often similarities in vocabulary
If you learn French, you’ll have a head start in learning other languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Italian or Catalan.
Number 4: How can I be polite when speaking it?
Like other Romance languages, there are different ways of saying ‘you’:
Tu, for people you can be on first-name terms with, and
Vous, in other cases.
The plural in both cases is also vous
When greeting, men usually shake hands. In informal situations, women meeting men or other women will kiss them on the cheeks, although it’s more like quick ‘cheek-touching’ rather than a kiss. The number of kisses, bisous or bises, varies per region and can go up to four!
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