French is generally considered to be one of the best languages you could learn. Even despite this, some people still wonder whether (or not) they should learn French. So here are 15 reasons why you should!
Personally, I started learning French in school, however, never really enjoyed it. Mostly because I had no real reason to learn it.
Years later, I would travel to France on vacation, and would decide that when I got home, I would learn French. Many of these reasons to learn French are what inspired me, and what will hopefully inspire you too!
15. It’s Incredibly Useful
As of the time of writing, French is one of the most spoken languages in the world. It is estimated that there are about 300 million people who speak French as either a first or second language.
Roughly two thirds of these speakers are located in Africa and Europe. Despite this, French is spoken on every continent on Earth, including on Antarctica (thanks to French scientists there!)
French is currently the official language of 29 countries, who together make up about 20% of the world’s total trade. This means that regardless of what you do for a living, there’s a 20% chance what you buy will come from a French-speaking country.
Due to all of this, it is one of the official languages of the European Union, not to mention NATO and the UN. On top of them, the WTO and International Olympic Committee, and the ICRC all use French too!
14. French is Growing
On top of French being one of the world’s most spoken languages already, it’s also growing too. By most estimates, there will be as many as 450 million French speakers by 2030. That’s less than a decade away!
This growth is mostly concentrated in Africa. In recent years, a number of French speaking countries in Africa have become industry, trade and mining centers, such as DR Congo, Côte d’Ivoire and Congo-Brazzaville.
With this, their populations have also increased exponentially. Most experts predict that this phenomenon is expected to continue, with many of the aforementioned nation’s populations expected to double in the next decade.
On top of this, Francophonic countries in Europe (such as France, Switzerland and Belgium) have become ideal countries for immigrants. Many of these immigrants subsequently learn French for themselves!
13. Formerly The Lingua Franca
From the 17th Century until just following WWII, French served as Europe’s lingua franca (the common language used by everyone for diplomacy, trade and commerce), replacing Spanish.
To many, it may seem weird that I’m bringing this up. After all, it hasn’t been the lingua franca for about 75 years. But as they say, the past is prologue…
France is a fairly nationalistic country, as are many other Francophonic countries. Despite this having happened before many Frenchmen were born, they want it to return to how it once was.
This in turn links back to the aforementioned point about French being useful. Because many Francophones want it to be the lingua franca again, it’s so well spoken. And there have been times in the past where it’s been really close!
Sadly, it’s unlikely that this will happen, but who knows!
12. It’s Super Easy
If you’ve never learned a foreign language before, it will likely seem like an impossible task, or at least a daunting one. The ability to switch between two language may be an exciting one, but you fear the pathway there may be difficult…
As such, you may want to ease yourself into it. Instead of learning something like Mandarin, Hungarian or Finnish (which are generally considered to be really hard languages to learn) you could learn French.
You see, French shares a lot in common with English, including some grammatical structures, and a lot of vocabulary. This, in essence makes French an incredibly easy language to learn!
11. Lots of Great Courses
Each year, millions of people read articles like this one and decide to learn French for themselves. Due to this high demand, there are literally thousands of courses to help you learn French, both on and offline.
Thanks to this, if you type something like “French course near me” or “French course online”, the first page or two of Google will be some of the best French lessons you’ll ever be able to find!
Due to the demand there is for French language resources, they simply can’t afford to be inadequate. If they are inadequate, Google will simply not rank them highly. The same cannot be said for other languages…
Regardless of how you learn, it is almost a certainty that you will find some resource, be it one online or offline, that suits you. There aren’t many guarantees in life, but this is about as close as it gets!
10. Better Vacations
As I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of countries that have French as one of its official languages. 29 to be precise. This means that there are potentially 29 countries countries where you could go on vacation.
By far the most common are France, Belgium, Canada, Switzerland and Luxembourg, with the first three being the among the most favored tourist destinations in the world!
As a French speaker, you’ll be able to find your way around so much better. Plus, taking the time to learn the local language will also make them much more friendly towards you.
It’s not just that. Regardless of how you take your vacations, be them adventure vacations, beach vacations or historical vacations, you’ll find that you enjoy them more because of your French.
You understand the locals better. And they will let you in on local secrets that will make your vacation so much better!
9. You Sound Really Intelligent
Whenever you look at the most intelligent or the most sophisticated languages on the planet, French is always one of the first that appears.
For whatever reason, the ability to speak and understand French fluently makes you sound extremely intelligent, to both language learners and monolinguals alike!
I don’t really know why, but for some season, there is a certain satisfaction to French.
The way it looks written down just looks so simple, yet elegant. When you hear it spoken, it’s like music to the ears. And when you speak it, well it just sounds ten times better!
And in my experience, the ability to speak French is also a really great party trick…
8. It’s Really Romantic
French is known as the language of love. For whatever reason, there is a certain je ne sais quoi about the language that it so attractive! This is agreed by both people who do and do not speak French!
Over the course of the past 300 years or so, French culture has slowly seeped into Anglophonic culture as a whole.
The most romantic paintings, were painted by French masters like Monet, Degas, Matisse, Cezanne and Manet. The most romantic songs were sung by French singers like Aya Nakamura, Alex Beaupain and Edith Piaf.
On top of this, the most romantic movies often feature France or the French in some way. Perhaps the setting is a weekend getaway to Paris. Or the lead actor/actress is French.
Almost always, there are at least a few phrases in French!
7. More (And Better?) Date Material
There are roughly 1.3 billion people who speak English. In total , that’s around 17.3% of the world’s population. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that one of those people is the one for you.
By learning French, you are opening yourself up to another 300 million potential dates. This brings your total up to 1.6 billion people, or roughly 21.3% of the world’s population.
With 21,3% of the world’s population, basic math dictates that you would have a higher chance find the one for you.
This rings particularly true for me personally. On one of my vacations to the south of France, I met a young Frenchman. Had it not been for me knowing French, we’d have never started talking.
Over time, we realized that we had loads in common, and really got along. That Frenchman is now my husband.
6. It’s Easy to Immerse Yourself
Whenever you are learning a language, any language, people will often tell you to immerse yourself in it. This can be done in a number of different ways, from foreign movies to foreign vacations to foreign media.
You probably don’t realize this, but most films you own are French. Or at least, come in French. Most DVDs and CDs are released with the French-language film preloaded on it. It’s just a matter of changing the language and adding subtitles!
Alternatively, you could do the exact same, but instead of using a DVD or CD, you could use your Netflix or Disney Plus account(s).
Regardless of where you live, you’re never to far away from a French speaking country. It might be France. It might be Canada. It might be Haiti. But you’re never too far away, and the flights are usually quite cheap…
The advent of the internet has helped language-learners in many ways. Perhaps the best is the ability to read French-language newspapers with relative ease. As long as you have a WIFI connection, you can read French-language newspapers, often for free!
5. Stepping Stone to More Languages
French is a part of the romance language family. As a part of the romance language family, French is descended from Vulgar Latin (the type of Latin the common people would speak, itself descended from “Proper” Latin).
In France, the variant of Vulgar Latin the common people spoke would eventually mix with the local Gaulish languages. In turn, this would morph into the French we know and love today.
Vulgar Latin would also be spoken in other parts of the Roman Empire too. In these countries, Vulgar Latin would similarly become other languages, such as Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian and Catalan (among others!)
As French and these languages are descended from Vulgar Latin, they share not only much of the same vocabulary, but also similar grammar and pronunciation too. This in turn, makes it easier to learn them after you’ve learned French.
4. It’s Part of Your Culture
Regardless of what country you are from, French has likely played a huge part in your history. Whether you realize it or not! So you learning French may actually help you to understand your own culture better too…
If you’re English, French-speaking Normans once ruled your country. The language of the nobility was French, whilst Anglo-Saxon was the language of the peasants. Over time, French and Anglo-Saxon merged to become the English you use today!
If you’re American, the French helped you to get your independence from the British. French settlers in the Americas also helped to make the dialect of English you speak today, getting rid of words like “holiday” for the French “vacation“.
If you’re Canadian, a large portion of Eastern Canada was colonized by the French. The remnants of the French colonists now make up the French-speaking parts of Quebec, and make it so you learn French at school.
The same can also be said if you’re Australian, Indian, Kiwi, South African or Irish!
3. Speak Better English
Both French and English have a long and often intertwined history. Historically, French words have entered English, not the other way around. In recent years, however, English words have entered French.
Historically speaking, French was the language of the nobility, originally as a first, and later a second tongue. At the same time, English was solely the language of the peasantry, and was viewed that way.
Whilst this may seem irrelevant in the 21st Century world, the opposite is true. After all, the past is prologue. Studies have shown time and time again that the ability to fluently speak and understand a second language improves your first language skills.
And this seemingly happens automatically. For whatever reason, putting in the effort to learn a foreign language to a high degree of fluency, alters the brain, giving it a never-before-seen understanding of your native tongue.
It also (apparently) makes you a better writer too!
2. Become More Employable
In today’s day and age, you either stand out to a potential employer, or you do not. There’s no two ways about it. Whilst we can sit and argue semantics about this all day long, the only real course of action is to find out how you can stand out.
According to most HR managers (the people who will interview and ultimately hire you) there are a select set of skills that you can have which will make you more employable. Among them is the ability to speak a foreign language.
So by learning French, you are in essence painting a big red flag that says “Hey potential future employer, look at me! I speak French! Imagine what I could do for you if I worked for you!”
Potentially, your employer doesn’t need French. Maybe they already have a French-speaking employee they use, or have a go-to translation agency. But as I said earlier, French opens up paths to learn other languages…
And it is these languages that your company may actually need and/or want!
1. Get Paid More
It’s not only that learning French (or really any other language!) makes you more employable. Learning French will actually mean you get paid more too. Who’d have thought it? Learning a language will literally pay you!
Studies have shown time and time again that multilingual employers earn on average 12.5% more than their monolingual colleagues (with the same background, experience and qualifications).
Often, the more languages you speak, the higher this percentage often is!
Learning a language, such as French, proves to your employer that you are willing to go above and beyond. For them, you speaking French may in fact save them money in the long run too.
After all, why should they hire a rather expensive translation agency to translate something into or out of French, when they could simply give it to one of their own employees who could translate it for “free”?!
Which are your favorite reasons to learn French? Tell me in the comments!