Indeed, in the world today, speaking one language is not enough. Most people have continued learning different languages in their different life stages, with pupils and students can get the chance to learn a language at school or an institution at their young age because most of the institutions and schools today offer some language lessons like the French, German, Kiswahili, and etc. The elder age can also learn a new foreign language for various reasons which are unplumbed but a person knows why to do so.
Facts about the French language
At the first point, the French language is a romance language spoken by over 338 million people and the third most spoken language in Europe after the German and the English language. The language is also spoken by a big number of people in most parts of Africa, North America, South America, Asia and Oceania
On the other hand, the internet world stats presents its estimates for internets by language where the French language is on the 9th position among the top ten languages has around 97,729,532 internet users by language, 25.4% internet penetration, 714.9% user’s growth in the internet from 2000-2015, 2.9% internet users of the world total and 385,389,343 world population (2015 estimate)
The French language is an official language of several countries such as;
- France
- Cameroon
- Canada
- The Central African Republic
- The Democratic Republic of Congo
- Chad
- Luxembourg
- Senegal
- Rwanda
- And etc.
The French language was also worldly used as a diplomatic language from the 17th century until the 19th century when English replaced it in that role, but it’s still used in many international organizations like NATO, UN, EU, and the world trade organization
There are very many facts about the French language, but let’s turn back to the point and purpose of concern
Reasons to learn the French language
Let’s learn and understand why someone would opt to learn the French language, regardless of the age in life, whether young or old.
As I said earlier that speaking one foreign language is not enough, some people have gone ahead to learn French as a foreign because of the following reasons;
Worldwide access; based on the wider history of the French language and the exposure that France has over other cultures and the influence that the language and its culture has over other cultures in the world, someone can use or learn it to get connected to most people in the world.
You can get access to major news media sources, for example, the global television network is known as TV5MONDE that broadcasts international news and all other French news worldwide from Switzerland, Belgium, France and Francophone Africa, so if you can’t read or understand French then you will miss a lot. it also helps a person to stay informed and diversifies someone’s perspective of the world events and current affairs.
The other thing besides the worldwide major news media, you can access the world by using the French language as a passport for travel. Though you can speak the French language fluently, you can reach all destinations where it’s spoken as long as you can understand and communicate with the local people.
Career purposes; this is another reason for learning the French language; speaking both French and English is advantageous for finding job opportunities. France is the 5th biggest economy in the world which attracts investors, entrepreneurs and the cream of foreign students, so to enable your access to the job in France, then you have to learn the language because the industries that will employ you, will be using French as the official language. In fact, this can also demand you to provide the translation of your academic documents from English to the French language.
In addition to career purposes, the French language is a Language of international relations; I said earlier that the French language is used by the international organizations and therefore, the language is used as both the working and official language in these organizations such as the UN, EU, UNESCO, NATO, the International Olympic Committee, the International Red Cross and also the International Criminal Court, therefore having knowledge in the French opens a wider chance to work with the international organizations.
The French language is also a favorite among the learners; worldwide, after the English language, the French language has become the most one learned by people across the world, meaning that you may not learn the language to speak with only the French native speakers but to other people like you who just learned it from class. This happens mostly when you are traveling, you can even speak to people whose national or official language is not French.
French is the language of love and reason; someone can just get interested in learning French because it is gorgeous, rich, mellow language, it’s often called the language of love. Besides, it’s also analytical language that structures thought and develops critical thinking which is a very important skill for discussions and negotiations
In the business point of view, I see the French language being relevant to be learned by mostly businessmen who trade across borders. Let’s take an example of African countries, half of them speak French, countries like Chad, Comoros, Algeria, Burundi and many others speak French, so for you to trade with such countries, you need to have some knowledge of the French language. Besides this, most of the Chines businessmen have started flooding in African countries for business purposes because of the cheap business deals and abundant resources, for this, the Chinese need to learn the language and also need to provide French translation services for their products and services.
There are very many other reasons as for why people should or you as an individual may learn the French language, but those are a few reasons that have shared with you if you have others or your personal reason, you may include it as a comment.
