There are a maximum of 17 vowels in French, not all of which are used in every dialect: French has three pairs of homorganic fricatives distinguished by voicing, i.e., labiodental, French has one rhotic whose pronunciation varies considerably among speakers and phonetic contexts. A French clause is made up of groups, groups are made up of words, and lastly, words are made up of morphemes. [57][58] Within the indicative mood, the passé composé, plus-que-parfait, futur antérieur, and passé antérieur all use auxiliary verbs in their forms. French writing, as with any language, is affected by the spoken language. Nouns and most pronouns are inflected for number (singular or plural, though in most nouns the plural is pronounced the same as the singular … "5$7" for "5 dollars and 7 cents". [39] Politically, the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) named French the language of law. This just in: You’ve been a natural French speaker all your life!. ", "These are the most powerful languages in the world", "Want To Know The Language of the Future? Dans beaucoup de pays francophones, surtout sur le continent africain, une proportion importante de la population ne parle pas couramment le français (même s'il est souvent la langue officielle du pays). French also uses verb–object–subject (VOS) and object–subject–verb (OSV) word order. All institutions of the EU use French as a working language along with English and German; in certain institutions, French is the sole working language (e.g. When you say “my” (mon/ma) before the word then it is more likely to be the more intimate version! At the time the proposed changes were considered to be suggestions. Within the subjunctive mood, the passé composé and plus-que-parfait use auxiliary verbs in their forms. Out of the three, Yukon has the most French speakers, comprising just under 4% of the population. [76] Since the Fall of Saigon and the opening of a unified Vietnam's economy, French has gradually been effectively displaced as the main foreign language of choice by English. Conjugation of Etre and Avoir:3. Haitian Creole is closely related to Louisiana Creole and the creole from the Lesser Antilles.[71]. [101] Many given spellings of common morphemes usually lead to a predictable sound. All of the French translations of this word already have equivalents in English. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the official language of the Republic since 1992,[46] although the ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts made it mandatory for legal documents in 1539. The literal English translations are "Do you speak French?" She has taught English and French for more than ten years, most notably as an assistante de langue vivante for L'Education Nationale. According to the French lexicogrammatical system, French has a rank-scale hierarchy with clause as the top rank, which is followed by group rank, word rank, and morpheme rank. Their entrance as observer and associate states respectively into the organization was aided a good deal by their investments into the Organisation and France itself. I don't know why, but I find mignon/mignonne, the French word for “cute”, a really, well, cute word. Pellegrini, Giovanni Battista. PRODUCTS • ABOUT BENNY • MEET BENNY • CONTACT • SPEAK IN A WEEK • LANGUAGE HACKING BOOKS • PRIVACY POLICY. The French word for 80 is quatre-vingts, literally "four twenties", and the word for 75 is soixante-quinze, literally "sixty-fifteen". For example, a male teacher is a "enseignant" while a female teacher is a "enseignante". L. (2016), Mathilde Cohen, harvcoltxt error: no target: CITEREFBrincat2005 (, Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, most spoken language by total number of speakers, Réseau Démographie de l'Agence universitaire de la Francophonie, it had a case system that retained the difference between nominative subjects and oblique non-subjects, epic cycles focused on King Arthur and his court, Geographical distribution of French speakers, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, Court of Justice for the Economic Community of West African States, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, Glossary of French expressions in English, List of countries where French is an official language, List of French words and phrases used by English speakers, "French language is on the up, report reveals", "Official Languages of Pondicherry - E-Courts Mission, Government of India", "In which countries of the world is this language spoken...", "Census in Brief: English, French and official language minorities in Canada", "Le français est la deuxième langue la plus étudiée dans l'Union européenne", "How many people speak French and where is French spoken", "Francophonie ("Qu'est-ce que la Francophonie? [9] French is the second most taught foreign language in the EU. [102] Additionally, there are many variations in the pronunciation of consonants at the end of words, demonstrated by how the x in paix is not pronounced though at the end of Aix it is. In Old French (during the Middle Ages), all numbers from 30 to 99 could be said in either base 10 or base 20, e.g. The active voice is unmarked while the passive voice is formed by using a form of verb être ("to be") and the past participle. This began in 1794 with Henri Grégoire's "Report on the necessity and means to annihilate the patois and to universalize the use of the French language". French currently remains one of the three working languages, or "procedural languages", of the EU, along with English and German. Our tool helps you prepare for conversations with native speakers and get a sense of French pronunciation. The evolution of Latin in Gaul was shaped by its coexistence for over half a millennium beside the native Celtic Gaulish language, which did not go extinct until the late 6th century, long after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire. French is the official language of both French Guiana on the South American continent,[72] and of Saint Pierre and Miquelon,[73] an archipelago off the coast of Newfoundland in North America. You can use it exactly how you would use it in English. [12], French is estimated to have about 76 million native speakers; about 235 million daily, fluent speakers;[13][1][14] and another 77–110 million secondary speakers who speak it as a second language to varying degrees of proficiency, mainly in Africa. For example, I loved the name Simone, but for my French husband, it was the name of someone over the age of 70.I thought it was just him until we checked a French popularity site (link in French) which said the average age of the name-bearer was 87 years old. As a noun, the “proper” way to say “party” is la fête. There are enough ways to express how amazing something is in French that the language hardly needs yet another word. Nadeau, Jean-Benoît, and Julie Barlow (2006). [49][50], The majority of the world's French-speaking population lives in Africa. And a romantic language like French must never be awkward! Unfortunately, this doesn't work the same way in French. [11] As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 16th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa and Asia. French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland, along with German, Italian, and Romansh, and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland, called Romandy, of which Geneva is the largest city. One thing to keep in mind however is that a name might be French but is actually completely out-of-style in France. The phonology was characterized by a heavy syllabic stress, which led to the emergence of various complicated diphthongs such as -eau which would later be leveled to monophthongs. It is the first language of 9.5 million people or 29% and the second language for 2.07 million or 6% of the entire population of Canada. As the French language further evolved, the pronunciation of au turned into /o/ so that the u was reestablished in orthography for consistency, resulting in modern French animaux (pronounced first /animos/ before the final /s/ was dropped in contemporary French). My motherin-law drives me nuts! 2004, Martin Amis, Vintage Amis, page 190: In any case, porno is littered—porno is heaped—with the deaths of feelings. For example, the following words end in a vowel sound: pied, aller, les, finit, beaux. [74], French was the official language of the colony of French Indochina, comprising modern-day Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The French word for “a friend” is un ami (for male friends) or une amie (for female friends). 10 French Love Nicknames . The general French word for “feelings” is les sentiments (“a feeling” is un sentiment). If you want to confess your feelings for someone in French, you could use one of the following phrases to give the person a pretty good hint about what you're trying to say: Amazingly, “amazing” isn't really a word that translates into French very well. The Data Suggests It Could Be...French", "Focus - EU after Brexit: Will the French language make a comeback? Like many slang words, “hot” doesn't translate directly to French. In Switzerland, depending on the local dialect, 80 can be quatre-vingts (Geneva, Neuchâtel, Jura) or huitante (Vaud, Valais, Fribourg). In today's spoken French, the passé composé is used while the passé simple is reserved for formal situations or for literary purposes. There are some situations where both the feminine and masculine form of a noun are the same and the article provides the only difference. In many situations, and in the case of "enseignant", both the singular and plural form of a noun are pronounced identically. However, in both countries, French is not spoken by almost any of the general population or migrant workers, but spoken by a small minority of those who invest in Francophone countries or have other financial or family ties. The French language consists of both finite and non-finite moods. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. [98] His criteria were the numbers of native speakers, the number of secondary speakers (especially high for French among fellow world languages), the number of countries using the language and their respective populations, the economic power of the countries using the language, the number of major areas in which the language is used, and the linguistic prestige associated with the mastery of the language (Werber highlighted that French in particular enjoys considerable linguistic prestige). [14] French is the sole official language in the province of Quebec, being the mother tongue for some 7 million people, or almost 80% (2006 Census) of the province. In the French spoken in these places, 70 and 90 are septante and nonante. "Parlez-vous français ?" But maybe the course that helped to get you there has ended, or your stay abroad is over and it's time to go home. You can say it to a boy or a girl. For example, “amazing” could translate as étonnant, which translates back to English as “astounding”. The most accurate translation of au revoir is “until we meet again”. [35] A language divide began to grow across the country. So you wouldn't use it to describe a person you have a crush on, for example. Beaver trappers worked these rivers until the mid-19th century, and Belle Fourche became a well known fur trading rendezvous point. [97], In 1997, George Werber published, in Language Today, a comprehensive academic study entitled "The World's 10 most influential languages". Some proposals exist to simplify the existing writing system, but they still fail to gather interest. Just make sure that you practice the right pronunciation to avoid an embarrassing mishap! Alysa Salzberg is an American writer, worrier, teacher, and cookie enthusiast who has lived in Paris, France, for more than a decade. The language's early forms include Old French and Middle French. (uncountable) Pornography. The population in the north spoke langue d'oïl while the population in the south spoke langue d'oc. You can also choose a different French term of endearment; Optional: To respond to someone who says "I love you," say Moi aussi, je t'aime (I love you too). [98] In the article, Werber ranked French as, after English, the second most influential language of the world, ahead of Spanish. So a group of two male teachers would be "enseignants". [...]. For example, Old French made use of different possible word orders just as Latin did because it had a case system that retained the difference between nominative subjects and oblique non-subjects. Page 4. In English-speaking Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland, French is the first foreign language taught and in number of pupils is far ahead of other languages. Born and raised in Paris, I have been teaching today's French to adults for 23+ years in the US and France. In fact, there's a ready-made mnemonic for you! The same words followed by a vowel, however, may sound the consonants, as they do in these examples: beaux-arts, les amis, pied-à-terre. Incroyable and stupéfiant are also decent French translations, but they already mean “incredible” and “staggering” in English, respectively. All three countries are official members of the OIF.[77]. "Je t'aimerai pour toujours" -- I will love you forever (zhuh tem-air-ay poor too-zhoor) "T'es l'amour de ma vie"" -- You're the love of my life (teh lah-moor duh ma vee) "Je t'aime plus qu'hier et moins que … Annu. Missouri French was historically spoken in Missouri and Illinois (formerly known as Upper Louisiana), but is nearly extinct today. To a man = mon chéri, pronounced [mo(n) shay ree]. [10] French is also the 18th most natively spoken language in the world, 6th most spoken language by total number of speakers and the second or third most studied language worldwide (with about 120 million current learners). Mon is usually the masculine form of “my” in French, but you also use it before any word that begins with a vowel, even feminine words. C’est un mec très intelligent. [91], In the European Union, French was once the dominant language within all institutions until the 1990s. While it contains 130 graphemes that denote only 36 phonemes, many of its spelling rules are likely due to a consistency in morphemic patterns such as adding suffixes and prefixes. Manchester: Manchester University Press.