Wanted: reliable French person!

French is spoken on all the continent http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/New-Map-Francophone_World.PNG

 

In England, it is compulsory to learn a language in school - usually French or German. That is very often French, so there should be a fair few English people who can speak at least a little French.

Also, France is very close to Britain, so a lot of people choose to go there for holidays or short trips. I don't think we should assume that everyone speaks English and expect them to do so when we visit their country - that's just plain rude. If you're going to go to a country and intend to interact with people, even if only in a shop or a restaurant, then you should at least have the courtesy to pick up a phrase book and learn a few basic phrases.

 

I picked German found it much easier to learn. I think most people were just having a laugh and its been taken the wrong way.

 

Funny, I picked German because I found French easier to learn, and wanted to do so as an extra-curricular pursuit! ;-)

Well, I don't mind having a laugh, sure. I just think it a bit off doing it by insulting French people in my thread where I'm looking for one to help me. Is that going to encourage someone to come forward?

Anyway, Madroms to the rescue! Thanks again to him!

 

Then you're really ignorant.
Most of African countries speak french.Canada (quebec at least) as well.
Some countries in Oceanic part of the world as well,etc..

 

Or just 3 million more worldwide then there are Japanese speakers in the world which officially only has one country speaking it.

 

I think the statistic is 400 Million first-language English speakers in the world? Still better off learning Mandarin if we're going purely by numbers.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

 

Or Arabic,Indian..

363 million french speakers?Not that bad.

 

Hah, there are more Spanish speakers than English speaker, but I wonder how many native English or American people here speak Spanish... XD

 

That was my point yesterday.
I'm pretty sure more French people would do the effort to learn english,than english learn French. I haven't facts, just my guess.

Not to mention British are mostly (centuries ago) "french" guys who decided to live on an island,but well...nobody is perfect ^^

 

If you want to pick the big number, English actually has the most of all: 1.5 billion.

I feel this descending into nationalist dickwaving, but either way, that's an... unconventional interpretation of history you have there.

 

I don't.You do.

There is no questioning Mandarin is the most spoken language,even if that's not the most spread worldwide.

No nationalism here,i was just joking.

 

He's a great guy.

 

I don't know why I'm bothering, it's all there in the link - Mandarin is the most spoken first-language, but English is the most widely spoken otherwise. End of debate.

 

Cakes?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

1- Mandarin.
2- Hindustani.
3- Spanish.
4- English.

 

What Alchy means is that if you include everyone who speaks English as a second (or third, fourth, etc) language as well as those who speak it as a first language, it comes to an estimated 1,500,000,000 (one point five billion) people. Which makes it the most commonly-spoken language on the planet.

Look at the "Other estimates" column of the Wikipedia page to which people keep linking.

 

Yeah,but those estimates are from 2005.
It says for Chinese:
982,000,000 native, 179,000,000 second language = 1,151,000,000 total[3]

But there is like 1.300.000.000 chinese people by now.I'm pretty sure chinese would still be first.

 

Last time I checked 1,500,000,000 > 1,300,000,000

Regardless of the passage of time. Unless over 200,000,000 English speakers died in the past 3 years.. errr and the birth rate dropped off more dramatically than was anticipated. Which I have to admit I am unaware of as I do not pay attention to every plane crash bus accident and bike messenger fatality on a daily basis.

 

meh.