French English Language Analysis

French language is the most internationally significant language in the world. French is the second language, after English, for the most number of countries where it has official language status. Apart from English, French is the only language, which is taught in every country of the world. At present, French has 120 million students and 2 million teachers, 20 percent of whom are outside of French-speaking countries. The number of French speaking population has become three times since 1945. This is largely due to former French and Belgian colonies, which retained French as their official language for government administration, science, technology and education, after decolonization. More than 11 million Americans speak French and half of

For pronunciation practice, try Google translation or any other site

teaching French.

French Alphabet

Before learning the basic words and expressions in French, it’s better to know the letters of the language. The French alphabets with their pronunciation are

shown in Figure 1.1.1. Figure 1.1.1: The French Alphabet

Important Points

Students will have no problem in learning and memorising the letters of French alphabet. But, they should be careful with the sounds of E and I, G and J letters.

• The French ‘e’ sound is similar to the English ‘e’ sound as in ‘Earth’

• The French ‘i’ sound is similar to the English ‘e’ sound as in ‘Equal’

• The French ‘g’ sound is similar to the English ‘j’ sound

• The French ‘j’ sound is similar to the English ‘g’ sound

Self-introduction

Expressions like 'Hello ' and 'Nice to meet you ' are must-know phrases in French also, as in English. Any introduction will probably will start expressions like

these. Let us now learn how to introduce yourself in French.

Table 1.1.1: Telling about yourself in French

English Expression French

Also, when changing the

noun into plural, the respective article must be changed to plural. Using a plural article before a noun does not enable the learner to determine the gender of

noun. One can learn gender by studying each noun with its singular article.

Most of the nouns in French are made plural by simply adding an unpronounced 's ' to its singular form. The letters 's ', 'x ' and 'z ' are used to make plurals in

French. If a noun ends in any of these letters, the plural form remains unchanged. Some common words in French, which end in 's ' and 'x ' are shown in Table

1.1.7.

Table 1.1.7: Some common nouns ending in ‘s’ and ‘x’ and their plural forms

Singular Noun Plural Noun le bus (bus) les bus (buses) le bras (arm) les bras (arms) le colis (package) les colis (packages) la fois (time) les fois (times) le héros (hero) les héros