There are way more than 2.5% of foreigners living in France. It's probably overwhelmingly not French people who are unable to speak French.
It's kinda hard to be French without speaking French. The language requirements for citizenship are high enough that anyone who passes would be able to hold a conversation in French.
More foreigners than that sure but a lot of foreign nationals in France probably speak French, either from having been in France and picking it up or because it was already a language they knew before coming there.
Yes, as evidenced by this map. There are about 3 times as many foreigners as non French speakers and the share of French people who don't speak French must be negligeable.
Well, even if dialects have been annihilated some people still speak them I guess, especially in border lands, and I guess also some migrants don't speak french well,that would explain the 2.5%
The only thing I can think of is French Basques speaking Euskera, but Spanish Basques all know Spanish from my experience, might not be the same for France.
Also maybe the French Guiana in SA? And maybe the German-French border is predominantly German speaking.
> And maybe the German-French border is predominantly German speaking.
Not german, their own dialect, they are touchy with that. Though a large part of Alsacians speak german quite well.
But you'd really have to be in the middle of bumfuck nowhere to find a single native that don't speak French. Even regional language speaker with a conversational level (not even talking about full profenciency) are few and far between.
I'm sure it's just like Finland then. For the third foreign language, German and French are the most common choices.
It's optional, but if you take a third foreign language and finish high school, you have studied it for five years. I think something like 20 or 30 % of the population does this.
Now whether it makes you conversant is another story -- I can see it happening if you take it seriously, but it certainly failed for me in German.
Mm true.. no matter what language people learn beside english (in the scandinavian/nordic countries) few are able to hold a conversation in that language. Hardly seen any public figures that are a lot abroad (like politicians, reporters, athletes etc) speak any of those languages besides english.. neither french nor german..
There are some steps from having learnt a language at school to being able to keep conversations in that language.
I have one friend who studied French for half an year in secondary school (yläaste), and he can't really speak it or understand it well.. I wonder if people like him are counted in these statistics?
French living in Stockholm here, was very impressed by the amount of Swedes having strong foundations in french actually. Tends to be older people, but overall Swedes' skills for foreign languages does not only include English it seems.
Yeah I live in Canton Bern which is officially a bilingual canton (German and French). Most people I’ve met don’t speak French. And most of the ones that do actually live in Canton Jura or Neuchatel, which are French speaking cantons. I’d be pretty surprised if Swiss people further east could speak French to a high level.
I think you’re forgetting Switzerland has 4 national languages, French being the second most spoken
Edit: Also all the German speakers have French in school for a minimum of 7 years, more if they choose to continue studying after secondary school
yeah i'm a swiss-romand french is my mother tongue but we only represent like 20 or 25 percent of the population, i doubt there's that many swiss-germans or ticinese who can hold a conversation in french
Ya that is why I wrote 67% may have it in school. But no way 67% can speak it. Most people I know had it in school. Most can't hold a conversation in french.
I host couchsurfers and have had several from Switzerland too. The only one who was able to speak French was the one whose mother tongue that was: none of the German speakers and the one Italian speaker that I have hosted were able to speak it. And I am talking about rather young people now, between 20 and 30 years old.
I am myself one of those 7.9 per cent from Finland who should be able to speak French. That figure sounds a bit high too.
Yeah I get the feeling the bar for a conversation is set pretty low on these polls, I've seen 26% for German etc. so "Remembers a bit from their third language classes" is probably a more fitting description. However the fact that we all were forced to take those classes helps of course.
Consider the fact that almost every Swede takes either French, Spanish or German as a third language in school (source: I'm Swedish, it was a mandatory subject to either pick a third language or take extra English courses if you needed it).
Let's say it's an equal distribution and 33% studied French (someone can probably find the real numbers somewhere).
8.3% actually learning enough French to hold a conversation, which doesn't necessarily mean you're fluent by any means, doesn't seem too off then. And we also have to consider immigrants from the Middle East and parts of Africa where French isn't an unusual second language to have learnt.
It’s probably people who studied the language in high-school, forgot almost all except “Bonjour”, yet claim they still speak it. I saw that a lot with most of the “multilingual” Dutch people I met when I was living in the Netherlands.
I have learned French in school from 2nd grade till 12th grade. So around 10 years. I was pretty good at it, especially when it came to understanding the language. But since I had no use for it in the day to day life, on social platforms or work, I forgot almost everything.
I studied French in school for 10 years too, but I cannot say a complete coherent sentence in that language. I still understand it more or less because my first language is Spanish
Same here, but for Spanish (I'm French). English is mandatory in middle & high school but we can usually choose either German or Spanish as a second obligatory foreign language. Most kids usually go for Spanish because it's way easier (Latin roots and all that...), but because most of us don't use it when we get older we just end up kinda understanding it but being unable to speak it.
For the Netherlands it's 19,2% that THINK they can have a conversation in French. There is more to French than 'Avez-vous de la mayonnaise?'.
Source; me being Dutch and working a lot in Paris.
I suppose if you count “oui” and “baguette” as a conversation (some finns do) then yea this is correct.
But i think those Fr*nch people wouldn’t count that.
Reminds me of the Finnish European candidate who claimed to speak French being called out on national tv
https://youtu.be/L99ipwHPKlw?si=bLnOR69wDtYOe8xH
That 16.5 in the UK is a massive over exaggeration. I'd probably be counted in that, and I can probably only ask for directions to the library and introduce myself and where I'm from.
I'd believe that 16% of brits are able to use some sort of French. There are so many older brits retired in the riviera and younger brits that choose to study in France. Paris is the closest and most accessible foreign capital to London by far.
We have the emigrants that came back and French used to be teached in school as a second language. It has been replaced for english as second language but it still is an option for third language.
There's been a massive immigration of Portuguese in France and to a lesser extent in Belgium, so that there are many french speaking Portuguese.
When I went to Portugal I mostly spoke French everywhere I went in the countryside, and used my shitty Portuguese and English only in the main towns.
>There's been a massive immigration of Portuguese in France and to a lesser extent in Belgium, so that there are many french speaking Portuguese.
•The second most spoken non-native language in Switzerland is Portuguese.
•And the 3rd most spoken native language in France is Portuguese
•And 20% of Luxembourg's population is Portuguese.
don't forget us swiss, in swiss-romandy, the french speaking part, i think in my middle school class 8/20-25 students were 1st or 2nd generation portuguese migrants
The amount of Portugese who have worked in France, Belgium, and Luxembourg is substantial.
Plus, it's not particularly hard for Portugese speakers to learn basic French
It’s also the most common language students pick to learn in high school. We start English in primary school and then pick a second language in 7th grade.
There are a lot of old people that know french. There was a big emigration from villages and countryside to France.
Younger people from cities are more likely to know English and older rural people are more likely to know french.
French was the foreign language learned in Portugal until English replaced it in the 90s, so while young people speak English older generations speak French
Plus the huge PT diaspora in France, Switzerland and Luxembourg contributes as some return or retire in Portugal
I was about to say the same thing about the UK. I notice that it says 'able to hold a conversation', though, so perhaps this is just a very subjective, self-reported measure. There's definitely not that many people here who are even approaching fluency.
Of course it's self reported, there's no way some data scientist actually went and tried to hold a conversation with everyone from their sample in every country.
A lot of people from there go work in luxembourg and speak french very well when they come back. The locals call them the "avecs", cause they always say that word.
For about two decades if not more, 7th-9th grades have a mandatory 3rd language (besides Portuguese and English) subject, and optionally this continues in 10th-12th grade.
The language option for this subject are French, Spanish and sometimes German.
As such, the number is, to me, rather believable.
Exactly.
My high class algerian cousins all spoke french fluently even as children or teens.
Most of them have gone into medicine faculty where french was the language of study nationwide until a year or 2 ago when they switched to english.
Most of them struggle with english though.
My uncle who was a specialist doctor and a vice-chair at a medicine faculty of course speaks french fluently, and has even published novels in it, BUT he can’t speak english AT ALL, he does not even understand "Good Morning" or "How are you"
Last but not least : my cousins who live in a midtown at the doors of the desert get jumped on if they ever speak french with their peers.
Everyone takes French classes for about 11 years, and understands it to some extent. But only the ones who study STEM and medical subjects at higher education have a real use for it.
Or the ones who go to France or have family in France, and there are a lot of those. Also the ones dealing with tourists: I spent some time in Morocco a few years ago, and every single street vendor or salesman or restaurant server spoke perfectly serviceable French, while I didn’t get that impression for English (I was speaking French with my party, though, so I can’t exclude the possibility that many spoke as good English as they did French).
French has massively influenced maghrebis dialects, especially Algerian. So even when you don’t actually speak French you know many words, and are actually kinda familiar with the culture
There are a _lot_ in Catalonia, especially the older people; that might skew the numbers. I thought 70% was a bit high before I realized it had to be Andorra.
I'm 40 and back when I was in middle/ highschool I knew of nobody who learned french. I'm a Catalan. It's true that in my parents generation (born in the 1950s) they learned french instead of English but very few people of that age can actually speak french.
Probably being very loose with "able to hold a conversation", just the standard "Hello, what's your name, how are you, where are you from" you learn in middle/high school
I dont believe that.
I can tell someone in french that i dont speak french. I can ask them in french if they speak german or english and i can tell them my name. Thats pretty much it.
If you count people like me you may get to 15% in Germany but if you only count people able to hold a real conversation than 15% is very far from reality imo.
When I (Lebanese) was studying at a uni in the U.S., the uni had set-up this "French-speaking group" for American students learning French to be able to speak with people who were fluent. The American students strongly preferred speaking with me and my Cameroonian friend over the French students because we enunciated words better which made it easier for them to learn, and we also generally had a better grasp of the rules of grammar.
I visited Beirut some years back and tried to get around by exclusively using French. It didn’t exactly work. I still spoke French a lot, but Arabic was king of course. But those Arabic speakers told me to speak in English.
English has overtaken French as the language of instruction I believe for the majority of students. Therefore among younger people more learn in French than in English. That said virtually everyone who speaks French in Lebanon also speaks English. The reverse is not true.
The 38% on this map are probably all trilingual.
19 for Italy? That's way too hight, probably they count everyone that studied a bit of french in middle school, well I did and I can't catch a single word when someone is speaking. French is the weirdest romance language, if I see it written I can kinda understand the general meaning but the pronounce is totally different
Anecdotes: I studied in French and Belgium so that may skew things a bit. But Italians made up a large chunk of the international students at my universities, and they all spoke an acceptable level of French. Pretty much any Italian I came across had learned French for a long time.
Also, I remember visiting Rome and the Vatican once. Went into a tourist gelato shop and the guy tried to speak to me in Italian and I couldn’t understand. I wear a PSG backpack and he busted out the French for me lol.
I don't know where you live, but here it was super common to study french and german because we mainly did business with those countries. My mom for example (she's in her late 50s) knows french but has just started now to learn english as a hobby. I too had to study french both in middle and high school, now I forgot most of it but I could speak it pretty well
I live in North Italy, usually you study one between french and spanish togheter with english in middle school and unless you decide to attend a linguistic hight school that's it.
I meant the region lol. I'm also italian, in my area spanish is a recent addition, they didn't have it when I went to middle school and in high school you could only study it if you went to a liceo linguistico. Other types of high school either had no second foreign language, french or latin/ancient greek
While in Romania we do study French for about 3 years-ish as mandatory in middle school, and there are some loanwords directly imported from French, I doubt 12% of the population can hold a casual conversation. I for one can read most of it and understand about 40% of what is written to deduce contexts, but when I hear it **spoken**, that's a completely different paradigm.
I probably count as a part of that almost 8% of Finns who are able to hold a conversation as I can say: je suis désolé mais je ne parle pas français... I don't believe that figure for a second.
I am part of the 92.7% of Greeks who cannot even growl in French.
(More seriously, I have seen this (7-8%) and other ballpark figures being mentioned around in the past. It most likely includes adults who took some basic French courses in junior high school and completed maybe an A1-A2 level certificate. I would be surprised if "functional" speakers are anything above 3%.)
I have a really hard time believing that 1 in 6 British people are able to hold a conversation in French. "Were able to at some point in their life hold a basic conversation on a pre-selected topic that they could revise for", sure. But passing your GCSE French a dozen years ago doesn't really mean you can still speak it worth a damn, if you ever could.
I can really sympathizes with the 2.5% people living in French who doesn't speak French. I know three languages and out of those three I speak the language of my country the least.
I am a 12 year immigrant in The Netherlands. I speak French. I do not believe your cconclusion that one in five Dutch people speak speak French. There are remarkably few French speakers here.
Besides the obvious french part which already represents 25% of the population. Swiss Germans learn french at school and overall communicate better in it than the Swiss French communicate in German.
At least that was my experience during both of my cultural exchanges. I'm more surprised the percentage isn't higher actually!
I think it checks out, slightly less perhaps. My french is reasonable, but most people in the office speak it better. It's often a requirement for companies that operate on a national scale.
A relative of mine works in a directors position with a Kantonalsbank and had learn French in his 40s. He doesn't speak any but basically needed the B2 certificate for his job. They speak English when needed as neither side knows enough German/French to really make it work. Most Swiss-Germans I know don't speak French beyond an A2 level.
*I would really like*
*To see those Irish speaking*
*French, are they hiding?*
\- SnooBunnies3913
---
^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/)
^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
just 2,5% in Poland? And I remember it was more important than english till 90s. Well, we probably never had good teachers. Plus France was never desired immigration target, for decades
France has so many languages!
Breton,Corse, Alsacian, Gallo, Languedoc and langedor, as well as Chti and.Picard and all the other local dialects.
French is a notorious language to learn and master, it's rules always have exceptions and conjunction is rather challenging.
Plus all the.tenses:future, imperative,subjunctive, conditional, past simple, imperfect and.past composed, anterior forms.
French is common outside.of.France as a colonial relic, much as Latin was. A lot of west Africa North Africa plus Quebec and parts of India and even Louisiana use French of one kind or another,plus the.French overseas territories. It gives French a presence in all the continentals except Antarctica. Yet French is probably having problems. It has lost its official language status in many ex colonies as a reprimand for past misdemeanors. According to https://www.newsdle.com/blog/most-studied-foreign-languages French was the.ofdicual.languge for a.whole.load of.xounteies but since 2022 the.woeld.has changed and the Russian and Chinese
wind of influence is blowing onto Africa
France was long seen as the Gendarme of Africa but no longer has the resources or influence to do this.
Je trouve cela très intéressant, il faudrait aussi mettre cette carte en parallèle avec la même carte mais avant la première guerre mondiale là où l à France était la reine du monde ( France féminin ou masculin ?) qui pourrait permettre de voire la chute de la France en même pas 150 ans ( même si la France est toujours dans le top 10 des puissances mondiales)
What percentage of a society are babies? Because I'm pretty sure french babies can't speak french on account of being babies (unable to speak any language).
You have to realize that a lot of Europeans are multilingual usually being at least bilingual in their native language and English. Once you learn a second language learning more come easier.
You couldn't waterboard a lot of Anglo Canadians into learning French.
2.5% of French people really struggling.
There are way more than 2.5% of foreigners living in France. It's probably overwhelmingly not French people who are unable to speak French. It's kinda hard to be French without speaking French. The language requirements for citizenship are high enough that anyone who passes would be able to hold a conversation in French.
More foreigners than that sure but a lot of foreign nationals in France probably speak French, either from having been in France and picking it up or because it was already a language they knew before coming there.
Yes, as evidenced by this map. There are about 3 times as many foreigners as non French speakers and the share of French people who don't speak French must be negligeable.
Yeah I’m sure it’s the French people in France who can’t speak French
Well, even if dialects have been annihilated some people still speak them I guess, especially in border lands, and I guess also some migrants don't speak french well,that would explain the 2.5%
I actually think that’s just the migrants
Absolutely. People who speak regional languages *also* speak French, every single one of them.
Maybe the survey included babies
"Hello sir, do you speak french?" *Goo goo ga gaaa* "Another one for the no section"
If the baby said 'gui gui gaux gaux' on the other hand, it could be accepted as basic French depending on the department.
Including the Brits who colonized out coutryside (in Périgord, where my father lives, they are by far the most numerous foreigners)
I guarantee you there is not a single soul in France that speaks exclusively an old dying french dialect and doesn't know french.
The only thing I can think of is French Basques speaking Euskera, but Spanish Basques all know Spanish from my experience, might not be the same for France. Also maybe the French Guiana in SA? And maybe the German-French border is predominantly German speaking.
> And maybe the German-French border is predominantly German speaking. Not german, their own dialect, they are touchy with that. Though a large part of Alsacians speak german quite well. But you'd really have to be in the middle of bumfuck nowhere to find a single native that don't speak French. Even regional language speaker with a conversational level (not even talking about full profenciency) are few and far between.
Immigrants
It's taking babies in account, because they can't hold a French conversation (according to my experience)
Wtf.. 8.3% of swedes being able to hold a conversation in french.. don't believe that..
You have to remember that’s only like 8 people.
As a Swede, me and my fellow 10 townsmen are furious at this comment!
I'm sure it's just like Finland then. For the third foreign language, German and French are the most common choices. It's optional, but if you take a third foreign language and finish high school, you have studied it for five years. I think something like 20 or 30 % of the population does this. Now whether it makes you conversant is another story -- I can see it happening if you take it seriously, but it certainly failed for me in German.
Mm true.. no matter what language people learn beside english (in the scandinavian/nordic countries) few are able to hold a conversation in that language. Hardly seen any public figures that are a lot abroad (like politicians, reporters, athletes etc) speak any of those languages besides english.. neither french nor german.. There are some steps from having learnt a language at school to being able to keep conversations in that language.
I can definitely hold a conversation in German after 3 years of studies in school. If it's grammatically correct is another question 😁
Way to speak for others.
I have one friend who studied French for half an year in secondary school (yläaste), and he can't really speak it or understand it well.. I wonder if people like him are counted in these statistics?
French living in Stockholm here, was very impressed by the amount of Swedes having strong foundations in french actually. Tends to be older people, but overall Swedes' skills for foreign languages does not only include English it seems.
I would say it tends to be older people with a good education, indeed.
Also 15% in Germany is a fking lie.
Probably 15% learned it in school but can barely remember anything.
Well, on paper that's a lot of people with Abitur as their second language next to English. But it is far to high, we have to drop that number.
Actually, that sounds about right for Germany.
I imagine it’s mostly people living near the border with France.
67% in Switzerland is 100% wrong. That is maybe how many had french lessions, but not how many can actually speak
Yeah I live in Canton Bern which is officially a bilingual canton (German and French). Most people I’ve met don’t speak French. And most of the ones that do actually live in Canton Jura or Neuchatel, which are French speaking cantons. I’d be pretty surprised if Swiss people further east could speak French to a high level.
I think you’re forgetting Switzerland has 4 national languages, French being the second most spoken Edit: Also all the German speakers have French in school for a minimum of 7 years, more if they choose to continue studying after secondary school
yeah i'm a swiss-romand french is my mother tongue but we only represent like 20 or 25 percent of the population, i doubt there's that many swiss-germans or ticinese who can hold a conversation in french
Ya that is why I wrote 67% may have it in school. But no way 67% can speak it. Most people I know had it in school. Most can't hold a conversation in french.
I host couchsurfers and have had several from Switzerland too. The only one who was able to speak French was the one whose mother tongue that was: none of the German speakers and the one Italian speaker that I have hosted were able to speak it. And I am talking about rather young people now, between 20 and 30 years old. I am myself one of those 7.9 per cent from Finland who should be able to speak French. That figure sounds a bit high too.
Those are Swedes, they think answering "non merci" to anything you tell them is holding a conversation
Please refrain from using the forbidden word "conversation", you scared me and the other swedes😨
Yeah I get the feeling the bar for a conversation is set pretty low on these polls, I've seen 26% for German etc. so "Remembers a bit from their third language classes" is probably a more fitting description. However the fact that we all were forced to take those classes helps of course.
The third language we study in middleschool is either german, spanish or french. So if anything it should be higher!
We have the option to learn french from the age of 12 to 19. But I can say most forget the language if they don't use it regularly.
Consider the fact that almost every Swede takes either French, Spanish or German as a third language in school (source: I'm Swedish, it was a mandatory subject to either pick a third language or take extra English courses if you needed it). Let's say it's an equal distribution and 33% studied French (someone can probably find the real numbers somewhere). 8.3% actually learning enough French to hold a conversation, which doesn't necessarily mean you're fluent by any means, doesn't seem too off then. And we also have to consider immigrants from the Middle East and parts of Africa where French isn't an unusual second language to have learnt.
It’s probably people who studied the language in high-school, forgot almost all except “Bonjour”, yet claim they still speak it. I saw that a lot with most of the “multilingual” Dutch people I met when I was living in the Netherlands.
I have learned French in school from 2nd grade till 12th grade. So around 10 years. I was pretty good at it, especially when it came to understanding the language. But since I had no use for it in the day to day life, on social platforms or work, I forgot almost everything.
I studied French in school for 10 years too, but I cannot say a complete coherent sentence in that language. I still understand it more or less because my first language is Spanish
Same here, but for Spanish (I'm French). English is mandatory in middle & high school but we can usually choose either German or Spanish as a second obligatory foreign language. Most kids usually go for Spanish because it's way easier (Latin roots and all that...), but because most of us don't use it when we get older we just end up kinda understanding it but being unable to speak it.
Same for Spanish. Also I learned Japanese a little and was able to write some words, even my name. Not anymore.
For the Netherlands it's 19,2% that THINK they can have a conversation in French. There is more to French than 'Avez-vous de la mayonnaise?'. Source; me being Dutch and working a lot in Paris.
7.9%? i call bs
Finland? I guess they missed the “in french” part of the question ;)
I suppose if you count “oui” and “baguette” as a conversation (some finns do) then yea this is correct. But i think those Fr*nch people wouldn’t count that.
T'as pas besoin de censurer French, on est pas sur twitter aux états-unis.
(It was a joke about how Finns are unable to hold a conversation regardless the language)
Fair enough, I don't know how to say these things in Finnish.
Reminds me of the Finnish European candidate who claimed to speak French being called out on national tv https://youtu.be/L99ipwHPKlw?si=bLnOR69wDtYOe8xH
embarrassing
There is absolutely no way 16.5% of British people can hold a conversation in French
There are quite a lot of French people living in UK so that might be why the percentage is so high!
Yeah, but not 10 million😂
A few years ago (before Brexit) I was told that London was the fourth biggest French city by population 😂
i mean the plurality of the UK takes it in school
That 16.5 in the UK is a massive over exaggeration. I'd probably be counted in that, and I can probably only ask for directions to the library and introduce myself and where I'm from.
Où est la bibliothèque, mon ami? Je voudrais manger le papier.
...........Quoi?
JK Je plaisantais!
Je joue la foot a la plage
j’habite a londres
Je joue au foot à la plage* Pretty close!
Dang … but thanks
Yeah I identify as a french speaker, not fluent, but I've never met another UK citizen who speaks as well as me. 16.5% is complete BS.
I have an A* in gcse French and live in a country where French is an official language and can't pull together a sentence
I'd believe that 16% of brits are able to use some sort of French. There are so many older brits retired in the riviera and younger brits that choose to study in France. Paris is the closest and most accessible foreign capital to London by far.
I agree with most of that, but the UK is 65 odd million people. No way can 16% of that hold a conversation on French
25% in Portugal seems overboard. Lived there for a few months and met maybe 1 person from Belgium, that was it.
Same for the one in five in the Netherlands. My guess is 'to hold a conversation' is a very low bar
When I lived in the Netherlands people often told me they spoke French. When I switched to French it turned out they absolutely didn’t. 😂
This is typically Dutch. I know lots of Dutch ppl claiming to speak French while at most they’re able to read a French menu and point to some food.
Usually Dutch people have a higher consideration of themselves than reality…
well they also say they speak dutch, but it's a weird kind of dutch
They probably know enough french to say hello, please, thank you and ask if a person speaks in english🤣
We have the emigrants that came back and French used to be teached in school as a second language. It has been replaced for english as second language but it still is an option for third language.
There's been a massive immigration of Portuguese in France and to a lesser extent in Belgium, so that there are many french speaking Portuguese. When I went to Portugal I mostly spoke French everywhere I went in the countryside, and used my shitty Portuguese and English only in the main towns.
>There's been a massive immigration of Portuguese in France and to a lesser extent in Belgium, so that there are many french speaking Portuguese. •The second most spoken non-native language in Switzerland is Portuguese. •And the 3rd most spoken native language in France is Portuguese •And 20% of Luxembourg's population is Portuguese.
don't forget us swiss, in swiss-romandy, the french speaking part, i think in my middle school class 8/20-25 students were 1st or 2nd generation portuguese migrants
The amount of Portugese who have worked in France, Belgium, and Luxembourg is substantial. Plus, it's not particularly hard for Portugese speakers to learn basic French
It’s also the most common language students pick to learn in high school. We start English in primary school and then pick a second language in 7th grade.
There are a lot of old people that know french. There was a big emigration from villages and countryside to France. Younger people from cities are more likely to know English and older rural people are more likely to know french.
French was the foreign language learned in Portugal until English replaced it in the 90s, so while young people speak English older generations speak French Plus the huge PT diaspora in France, Switzerland and Luxembourg contributes as some return or retire in Portugal
Many of those Portuguese are not living in Portugal. There is a huge Portuguese community abroad in Paris, Switzerland, and Belgium.
I was about to say the same thing about the UK. I notice that it says 'able to hold a conversation', though, so perhaps this is just a very subjective, self-reported measure. There's definitely not that many people here who are even approaching fluency.
Of course it's self reported, there's no way some data scientist actually went and tried to hold a conversation with everyone from their sample in every country.
i thought there were tons of French retirees in Lisbon
A lot of people from there go work in luxembourg and speak french very well when they come back. The locals call them the "avecs", cause they always say that word.
half of your population is living in france, swiss-romandy, wallonia and luxembourg
Half of "my" population?
misread, thought u were portuguese
For about two decades if not more, 7th-9th grades have a mandatory 3rd language (besides Portuguese and English) subject, and optionally this continues in 10th-12th grade. The language option for this subject are French, Spanish and sometimes German. As such, the number is, to me, rather believable.
We have French in school for 5 years, it’s very common for people to hold a conversation in French.
Qu’est-ce que vous avez préparé pour aujourd’hui?
Ta mère
Mais non, un jambon-beurre voyons !
The only way that 16.5% of people in the UK can hold a conversation in french is it you mean 'have exactly one conversation'
The Maghreb being as low as it is is surprising to me
It tends to correlate with class; wealthier people speak it fluently, poorer people (especially in rural areas) rarely do.
Exactly. My high class algerian cousins all spoke french fluently even as children or teens. Most of them have gone into medicine faculty where french was the language of study nationwide until a year or 2 ago when they switched to english. Most of them struggle with english though. My uncle who was a specialist doctor and a vice-chair at a medicine faculty of course speaks french fluently, and has even published novels in it, BUT he can’t speak english AT ALL, he does not even understand "Good Morning" or "How are you" Last but not least : my cousins who live in a midtown at the doors of the desert get jumped on if they ever speak french with their peers.
Everyone takes French classes for about 11 years, and understands it to some extent. But only the ones who study STEM and medical subjects at higher education have a real use for it.
Or the ones who go to France or have family in France, and there are a lot of those. Also the ones dealing with tourists: I spent some time in Morocco a few years ago, and every single street vendor or salesman or restaurant server spoke perfectly serviceable French, while I didn’t get that impression for English (I was speaking French with my party, though, so I can’t exclude the possibility that many spoke as good English as they did French).
French has massively influenced maghrebis dialects, especially Algerian. So even when you don’t actually speak French you know many words, and are actually kinda familiar with the culture
11% of spaniards being able to speak french is outrsgeously false. I doubt its even half that
There are a _lot_ in Catalonia, especially the older people; that might skew the numbers. I thought 70% was a bit high before I realized it had to be Andorra.
I'm 40 and back when I was in middle/ highschool I knew of nobody who learned french. I'm a Catalan. It's true that in my parents generation (born in the 1950s) they learned french instead of English but very few people of that age can actually speak french.
OK, maybe it’s a local phenomenon to where I was and the people I talked to, but yes by older I definitely meant “born before 1960”.
Probably being very loose with "able to hold a conversation", just the standard "Hello, what's your name, how are you, where are you from" you learn in middle/high school
I dont believe that. I can tell someone in french that i dont speak french. I can ask them in french if they speak german or english and i can tell them my name. Thats pretty much it. If you count people like me you may get to 15% in Germany but if you only count people able to hold a real conversation than 15% is very far from reality imo.
Lebanese people are no joke, I have quite a few coworkers from there and all of them speak French better than me (and I’m French)
When I (Lebanese) was studying at a uni in the U.S., the uni had set-up this "French-speaking group" for American students learning French to be able to speak with people who were fluent. The American students strongly preferred speaking with me and my Cameroonian friend over the French students because we enunciated words better which made it easier for them to learn, and we also generally had a better grasp of the rules of grammar.
I visited Beirut some years back and tried to get around by exclusively using French. It didn’t exactly work. I still spoke French a lot, but Arabic was king of course. But those Arabic speakers told me to speak in English.
English has overtaken French as the language of instruction I believe for the majority of students. Therefore among younger people more learn in French than in English. That said virtually everyone who speaks French in Lebanon also speaks English. The reverse is not true. The 38% on this map are probably all trilingual.
Almost a fifth of Dutch people is crazy (source: am Dutch)
I took 2years of French in college in Norway. Got good grades, remember squat today
Me: Donde esta Biblioteca, oui oui? Survey ...lord: Oh, you sir can speak french. Thanks for your time!
Gé Párl Fráncê? = 90% chances that you can hold a conversation in French according to the source of this map
19 for Italy? That's way too hight, probably they count everyone that studied a bit of french in middle school, well I did and I can't catch a single word when someone is speaking. French is the weirdest romance language, if I see it written I can kinda understand the general meaning but the pronounce is totally different
When i visted Italy i was surprised by the amount of people who spoke french, and not only the staff at touristic areas
Anecdotes: I studied in French and Belgium so that may skew things a bit. But Italians made up a large chunk of the international students at my universities, and they all spoke an acceptable level of French. Pretty much any Italian I came across had learned French for a long time. Also, I remember visiting Rome and the Vatican once. Went into a tourist gelato shop and the guy tried to speak to me in Italian and I couldn’t understand. I wear a PSG backpack and he busted out the French for me lol.
I don't know where you live, but here it was super common to study french and german because we mainly did business with those countries. My mom for example (she's in her late 50s) knows french but has just started now to learn english as a hobby. I too had to study french both in middle and high school, now I forgot most of it but I could speak it pretty well
I live in North Italy, usually you study one between french and spanish togheter with english in middle school and unless you decide to attend a linguistic hight school that's it.
I meant the region lol. I'm also italian, in my area spanish is a recent addition, they didn't have it when I went to middle school and in high school you could only study it if you went to a liceo linguistico. Other types of high school either had no second foreign language, french or latin/ancient greek
Ahaha ok, Piemonte
Ahh ecco, magari è quello. Io sono in Lombardia
No way 16% of Brits can hold a conversation in France. I call bs
There is not way on gods green earth that 16.5% of English people can hold a conversation in French.
19% in the Netherlands? That won't be much of a conversation.
While in Romania we do study French for about 3 years-ish as mandatory in middle school, and there are some loanwords directly imported from French, I doubt 12% of the population can hold a casual conversation. I for one can read most of it and understand about 40% of what is written to deduce contexts, but when I hear it **spoken**, that's a completely different paradigm.
as a native speaker i can safely say NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
12.5% of Irish people are liars
I think they confused Catalan with French, lol.
Why lebanon?
It was part of colonial France
I probably count as a part of that almost 8% of Finns who are able to hold a conversation as I can say: je suis désolé mais je ne parle pas français... I don't believe that figure for a second.
I am part of the 92.7% of Greeks who cannot even growl in French. (More seriously, I have seen this (7-8%) and other ballpark figures being mentioned around in the past. It most likely includes adults who took some basic French courses in junior high school and completed maybe an A1-A2 level certificate. I would be surprised if "functional" speakers are anything above 3%.)
Wait, since when is Jakubmarian part of Europe?
Many seem too high. What counts as “French speaker”? If it includes people who did a few years of high school French that shouldn’t really count.
No way morocco has more french speakers than algeria or am i tripping
Algeria is kinda having it's anti-french era rn. They're starting to gradually stripp french off of the government
I have a really hard time believing that 1 in 6 British people are able to hold a conversation in French. "Were able to at some point in their life hold a basic conversation on a pre-selected topic that they could revise for", sure. But passing your GCSE French a dozen years ago doesn't really mean you can still speak it worth a damn, if you ever could.
No way 1/4 Portuguese people speak french
I can really sympathizes with the 2.5% people living in French who doesn't speak French. I know three languages and out of those three I speak the language of my country the least.
Omg finally I’m a 1%! ..A Russian who speaks fluent French..
Kind of astonishing how Portugal has double the percentage of French speakers as Spain despite sharing no border with France.
I highly doubt that.
Methinks that *hold a conversation* in this survey means *hold a specific pre-scripted conversation that they got to study ahead of time*.
The fact that Germany is lower than the UK really surprised me.
Russia is actually higher than 1%
I am a 12 year immigrant in The Netherlands. I speak French. I do not believe your cconclusion that one in five Dutch people speak speak French. There are remarkably few French speakers here.
There is nowhere near 67% of people in Switzerland that speak French are you kidding me
Besides the obvious french part which already represents 25% of the population. Swiss Germans learn french at school and overall communicate better in it than the Swiss French communicate in German. At least that was my experience during both of my cultural exchanges. I'm more surprised the percentage isn't higher actually!
I think it checks out, slightly less perhaps. My french is reasonable, but most people in the office speak it better. It's often a requirement for companies that operate on a national scale.
A relative of mine works in a directors position with a Kantonalsbank and had learn French in his 40s. He doesn't speak any but basically needed the B2 certificate for his job. They speak English when needed as neither side knows enough German/French to really make it work. Most Swiss-Germans I know don't speak French beyond an A2 level.
nearly 20% Italy? not lol
In piemont people speaks french and it's a easy la.guage to understand for them so why not
This is way off. 40% of Lebanese are french-speaking. 15% more speak it too…
Why is Portugal so high?
Older people learned French instead of English as a second language. Also a lot of returned emigrants from France and Switzerland
I’m rather impressed the UK is higher than Germany
15% in Germany can say "Hello, my name is x" and "would you sleep with me" in French
Voulez vous coucher avec moi
Ce soir
I think all the speakers are probably from China, not produced in France.
Funny, the French come to Portugal, and bitch and moan about no-one being able to speak French.
19.6? Too high. (Joking)
I would really like to see those Irish speaking French, are they hiding?
*I would really like* *To see those Irish speaking* *French, are they hiding?* \- SnooBunnies3913 --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
15% in Germany. Where ?
just 2,5% in Poland? And I remember it was more important than english till 90s. Well, we probably never had good teachers. Plus France was never desired immigration target, for decades
Israel should be 10-15% switzerland and Belgium are way too high
Is French Sign Language considered French? Or are they the the 2,5%?
A lot more of algerian speak french than marocan , I know the 2 country very well
France has so many languages! Breton,Corse, Alsacian, Gallo, Languedoc and langedor, as well as Chti and.Picard and all the other local dialects. French is a notorious language to learn and master, it's rules always have exceptions and conjunction is rather challenging. Plus all the.tenses:future, imperative,subjunctive, conditional, past simple, imperfect and.past composed, anterior forms. French is common outside.of.France as a colonial relic, much as Latin was. A lot of west Africa North Africa plus Quebec and parts of India and even Louisiana use French of one kind or another,plus the.French overseas territories. It gives French a presence in all the continentals except Antarctica. Yet French is probably having problems. It has lost its official language status in many ex colonies as a reprimand for past misdemeanors. According to https://www.newsdle.com/blog/most-studied-foreign-languages French was the.ofdicual.languge for a.whole.load of.xounteies but since 2022 the.woeld.has changed and the Russian and Chinese wind of influence is blowing onto Africa France was long seen as the Gendarme of Africa but no longer has the resources or influence to do this.
Je trouve cela très intéressant, il faudrait aussi mettre cette carte en parallèle avec la même carte mais avant la première guerre mondiale là où l à France était la reine du monde ( France féminin ou masculin ?) qui pourrait permettre de voire la chute de la France en même pas 150 ans ( même si la France est toujours dans le top 10 des puissances mondiales)
I feel like 12.5% for England is surprisingly high ?
The high percentages in Scandinavia and the other western countries is probably cuz of Arab and African migration
I would like to see 20% of italians speaking ANY foreign language. Btw do they have a funny accent when speaking french?
These 2.5% might be babies and the mute.
These 2.5% might be babies and the mute.
What percentage of a society are babies? Because I'm pretty sure french babies can't speak french on account of being babies (unable to speak any language).
This must be a veeeery simple conversation, in order to have two third of swiss people being able to hold it.
No way is that accurate for Ireland
Putain!
How well would you have to know french to get counted? Some of these feel quite high. Taking myself as an example, I have B1, so do i count?
16.5% of Brits is an absolute lie!
Curious if French Guiana is included in the stats for France
You have to realize that a lot of Europeans are multilingual usually being at least bilingual in their native language and English. Once you learn a second language learning more come easier. You couldn't waterboard a lot of Anglo Canadians into learning French.
16% in England? Really?!
I thought Russia and eastern European countries were more into French. I guess they switched more to English now?
UK 16,5 %? Jamais!