Living in France: Should you learn French?

Do you need to learn french? No.
If you want to, you should.
If you’re planing to install in France for a few month, or if you intend to live there for a couple of years, learning the language will only make your life better.

Do you need to learn French?

Financial services, Real Estate companies, Legal professionals, all of them have their ways with the English language.
They will be able to provide advice in both languages with no troubles.
Contracts have to be written in a language understood by the parties that’s integral to the European dynamics of inclusiveness.
The biggest, most reliable french companies all have an international division.
If they don’t, look for another.

Every Publics services from Security to Heath to Tax services is equipped to assist you.
Education can be delivered in both languages in both languages in many schools & institutes.

Entertainment
- Most cinemas propose non-dubbed versions of the movies or English-subbed versions.
- The biggest museums & art galleries have bilingual guides.
Restaurants
- Most restaurants have their menues in both languages.
Self-Catering & the Markets
- Almost every super/hypermarket will be English friendly.
- Many markets have English label nowadays.

There are very few languages in the world that as a close to English as French.
French vocabulary has been introduced into the English language since the Normand invasion of Britain up to the XXth century.
English is classified as a Germanic language, but up to 2/3 of its vocabulary is directly inherited from Romance languages, namely Latin (1/3) & French (1/3).
If anything, learning French will allow you to discover new English words.
Similarly, English is an easy language to learn if you are already speaking french, and is of great value if you wish to understand the evolution of French language as the 2 languages are so intertwined.

Les Marches locaux (Markets) are probably one of the best places to learn French.
Because you’ll learn French in its rawest form.
Local producers won’t try to tailor their speech for the customers, they’ll speak their way.
That’s also why markets are the best place to learn dialects.
And also the best places to discover regional specialties.

Try to visit as many cities, towns & villages as you can especially at the border of Spain, Italy & Germany.
The cities, towns & generally the Regions bordering these countries will have a lot of foreign communities but also give you access to regional languages such as Occitan, Savoyard or Languedocien.
That’s as many open doors for you to the rest of Europe.
Travelling is a game, Play.

Linguistic flexibility in 1 of the many that allows to enjoy Cognitive Joy.
When you’re able to understand what the main character says in this movie you’ve always watch with subtitle, and understand the emotion behind the words you’ll be golden.
It brings us back to the reason why you decided to move: you wanted it.
And you probably want to speak the language of the country you’re living in just to interact with others.
But maybe even more so to remind yourself that you wanted to satisfy yourself.

Being able to switch from French to English & back to French is a pleasure in itself.
So much so that we’re now learning true foreign languages such as Arabic or Japanese.
Japanese is an especially challenging one & probably one of the hardest languages to learn period.
Even so, Enjoyment > Difficulty.
You may already know that feeling if you’ve got a couple of foreign languages under your arm.

Read a Hugo’s poem, a LaFontaine’s fable.
- other writings: Le Horla Guy de Maupassant, À la recherche du temps perdu Marcel Proust or Vingt mille lieues sous les mers Jules Verne.

Watch a whole movie twice: with & then without subs.
- examples: Céline et Julie vont en bateau Jacques Rivette, A Bout de souffle Jean-Luc Godard, Shoah Claude Lanzmann or La Règle du jeu Jean Renoir.

Listen a whole song trice a week: listen, sing along, sing without.
- examples: any popular song you like.