Do you need to speak the language of the country you’re living in?
November 20th, 2007 | 
Author: A long time ago, I was brave enough to ask the question which many are afraid to ask: do you need to speak French if you want to live in France?
It’s not such a simple question to answer as it might appear. For one thing, there are many expat enclaves throughout France where, by and large, English is the only language used. Within these enclaves, the shopkeepers and so on can be expected to speak English and indeed even if you speak French to them, they’ll reply in English. So, yes, you could live in France without speaking French.
However, in many other areas (most of France in fact) you couldn’t do that. The locals either cannot or will not speak English. After all, why should they be expected to? It is France after all. Except that everywhere else in the world the locals DO speak English: that’s why people expect to be able to move to France without speaking French.
Funnily enough, just a few miles south in Spain the locals won’t speak Spanish and actually insist on using English. Well, to be fair that’s Catalonia and few people outside it ever have the opportunity to learn Catalán which tends to dictate the use of English with foreigners.
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Hi,
It’s true that most French in France can’t speak other languages – but it’s the same for the English and Americans in their countries, isn’t it?????-
Anyway,why should the French speak English in France?
If you come as a tourist or a visitor, then, you can’t be expected to speak French, although you would enjoy your stay much more.
But if you plan to live and work in France, you may be well advised to learn French.
As a teacher of French-for-Foreigners in Perpignan (North catalonia), I’m in contact with a lot of expats who keep having problems and call for help.
Furthermore, knowing the language isn’t enough, you also have to understand the French and local culture of the people if you want to integrate properly.
The situation in Southern Catalonia, around Barcelona, totally different from ours here.
I totally agree with Carole. I’m not French, but I live in French-speaking Switzerland where a lot of foreign companies come for our cheap taxes.
I have met many persons that arrived here without speaking French. For the ones who just stay a couple of months, there is no point learning. For the other ones, I have noticed by some of them what we call “mauvaise volonté” (bad will or something). They just don’t want to learn.
This is not only impolite, but also boring for the persons who have to translate everything (official papers, …). Moreover, you will always be treated as a tourist, which may be annoying if you stay for a long while.
As Carole said, you cannot expect people in other countries to speak English.
I personally think that we are too tolerant towards lazzy English speakers. For example, they have opened an Irish pub few years ago where the waiters were talking in English. As a client, you were always expected to address to them in English. Some of the customers did, but I refused to play that game. Anyway, have you to speak the language of every kind of pub/restaurant you go to? Do English speakers going to French restaurant order in French?
English has not per se a higher value than other languages, that is why English speakers should, like other communities, try to learn the language where they live.
It’s not always “bad will” from English speakers. What you have to remember is that just about everywhere we go in the world people reply to us in English even if we speak the language to a very high level. For example, even though I speak Spanish to degree level almost always the Spanish reply to me in English. Because of that many native English speakers reach the point where they expect that everyone will speak English and therefore give up on learning other languages. After all, if almost every time when you try to practice a language you’re learning, you’re replied to in English, after a while you give up trying.
The translation into English is a totally different matter. It’s not the case that the English speakers of the world are insisting on that but that many multinational companies (including those not British/American owned) are adopting English as their official language. Also, for political reasons, English is often felt to be neutral eg Belgians generally prefer to be addressed in English rather than French (realistically nobody outside Belgium/Holland speaks Dutch so that option isn’t often available). What I have found though is that consistently the French speakers in multilingual countries insist on French whereas all the other language groups prefer English.
Switzerland is, as always, a special case. Not only are there a very large number of multinational organisations (many of whom have chosen to use English as their working language even when no individual member uses that as their home language), but you’ve also the French/German (and to some extent, Italian) translations to carry out too. The problem is that outside Switzerland the combination of French + German is rare. Those learning French tend to stay with the latin based languages whilst those learning German tend to stick to the germanic ones. The overall effect of that is that some Swiss national organisations are moving to using only English (can’t remember the name but one of the medical organisations has already done so). The reason isn’t down to native English speakers but because English is the first second language of nearly everyone these days.
In an Irish pub, yes, one would expect English (or perhaps Irish) to be the language used. After all, would you expect the music to be translated too?
In most of the world, the restaurant owners insist on us speaking English even when we would rather speak in French or whatever. Even though I speak French to degree level, I am always handed the English menu and realistically it’s often not practical to order in French from an English menu. Whilst I would prefer to order in French, that option is rarely offered to me. That’s despite me speaking degree level French so what hope would there be for any normal tourist being able to order in French?
I do agree about the desirability, if not always the need, to learn the language of the area in which you live. However, this is not just an issue for native English speakers. For example, one of my Spanish teachers worked in Belgium for several years and only used English in her work not because she is a native English speaker (she’s Spanish) but because she never got around to learning French. The “problem” is that because English is very much a lingua franca these days, it’s often the case that it’s the one language that people of different backgrounds have in common.
English arguably does have a higher value than other languages simply because it is very much a lingua franca these days. In times past that lingua franca was French or German or Latin but now it’s English. Maybe in 50 years it’ll be another language.
Quite ok with you Arnold, except for your opinion has a higher value.
I think many Anglophones are just opportunistic and would not adapt anyway.
The city I live in has just sent a mail to an Autralian colleague about his medical insurance. This mail was in French, German (official languages in Switzerland) and in English.
Despite far more Portuguese, Turks and Albanian live here, nothing is translated for them. I do wonder why people speaking English should desserve more regards from Swiss authorities.
Again, this discourse holds for people living in foreign countries not for tourists.
Your opinion about that?
Honestly, it’s not that anglophones, or rather native english speakers, wouldn’t adapt. It’s that it’s very, very difficult for us to get going in a foreign language. For example, I was over half-way through my degree before people would routinely reply to me in French. Try speaking French in the UK and people will let you try; the French in France just won’t and go to English almost immediately. I found that VERY frustrating!
Personally, I think that your French/German approach isn’t going to last much longer. As I said in my slightly revised comment above some organisations are already going to English only.
It’s not realistic to translate everything into every possible language. With a translation into English, you can expect to cover nearly everyone, at least in Europe.
I felt that I couldn’t live in France without speaking very good French. However, I also found that it was virtually impossible to practice my French until I reach a very high level with it as everyone just replied in English. That being the case, many native English speakers find that their French doesn’t advance when they move to France. If they’re not close to degree level then replies are almost always in English. I honestly believe that non-native English speakers don’t appreciate how difficult that makes it for us to learn and improve in a new language.
One other problem that’s specifically French is that the French spoken outside France itself is quite different from that inside France. So, for example, if we “learn French” and go to Canada, it’s almost useless to us. Even in Switzerland it’s different enough to cause some issues now and again (I think that might be down to the accent).
Companies and organisations do what they want, public administration is another story. If the official languages are French and German, I think there should be no exception. What sense make laws, if there are exceptions?
Par ailleurs, ton avis sur les différences du français est erroné. Le français doit etre une des langues les plus standardisées au monde (héritage de l’académie française), si bien qu’hormis les différences d’accents (présentes dans toute langue), 95% du vocabulaire est international.
Le français parlé en Afrique et au Canada est tout à fait compréhensible par des Européens. Pour ma part je n’ai aucune peine à converser avec n’importe quel francophone au monde. Je dois juste faire attention à ne pas employer le 1% des mots que j’utilise qui sont typiquement suisses.
I’m not 100% sure but I think that the organisation that changed to English only was an offshoot of the government. Something to do with medicine and it did in (I think) 2002.
I know that French is very standardised. However, neither French Canadian nor the several varieties of African French are comprehensible to us. There are differences in both accent and vocabulary. For example, it’s never “le weekend” in French Canada; I realise that’s a trivial example but there are many, many others simply because they totally refuse to accept any American origin words whereas they are commonplace in France itself. However, the basic problem is that we hear neither the accent nor the different vocabulary whilst learning French and so, no, it isn’t understandable to us. Why this is so, I don’t know, as we are taught world Spanish all the time so pick up the different accents, vocabulary and grammar for that language.
For example, I have been able to understand programmes from all Spanish speaking countries. Yet, although my level of French is similar to my level of Spanish, I just can’t follow programmes in French Canadian or the various African French varieties.
What you need to remember is that French Canadian is to us as Glasgow English would be to you. I can understand Glaswegian but I’ll bet that you wouldn’t understand any of it despite it being “English”. Easy example… try reading http://www.mascamps.com/os and let me know if you can follow all of it.
Incidently, on the “official language” front there is no official language in either the UK or America. One consequence of this is that in the UK right now you can contact many public authorities in any language and they are required to respond in your language. I do stress “any” language because it really does mean that.
About your question whether I understand the site written in Glasgow English: the answer is yes, but probably because it’s written. If would be talked like this, I would certainly think they speak some sort of Gaelic language.
About your statement concerning the French accents: you are totally right. This is mainly due to France policy and language promotion. Recently France wanted to broadcast a new channel in lieu of TV5Monde that was only reporting things about France. They have not understood that French cannot be considered as an international language if it is only related to a single country. It is never said that French is official in 29 countries and spoken as first or second language in 51 countries (wikipédia), so far away to be a French exclusiveness!
I think for you TV5monde would be good, they broadcast news of everywhere with local accent!
Quant au fait qu’au Royaume-Uni on puisse s’adresser aux autorité en n’importe quelle langue, je demande à voir!