by Jonas Stewart

Created on: April 01, 2009

French is an often prejudiced language as many people think it was extremely beautiful or enormously complicated. Neither of both apply. French is a language as any other, and the people in France do not speak better French than the British speak English. They are even quite weak when it comes to the pronunciation of foreign languages because their national pride refrains them from adapting the correct pronunciation of unknown languages.

However, the French language has some major advantages over other languages because its way of existing and developing is quite original and is not equal with the evolution of other languages.

Globalization has brought people closer together, and more and more foreign vocabulary starts getting imported into different languages unchanged: German people use many English terms, English people use many French terms and so on. But the French, even if they do use English vocabulary on many occasions, are somewhat special because they actively develop their language and new language patterns in a speed with whom no other language known to me can compete.

German jargon and teenager language is often based on English terms, the French on the contrary rely mostly on their own language for this. Constantly new words are created and adapted, and they find their way rapidly into television, radio and public speeches.

One major motor of this French language evolution is the "Acadmie Franaise", a regulatory institution which defines the currently applicable rules in grammar and vocabulary. Every aspect of the languages evolution is recorded by it and then discussed in order to evaluate which new elements are to be incorporated in the official language.One very interesting example is the word "email": While every German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese and Chinese man or woman understands the word email and uses it in his or her daily communication, the French reacted quickly to the spread of this English term and changed it into a French word. The literary translation for "electronic mail" being "courrier lectronique" in French, they contracted both terms to get "courriel", a genuinely French term which helps preserving the language's independence and innovative strength.

So yes one could say that at least in this one particular way of developing rapidly their language while sticking widely to their national identity, the French are more capable than many other nations.

(Still this doesn't change anything in them being rather bad at foreign language learning.)

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