Distribution

FRANCE (including French West Indies), BELGIUM, SWITZERLAND, CANADA, HAITI; some parts of northwestern Italy and Luxembourg; official or widespread second language in many former French and Belgian colonies in north, west and central Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and South America.

Introduction

French belongs to the Romance group of Indo-European languages, and is closely related to Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian and other Romance tongues. There are some differences between standard Belgian or Canadian French, for example, and the standard French of France, but the differences are not greater than those between British and American English; the different standard French dialects are certainly mutually comprehensible.

Because French is an Indo-European language, and because the Norman contribution to English was so great, there are some similarities between French and English, both in syntax and vocabulary. The phonological systems exhibit some important differences, however, and this usually presents French speakers with problems in understanding and producing spoken English, and in making links between spelling and pronunciation.

Phonology

General

French shares many phonological characteristics with English. French speakers do not have great difficulty in perceiving or pronouncing most English consonants, but some of the vowel sounds present problems. Perhaps most importantly, the French and English systems of word stress and rhythm are very different, and this can lead to serious difficulties both in understanding and in producing spoken English.