Posts Tagged ‘english speaker’

If you are an English speaker you already know that English is not only the most frequently used online language, but also the most spoken language throughout the world. This means, as an English speaker, you already have a huge advantage over people who do not speak English. How would you like to make that advantage even bigger? You could easily do this by choosing to learn to speak French. It may surprise you to learn that 200 million people speak French across the world – and I mean across the world, because French is spoken as an official language in 28 countries, in every continent, and is the only language apart from English that is officially taught in every country in the world. So what exactly could be in it for you to learn to speak French?

People learn a foreign language usually to give them a skill to use either for some kind of profit or for pleasure, and often for both. Because French is the only global language, after English, it is the foreign language that will give you more choices in your future career.
French is an official working language, along with English, of major international organisations such as:

* The United Nations
* NATO
* The International Olympic Committee
* The International Red Cross
and many more, so understanding French will give you a great advantage if you want to work for one of these organisations.

In August 2008 when the US government wanted to recruit people for international jobs with the State Department, 60% of those jobs either required or preferred recruits to speak French.

If you are in business you may well know that between 2003 and 2006 trade between the US and France alone, increased by 75% and billions of dollars were transacted. The French speaking world represents 10% of the global market, and it’s a market that will grow; some of the “smart money” is on Africa becoming the next big market to develop, and many African countries use French as an official language.

But even if you don’t want to learn French for business or profit, you could open up a huge new world of culture and entertainment. French cinema is very popular throughout the world and it is estimated that in 2005, French language films were seen by more people outside of France than in France itself. And did you know that the French TV channel TV5, is the second most watched international TV channel, beaten only by MTV?

And then there’s the fact that, every year, more tourists visit France than any other country in the world. Think how much more you’ll enjoy your visit when you can communicate in French.

Of course, the more advanced your level of proficiency in French the more opportunities will open up to you. But everyone has to start somewhere, and it’s possible to reach a good basic standard in a couple of months. After that there are lots of ways you can learn to a more advanced level, and then more opportunities begin to come along.

200 million French speaking people are out there and you could join them.

Author: James W Alexander
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Learn French fast! is the promise so many adverts for language courses promise both online and offline, and anyone who wants to learn French might be tempted to buy them, but do they live up to their claims? In this article we are going to be looking at just what it really takes to learn French fast.

If you are a native speaker of English, or even if you have learned English to a high degree of competency, you already have a natural skill to your advantage, that you can capitalize upon to learn French fast. Many English words are derived from Latin based words, due to invasion of Britain by the Romans and the Normans, who spoke French. This means that thousands of French words are already known to us, in some form or other, even before we start to learn French.

Although, as an English speaker, you do will enjoy certain advantages in learning French words, your knowledge of other languages related to French will also play an important role in whether you can learn French fast. If you happen to have a background in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese or even Romanian, you will have a further advantage in your efforts to learn French fast.

This is because the grammatical structures of these languages is similar to that of French, which means the general concepts underlying the patterns of verbs, tenses and sentence structure will not require the same amount of elucidation they would if you were coming from a background of English only.

Have you studied any other languages successfully in the past? It doesnt matter whether these languages are related to French, the mere process of having learned a foreign language before, sets the scene for any language learning that follows, and makes it that bit easier.

Looking at what weve discussed so far, what immediate advantages do you have to offer yourself to begin to learn French fast? Those represent just the first step.

To learn French fast, you need to get hold of a comprehensive language course to work from, that stimulates as many learning channels as possible at the same time, that is to say, visual, auditory and kinesthetic. A computer-based course is the most effective way to do this, because the entire course is accessible, literally, at the touch of a button. This helps you to learn French fast, because you wont have to fumble your way through the pages of a text book, or constantly have to find your place on an audio tape or CD, that distracts you from the learning task at hand.

In addition to the positive factors you already possess, you can also speed up your learning of French using certain techniques and strategies that you can acquire. Learning how to concentrate for longer periods of time than the average modern mind is used to will help you focus on learning the French language better.

Also, learn how to use mnemonic techniques, such as association, to aid you in learning French vocabulary, because words are the building blocks of language. The faster you learn them, the faster you learn French! For example, the French for bear is ours, which sounds a lot like horse but with the h; dropped. You only need to imagine bears doing a horse race and youve immediately got that word under your belt. Now thats fast learning!

Finally, to learn French fast, you will have to put in several weeks of intensive study, learning for at least an hour each day, and practicing in your free moments by reviewing the material studied in your active learning sessions.

If you put your mind to it, and youre willing to study hard, you should be able to learn French fast, relatively speaking.

Author: Christopher Byrnes
Article Source: EzineArticles.com