French
Français
French descends from the Latin spoken in Gaul, reshaped first by the Gaulish substrate and then by the Franks, from whom it takes its name. It diverges from the other Romance languages in its pronunciation: many final letters are silent, so the written form preserves distinctions that speech has erased. The Académie française, founded in 1635, makes it one of the longest-standardised languages in Europe.
- Family
- Romance
- Script
- Latin
- Speakers
- ≈ 75 million (native)
- Where
- France, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg
- In the game
- Common language
How to spot it
Acute and circumflex accents, the cedilla ç, and silent endings in -ent, -aient, -eux.
A few sentences
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Je vais au marché tous les samedis matin.
I go to the market every Saturday morning.
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Ma grand-mère habite dans un petit village du Sud.
My grandmother lives in a small village in the south.
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Le facteur est passé ce matin.
The postman came this morning.
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Le chauffage ne marche plus depuis hier.
The heating has not worked since yesterday.
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Il y a une odeur de brûlé dans la cuisine.
There is a smell of burning in the kitchen.