About French

French is spoken by about 300 million people around the world. It is the first language of 77 million people:

• France (42 million native speakers or 92% of the population)
• African countries: Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo (Democratic Republic), Congo (People's Republic), Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, French Polynesia, Gabon, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles and Togo
• Canada (7 million or 22%), especially in Quebec and pockets of New Brunswick, Ontario
• Belgium (4 million or 40%)
• Switzerland (1½ million or 19%)
•  Haiti
• Overseas departments of France: Réunion (in the Indian Ocean), French Guiana (in South America), Guadeloupe and Martinique (in the Caribbean Sea)
• Luxembourg, Monaco and Andorra (in Europe)

As a Romance language, French is most closely related to Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian. However, due to a long history of mutual borrowings between French and English, you will find that about one quarter of French words are similar to ones that you already know in English.

As with English, French spelling is not always regular, although there are many patterns and trends. When you learn a new word, it may not always be clear how to pronounce it just from the way it is spelled. For example, almost all consonants at the end of a word are silent, and the e is often not pronounced in many contexts. That is why on this site we include a full phonetic transcription of every French word. If you can learn to read and pronounce the phonetic symbols presented in our Pronunciation Guide, you know exactly how to pronounce each word.

For more information, see French language on Wikipedia.

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