French

About French

French is the first language of about 77 million people and is spoken by many more as a second language. It is the official language of France and an official language of Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Canada and more than 20 countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. The French of Quebec differs from the French of France in accent and some everyday words, but speakers understand each other.

French has two words for "you". Use vous with strangers, older people and in shops, and tu with friends, family and children. Final consonants are usually silent, so petit sounds like "puh-tee", but they can be carried over to a following vowel, as in petit ami. Vowels written with n or m, as in bon and vin, are nasal, and the r is made at the back of the throat. The accent marks on é, è and ê change the vowel sound, while ç sounds like s. Each word is spoken evenly, with a little more weight on the last syllable of a phrase.

FamilyIndo-European, Romance
Native speakersabout 77 million (2019)
Second-language speakersabout 208 million (2016)
Official inFrance, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Canada and more than 20 other countries
ScriptLatin alphabet with accents (é, è, ê, à, ç and others)
Codesfr (ISO 639-1), fra (ISO 639-3)

Speaker numbers: Ethnologue (2019 and 2016), via Wikidata. Retrieved 26 September 2026.

Scroll to Top