French [antikvár]

INTRODUCTIONintroductionFrench is one of the most widely taught languages in the world -chances are you already know a few phrases. Thanks to an invasion of England in the 11th century, it's also been a major contributor to the vocabulary of English.After centuries of contact with English and a shared prehistoric ancestor, French offers English-speakers a relatively smooth path to communicating in another language. The structure of a French sentence won't come as a surprise and the sounds of the language are generally found in English as well or familiar to most through television and film examples of French speakers.Though distantly related to English, French is more commonly associated with its Romance language siblings, Italian and Spanish.These languages developedat a glance language name: Frenchname in language:français fron-saylanguage family: Romancekey country: Franceapproximate number of speakers:1st language: 80 million 2nd language: 50 million close relatives: Italian, Spanish, Portuguese donations to English: numerous - some estimate three-fifths of everyday English vocabulary arrived via Frenchfrom the Latin spoken by the Romans during their conquests of the 1st century BC. French evolved in a different way to Spanish and Italian though - comparing the modern forms of these languages gives an idea of just how distinct French is.After enjoying some of the practical advantages of speaking French (such as being told of a cosy vineyard way off the tourist track, discovering that there's little merit in the cli-ched reference to the French being rude), you'll find the reasons to speakMmMu>"s&fil