French Language Guide

Where it's spoken

Article 2 of the French Constitution states that the language of the Republic is French, but French is an official language well beyond France. The Belgian Constitution divides the country into four linguistic regions, among them the French-speaking region and the bilingual region of Brussels-Capital. In Switzerland, French is one of the four national languages and one of the three official languages of the Confederation. In Canada, French and English are the official languages of the country, with equal status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in the institutions of Parliament and government. In Monaco, the constitution makes French the official language of the State.

Most of the countries in which French is official are in Africa. It is the official language of Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal and Togo, the official language of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and of the Republic of the Congo, and the official language of work in Gabon. It is one of two official languages in Cameroon together with English, in Chad and in Djibouti together with Arabic, and in Madagascar together with Malagasy, and one of three in Rwanda together with Kinyarwanda and English. Outside Africa and Europe, the Haitian Constitution makes Creole and French the official languages of the Republic, and the official languages of Vanuatu are Bislama, English and French.

The Observatoire de la langue française counts French speakers on five continents and puts nearly 65% of them in Africa. It describes a shift of the main pools of French speakers from Europe towards Africa, and reports that French is an official, co-official or teaching language in thirty-six countries.

Sources

• Constitution du 4 octobre 1958 (texte intégral en vigueur), Conseil constitutionnel — Article 2
• La Constitution belge (texte coordonné), Sénat de Belgique — Article 4
• Constitution fédérale de la Confédération suisse (RS 101), Fedlex, Confédération suisse — Art. 4; Art. 70 al. 1
• Loi constitutionnelle de 1982 — Charte canadienne des droits et libertés, Site Web de la législation (Justice) du Canada — Article 16(1)
• Constitution de la République du Sénégal, Conseil constitutionnel du Sénégal — Article premier
• Constitute Project (Comparative Constitutions Project), English texts of national constitutions — Benin 1990; Burkina Faso 2015 Art. 35; Cameroon 2008 Art. 1(3); Chad 2018 Art. 9; Congo 2015; Côte d'Ivoire 2016 Art. 48; Democratic Republic of the Congo 2011 Art. 1; Djibouti 2010 Art. 1; Gabon 2011; Haiti 2012 Art. 5; Madagascar 2010; Monaco 2002 Art. 8; Rwanda 2015 Art. 8; Togo 2007; Vanuatu 2013
• Observatoire de la langue française, Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, La langue française dans le monde — Édition 2026 — p. 23; p. 48; p. 58

Script & pronunciation

French is written in the Latin alphabet. Besides the plain letters it uses the acute, grave and circumflex accents, the tréma and the cedilla, as in Ça va ("It's OK / I'm fine"), Où sont les toilettes ? ("Where is the toilet?") and Enchanté(e) ("Nice to meet you"). The Académie française holds that in French an accent has full spelling value, that its absence slows reading, makes the reader hesitate over the pronunciation and can even mislead, and that accents and the cedilla should therefore be written on capital letters as well.

This app's French cards show the French spelling only, with no romanized reading beside it. They also leave a space before the question mark, as in Parlez-vous anglais ? ("Do you speak English?"). That convention is not the same everywhere: for Quebec, the Office québécois de la langue française opts for no space before the semicolon, the exclamation mark and the question mark, while adding that the thin space remains appropriate where it is available.

Sources

• Académie française, Questions de langue — « Accentuation des majuscules »; « Marque du pluriel en français »; « Couleur : accord de l'adjectif et du nom »
• Banque de dépannage linguistique, « Espacement avant et après les signes de ponctuation et les symboles », Office québécois de la langue française

Grammar essentials

The Banque de dépannage linguistique lists several ways of building a question: interrogative words, which include pronouns, determiners, adverbs and the phrase est-ce que; inversion of the subject and the verb; and the addition of a pronoun that repeats the subject. In writing the final punctuation must be the question mark, and in speech the intonation rises or falls at the end of the sentence depending on the kind of question. This app's cards show these means side by side: Parlez-vous anglais ? uses inversion, Qu'est-ce que c'est ? ("What is this?") uses est-ce que, and Vous allez bien ? ("Are you OK?") keeps the word order of a statement.

Negation is commonly expressed with ne and pas, which frame the conjugated verb, as in Je ne comprends pas ("I don't understand"). Before a vowel ne is elided to n', as in Je n'ai pas de réservation ("I don't have a reservation"); the card for that phrase notes that in the negative une réservation becomes de réservation.

Nouns carry gender and number, and the Académie française gives the letter s added to the singular form as the normal mark of the plural, and states that simple colour adjectives agree in gender and in number. A traveller meets the agreement at once in the forms for oneself: this app writes both endings in a single card, so Enchanté(e) is Enchanté from a man and Enchantée from a woman, with almost the same pronunciation. Gender also decides the article, and some nouns exist only in the plural: the card for Où sont les toilettes ? notes that toilettes is always feminine plural.

Sources

• Banque de dépannage linguistique, « Les types de phrases », Office québécois de la langue française
• Banque de dépannage linguistique, « Ne… pas », Office québécois de la langue française
• Académie française, Questions de langue — « Accentuation des majuscules »; « Marque du pluriel en français »; « Couleur : accord de l'adjectif et du nom »

Politeness & etiquette

Larousse defines tutoyer as using the second person singular to address someone, as opposed to vouvoyer, and vouvoyer as addressing someone with the second person plural, the form called polite. The Office québécois de la langue française describes vous as generally used towards a single person as a mark of politeness and where there is a social hierarchy, for instance at a first meeting, with a person in a position of authority or with an older person, while tu marks more closeness, more familiarity or intimacy. This app's card for vous says to use vous with strangers and staff, and tu with people you know well.

Where the line falls is not the same across the French-speaking world. The same office notes that in Quebec in particular, saying tu from the first meeting is much more frequent than in other places, where spontaneous tutoiement can be felt as misplaced familiarity. It also notes that the use can be asymmetric, as when a teacher says tu to a young pupil, and that it is the older person, or the one in the higher position, who decides to move to tu.

Politeness is built into fixed phrases as well. This app's card for S'il vous plaît ("Please") is formed on vous, and its note says that s'il te plaît is the form used between people who are close. The card for Bonjour ("Hello / Good day") calls it the most common French greeting, usable from morning to evening.

Sources

• Larousse, Dictionnaire de français — « tutoyer »; « vouvoyer » (https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/vouvoyer/82581)
• Banque de dépannage linguistique, « Contextes d'emploi du vouvoiement et du tutoiement », Office québécois de la langue française