Do French people speak English? 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🇫🇷

girl out in the streets of paris
Do French people speak English? Short answer – it depends.
 
We have a bad reputation for that. And I’d have to say, in my experience, it’s not always the case. 
 
The answer is going to vary depending on why you want them to speak English for.

Do French people speak a perfect English that is understood by natives ?

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Ehhh…no

Then mostly no.
 
We are French, therefor, our mother tongue is French. English is a language we learned, so 99% of the French population is not FLUENT in English.
 
There’s three main reasons for that:
 
The French school system is just not adapted for language learning. And even if it’s getting better, we’re looking at generations of traumatised learners who haven’t used their English in years (sometimes decades).
 
Second, up until recently, more than half of French student’s second language was German (at least in the north of France).
 
After the wars, it was one of the efforts to reconcile French and German people.
 
Although, I don’t know many French who can speak a perfect German either.
 
Except, it’s not very good for you as an English speaker. 
 
And finally, we just don’t need English to go around our everyday life in France: movies are dubbed, tv is in French, books are in French, pretty much everything comes with a translation, we can travel to a lot of countries that speak French,…
 
So no, you mostly won’t be able to use expressions, colloquials terms and full speed English with a random French person.
 
But then, if it’s with me. Go on.

Can French people speak English?

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Mayyyyyybe?

Some.
 
The chances of finding someone who can speak a rather correct English are WAY higher. Especially in big cities.
 
This is thanks to tourism. France is the first tourism destination in the world, and welcome almost 90 million of tourist each year (that’s more than the total number of French people).
 
So if you are visiting France and stay safely within the touristic path, you won’t have to say anything in French if you don’t want to.
 
But then, it’s not really the best experience you could have in France, is it?

Are French people going to speak to me in English in France?

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Nope

Probably not. 
 
As I said, if you are talking to the hotel receptionist in Paris, then yes, he probably will speak English (but certainly not a fluent one).
 
But if you want to speak with the little lady to whom you rented a B&B in Provence, you need to know some French. At least to start the conversation.
 
If you are visiting France, you need to play by our rules. And what better way to play by our rules than to start your conversations systematically in French.
 
It’s a sign of respect. Even if your sentence goes something like this :
 
  • Excusez-moi. Bonjour. Parlez vous anglais?

Can I travel to France without speaking French?

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Yeah, you can

Sure, but it’s not going to be the experience you think it will.
 
If you stay in Paris, or if you confine yourself to the big cities, you won’t encounter any major inconvenience if you do no speak French.
 
Although knowing a few basics is common courtesy if you don’t want to get the cold shoulder.
 
Plus, it’ll be a shame to miss out on everything that is outside of the traditional touristic path, don’t you think?
 

Should I learn French to travel to France?

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Awwwwwwww

If you want an authentic experience, yes I’ll advise you to. If you’re just here for the clichés, then you don’t need to.
 
 
But then, you don’t need to be FLUENT either. That’s what most people don’t understand.
 
Fluency is not mandatory to have a conversation in French. You don’t even need to know much about French grammar to speak French.
 
What you need to know however is go-to sentences, typical sentence structures that you can modify easily to fit your needs, and a bit of vocabulary. 
 
And that’s pretty easy to learn. 
 
So, do French people speak English? 
 
It depends: 
  • 99% do not speak a perfect English.
  • A few will speak a fluent English.
  • Some will speak a correct English. 
  • Most will speak a broken English.
  • ALL will expect you to start your conversations in French.
 
There you go 😛 I hope this gives you a much better understanding of the relation between French people and English. 

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2 thoughts on “Do French people speak English? 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🇫🇷”

  1. Coral

    Wow! C’est formidable! That takes a load of my shoulders about trying to sound fluent, while trying to use French grammar to speak a French sentence perfectly. As a beginner, this defiantly helps ease my mind. Plus the more French people that don’t know English- the more practice I have with speaking French! Merci beaucoup!

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