Introduction:
French is actually one of the easiest European languages to learn because it is closely related to English. According to the FSI, it would take an English speaker approximately 23-24 weeks or 575-600 hours of study to become proficient in the French language. In many ways, it’s even easier than learning English!
As French is a world language, spoken by over 220 million people. Learning French can give you access to a huge chunk of the world. It is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other languages — languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien) largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France’s past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole.
French is an official language in 29 countries across multiple continents, most of which are members of the Organization Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), a community of 84 countries that share the official use or teaching of French.