
Introduction:
As we all know that in the United States the people came from different backgrounds though English being the official language. However, there are many other languages spoken like the French language. The latest U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey reports that 1,301,443 people in the U.S. speak French at home. This includes speakers of French dialects, such as Patois and Cajun, who are over 5 years old. French is the fifth most common non-English language spoken in U.S. households, after Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Tagalog. Francophone communities in the United States have many different historical and geographic origins. Some Francophone communities trace their lineage as far back as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when settlers and refugees immigrated from Europe and Canada. These groups, such as the Acadians of Maine and Louisiana have passed their language down through the generations.
The US Census reports 7,997,196 individuals with French ancestry, and an additional 2,109,242 reporting French-Canadian ancestry (2013-2017 American Community Survey).
How useful it is to be able to speak the French language in the U.S.?
- French has enormous geographical distribution and is spoken on every continent in the world. In Asia, French is the second most widely spoken and studied European language after English and has some sort of official status in four countries. In Canada, about 10 million people speak French. Elsewhere in the Americas, French is widely spoken in the Caribbean. The main spaceport of the European Space Agency is in French Guiana, in South America.
- French is spoken in many desirable vacation spots: Caribbean, South Pacific, North and East Africa (depending on the country), Madagascar, even (still) in parts of SE Asia if you don’t speak Vietnamese or Cambodian, one can communicate in tourist areas in French, and of course, France, though English is acceptable, I have found much friendlier service as a fairly fluent French speaker, though even French natives complain about surly service at times.
- For US citizens 2–4: It is useful for a career in international affairs (business or government because (at one time at least) 40+ countries used French as a first or second governmental or business language. It has been considered second only to English as a useful international language.
- Other than being the second-most-popular foreign language studied in American high schools and universities (after Spanish), French is spoken in the states that border on Québec (Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, and to a lesser extent upstate New York
and the other New England states: Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island). The other state with a substantial Francophone population is, of course, Louisiana.
Conclusion-
Now you must have some thoughts on how useful it is to speak the French language. In my personal opinion speaking French is going to help you whether it is in the U.S. or anywhere else in the world. And, if you are trying to enhance your learning of the French language you can prefer platforms like www.multibhashi.com. So, this is what you can expect from speaking French in the United States.