Study French Abroad

Why Study French?
French is an important language globally for cultural, commercial, and diplomatic reasons. It is one of the official languages of many prestigious international organizations including the United Nations, the International Red Cross, and the International Olympic Committee. French contributions have also had an indelible impact on the world’s cultural and scientific development and continue to be influential today.

Studying French increases the level of understanding you can achieve when visiting or living in French-speaking countries. You will learn more and gain greater cultural awareness if you are able to understand and speak the host-country language. Knowing French can also give you an advantage if you wish to go on to learn other languages such as Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian (the Romance languages) as well as their common ancestor, Latin.

Fluency in French is also rewarding on a cultural level, because it gives you access to a rich body of French literature, philosophy, and films. The French film industry is extremely prolific, and more writers from France have won the Nobel Prize for Literature than from any other country, including Claude Simon, Albert Camus, and André Gide. A few of the many notable French authors from the past include François Rabelais, Gustave Flaubert, Jean Racine, Émile Zola, Michel de Montaigne, and Alexandre Dumas. French philosophers from René Descartes to Voltaire to Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Jean-Paul Sartre have made major contributions to modern thought. As you learn French, you will not only be able to read the renowned works of these important thinkers in the original language, but you will also be able to immerse yourself in their culture and understand the background of their knowledge and ideas.

A Little Background
French is one of the Romance languages and is part of the Indo-European family of languages. It is the mother tongue of approximately 77 million people, and there are approximately 128 million French speakers in total when including second language speakers.

How to Study French Abroad
You can study French in a wide variety of programs and locations, ranging from two-weeks to a full academic year, staying with families or in dorms, in bustling cities, alpine villages, or tropical island settings. There is no better way to broaden your horizons and expand your language skills than to live and study in another country, and experience another culture firsthand. If your knowledge of French is already sufficient, you can take classes in other topics that are taught in French, so you are improving your knowledge and use of the language while simultaneously learning something new.

With more than 200 programs listed with French as the language of instruction, you can find study abroad programs of almost any duration on IIEPassport.org – for example, programs that last one quarter or a semester, summer or January term. Many programs are surprisingly inexpensive, and include an array of cultural enrichment activities like visits to museums, rural villages, castles, archeological sites, theater, operas, and film festivals. Interested in African studies or development studies? You can study French while exploring a variety of locations throughout Africa, from Dakar, Senegal to Eritrea, Ethiopia. French language studies can take you not only to France, but also to Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, or Monaco. Soak up the atmosphere of the Loire Valley, explore the foothills of the Jura Mountains, undertake Caribbean studies in sunny Martinique, or pursue international relations in Geneva, Switzerland.

Career Opportunities
The career opportunities for those who speak more than one language are varied and exciting. The demand for French speakers is particularly high given its use as a global language and its prevalence as a language in international business and diplomacy. For those who are fluent in French, potential jobs might include teaching, translation, interpretation, journalism, social services and healthcare positions, international business, and many more. Marketing and advertising agencies also frequently hire employees who can speak more than one language, as do social service agencies and global organizations such as the United Nations. An increasing number of companies want to hire bilingual candidates in order to enhance their ability to do business in a global marketplace. There are also many American companies such as IBM, Microsoft, Mattel, Dow Chemical, Sara Lee, Ford, Coca-Cola, AT&T, Motorola, and Johnson & Johnson, which have established business in France and other French speaking countries.

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ONLINE RESOURCES
IIEPassport.org
http://www.iiepassport.org

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
http://www.fll.vt.edu/french/whyfrench.html

University of Michigan
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/rll/langinstruct/whyfrench.html

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