French is a useless language says Jeremy Paxman

[McD30]

Excerpts

It is time to realise that in many parts of the world, being expected to learn French is positively bad for you. If you were to emerge from school unable to add up, you would, rightly, be furious. Yet it is possible to finish schooling all over the world fluent in French but ignorant of the skill absolutely necessary get by in the global economy: English.

There is one big culprit for this absurd state of affairs. The bloc known as “La Francophonie” passes itself off as a pale imitation of the Commonwealth, if you can imagine anything quite so etiolated. Actually, the comparison is unfair to the Commonwealth , which is a well-meaning, low-key organisation doing good by stealth. La Francophonie has a more strident tone, promoting “active solidarity” (whatever that is) between member states, based on “the French language and its humanist values”.

How the French government chooses to spend its money is its affair. For most of us, the only important question is whether promoting French language and values does any good. When the one-time German South West Africa attained independence as Namibia, it sensibly adopted English as its official language, for the very good reason that it would give its citizens a future.

The truth is that while other imperial powers were running down their flags around the world, France never really decolonised. Promotion of the French language and its supposed values is just another form of imperialism.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6a9c9872-bae2-11e5-b151-8e15c9a029fb.html

 

[Game]

I agree with him. I don't believe its spoken outside of Canada, France and some of its colonies.

Back in HS i was offered to choose between one yr of French or Spanish foreign language class. Picked Spanish.

 

[Sixth]

Only place it would be useful is the African countries it had on lock down and Canada (Quebec and shit).
I did French from 8th Grade to 10th, my enthusiasm dropped and I was like f*ck it. I took Somali and Swedish (free grades).
I've taught my self some Dutch since though, I'd like to learn German someday too.

 

[Duchess]

I agree. I was taught French for 9 years and it hasn't helped me one bit.

 

[Sixth]

Imagine if all the Somali diaspora around the globe return with all sorts of languages like Chinese, Malay, Russian etc.

 

[Subsilentio]

 

[barwaqo]

But if you have that you are bilingual on your resume there are a whole lot of jobs you get called for in Toronto just for that fact. I have a few other Somali friends who speak French and they always had amazing jobs (even summer ones in university) because of this.
To be honest, I have used it minimally on jobs I was hired for (just on docs submitted to Quebec govt). Almost everyone, even in Quebec speaks English.
Such a kibir language, but languages are always an asset I guess. Shout out to my awowo AUN for helping with my French homework all those years lol

 

[Apollo]

I wish an artificial language like Esperanto would catch on and replace the need for English. If it weren't for the USA then English would have followed the same path as French after the decline of their empire. But 'Murica saved the day and made English relevant.