How Will Learning French Change Your Life?

Learning the French language will of course give you the ability to speak French, which is usually the main reason most of us decide to start with it. We want to understand it and be able to use it to communicate.

However, it can actually change your life in a number of different ways, all for the better. Learning French is much more than the communication, so I will go through some of the ways that it can change your life, including ways it has affected my own.

French Friends

Making French friends has been the best thing to ever happen to me. Being able to speak the French language has allowed me to meet so many new people that I would not have been able to before.

Now you could argue that all my friends speak pretty good English, which is true, but I would not have met them if I was not looking for language exchanges. This also means that you can still make friends if you are a beginner. A lot of my friends were found in the language learning community, it’s a very easy way to connect to people from France and other places.

Having friends that speak French natively helps me learn more French, but also gives me a deeper understanding of the French culture and life there.

Friends also give me a reason to keep going, I have people I can visit and use the language with. It’s a part of my life now, not just some stuff I read about in a text book. I’ve actually made relationships with the French community.

You Can Work In France

Being able to speak French gives you access to a whole new world of job opportunities. This doesn’t have to be just in France, it can be in your home country, or any of the other French speaking areas of the world.

Having the language on your CV can really open up a lot more opportunities to you that where just not there before.

Personally I have no interest in this, but the option is there for me. I could move to France tomorrow and get a job and settle in to society there with relative ease.

That is a massive change; a few years ago just visiting and ordering food would have been a whole ordeal that would have just involved a lot of pointing; now I could just live there normally if I wanted to.

You Can Have A French Lover

I’m not here to talk about what I may or may not have got up to with the French ladies …all I’m going to say is that if I wanted to, I could get myself a French lover and that’s pretty cool.

I would certainly argue that if you found your future partner through language learning, then that is a pretty big life changing event.

Imagine you ended up starting a family one day, all because you decided to start learning French for a bit of fun one day.

That’s pretty incredible and it has happened to plenty of people. Learning French really could change the whole course of your future generations.

Access to French Culture

Learning French really unlocks the culture for you. We can all buy croissants from the local shop and watch French movies with the subtitles, but it really is just scratching the surface of what they have to offer.

Once you get to grips with the language you can really go deep on your understanding of French wine and cheese, let alone the rest of their food.

You can also start to watch the TV show and movies and read books in a more natural way and really start to get the meaning behind a lot of it, which is often lost with subtitles. Basically you can really understand the context. 

This is of course helped by having French friends who really help put things into place. Just talking about their day and their lives will really open the flood gates to French culture, which you will then see play out in the movies and TV shows and that is just awesome.

It Makes Travelling More Fun

Learning French will make the world much more accessible to you. English will certainly help you a lot, but knowing French is just an extra layer of comfort when you travel, especially when you are in a French speaking area. 

You don’t have anything to worry about; you can get what is going on around you and just function normally and that does make a big difference.

(You can read more about – Can You Visit France Without Speaking French?)

It Keeps You Busy

Personally I have found French keeps me busy. I don’t really have time to be bored. I can always find something to do. I have friends to talk to, TV shows to watch and books to read, all in French.

I also have lessons to review and just general study. I feel like I am quite productive with my time now. Even if I am relaxing and watching something in French, it’s still productive, I’m still practicing my French.

I know this is a fairly small thing, maybe not life changing, it is a change I have seen in my life and I feel it is certainly for the better.

It Makes You More Interesting

I think it’s safe to say that most English speaking countries are monolingual, which means if you are the guy in the room who can speak two languages, you are suddenly a whole lot more interesting.

People will ask about how you did it and what it’s like and you can generally spend a long time talking about it which is pretty cool.

This is also true if you go to France, you are the English speaker who can speak French. You are not just the usual tourist who can’t pronounce croissant correctly and points at the menu.

You are instantly more interesting to locals. They will also want to know how you did it and why, you again are going to be having conversations about your language skills and people will find it interesting.

It Gives You Confidence

Overall learning how to speak French has made me more confident. I now have more self belief in myself. I went from knowing nothing, to being able to pretty much talk about everything I want in French. It’s incredible.

Knowing I have done this has been extremely rewarding, of course challenging, but battling through and doing it shows me I can do anything I set my mind to, which may well mean I take on a new language (maybe Japanese).

Conclusion

As you can see Learning French will enrich your life and change it for the better.

Learning the language is much more about the language, it’s about being able to use it as a part of your life. It can allow you to make friends and enjoy a side of the culture that just isn’t possible if you only speak English.

Basically it opens up your options and that is amazing. If you have thought about learning French, just do it, it will change your life for the better.

(You can read more about – What Is The Most Important Aspect Of Learning French?)