Free French for Beginners by Getaway Guides

Chapter 1:  The French Language
     
    People from all over the world love the French language and would love to learn it. In fact, there is a high likelihood that you are already familiar with some French phrases and words.  Because of the French invasion in England during the eleventh century, the French language has given significant contributions to the English vocabulary.  This means that even if you are not actively learning French but is adept in English, you are already using a lot of French words without you knowing.
    Because of hundreds of years of interaction with the British and because of common ancient forefathers, French has offered English-speakers a fairly easy path to conversing using a different language.  French and English share several similarities in sentence construction.  You may even realize that a lot of French and English words have similar sounds.  The limited French sounds may still be familiar to you because of movies and TV shows. 
    Some of these unique French sounds include the silent “h” and the gruff “r” sound; but this does not completely mean that everything you watch and hear on TV is totally accurate. Still, being able to adopt the French accent you have acquired from watching movies can help you a lot while learning the language.
    Even if French is remotely related to the English language, it is more generally compared to other Romance languages such us Spanish and Italian.  All these three languages were created from the Latin language used by the Romans during their invasions in 1 B.C.; but despite their common origin, the evolution of the French language is different from the evolution of Italian and Spanish (which still share a lot of similarities even up to today).
    Currently, there are around thirty countries who name French as one of their official languages.  In Canada, French is commonly used in the Quebec region only.  While in Belgium, French is prevalently used in the Southern area only.  The spread of the French language can be partly explained by the colonization of several nations in the Pacific, Africa and the Caribbean by France.  On top of that, the French language was actually used as the official language for international diplomacy until the initial years of the twentieth century when the English language took over. 
    Until now, French is still used as the official language in several global organizations such as the United Nations, the Red Cross and the International Olympic Committee.  It is also used by the International Postal System which is why you can see “par avion” in most letters sent abroad.
    There are also hundreds of English words that have exactly the same spelling in French. It has to be noted, though, that the pronunciation of these words vary and depends on whether the speaker is French or English. Also, the meaning of the words may be the same depending on the context in which it is used. In most instances, the gender of the noun for which these words are used is the same in both the English and French usage.
    Some examples of these words include:
              Abattoir - this word is spelled in exactly the same way both in French and English. It also has the same meaning even when it is used in various contexts. This is also one of the many words that originated in France and still retained its original French pronunciation.
              Absinthe - this word has the same meaning when used in most contexts. However, the spelling could vary a little bit with the addition of either the letter 'L' or 'D' at the beginning of the word when used in certain contexts in French.
              Bourgeois – this is one of the many words that migrated to the English world when the Normans conquered England in the mid-11 th century. It is still pronounced in exactly the same way both in English and French and it has also retained its original meaning.
    These similar words are one of the reasons that it is often