Quote:
Originally Posted by Sitron
As a person that already speaks 3 European languages, and two of them are bigger than French in Europe, I don't need French. In terms of job opportunities I don't need French. Germany is a far bigger economy and then there's Austria and Switzerland (yes, I know some speak French in Switzerland, but only 20%, compared to the 72% that speak German).
France doesn't offer anything special anymore. If you've lived in Europe your whole life you'll see France is just like any other Western European nation. There's a reason why French as a language is declining all over the world.
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You still didn't answer why Japanese would be more useful? By your logic, all three of your languages are more spoken in Europe than Japanese, so why Japanese?
As for all your knowledge of France, have you actually lived in France before? Do you have any idea why year after year, it's either first or second when it comes to Quality of Life?
I've lived in Algeria for 7 years, England for 11 Years and France for the past 4 years and I think it's absolutely ridiculous to say that if you've lived in Europe your whole like, you see France as any other Western European country. The culture is totally different, everyday life is totally different! Just because there are similarities, it doesn't make them the same, otherwise you could say every developed country in the world is pretty much the same! Plus, all that stuff about music and TV shows etc is just Blah blah blah. Even in Algeria, people watch and listen to American media! Does that mean that Algeria is the same as most European countries?
And, Germany's economy is bigger, but it definitely isn't "far bigger". But that's besides the point; a bigger economy, doesn't necessarily mean more job opportunities!
For your last sentence, I have no idea where you get your facts from, but these are the ones I've seen with a quick search on google.
In 1999, French was the 11th most common first language in the world, with 77 million first language speakers and another 51 million second language speakers,
Today; spoken as a first language by about 136 million people worldwide. Around 190 million people speak French as a second language, and an additional 200 million speak it as an acquired foreign language.
I see an INCREASE, not a decrease!
I personally don't have much use for French in my future as I don't believe I'll be staying in France for my chosen career, but I definitely don't think I've wasted my time or that I should have learnt a different language etc. In school, I wasn't allowed to take French, I took German, but I didn't like it in the end. I don't however feel that I wasted my time, because even though I didn't like it, German is definitely a beautiful language and I don't hold it against my school for not letting me take French or another language!
Perhaps, you're not getting along with the language so you're trying to find an excuse to drop it! If so, then you're definitely going about it the wrong way! Just because you don't like a language, it doesn't mean you should make these comments on it! It's fine to just say it's not for you, you don't get along with it and that you'll never really get to use it. I speak dialects of Berber, Arabic, English and French. Berber and Arabic are TOTALLY useless for me, but I don't think to myself, omg, why was I born in Algeria, why didn't my parents take me to Japan so I could learn Japanese instead of these languages I'll never use!