A basic English, Spanish or French

I read in an article that in almost all schools of the world is used English, Spanish or French as first language or at least studied as second or foreign language. At least, one of them is spoken or studied by almost all people around the world.

Do you think that it is true, or perhaps there are several countries where no one of them are spoken or studied?

Yes. I think so. I think that a lot of people speak English, Spanish or French at least a basic knowledge of one of them.

So, according to this article, there are several million people that speak a basic knowledge of English, Spanish or French, BUT THEY DON´T SPEAK well the language (they only studied this language at school, and they know only some sentences).

French people tend to add these people, but they don´t speak well the language. French is not very spoken and they make some tricks. They say "partially Francophone people".

English and Spanish speakers don´t add these people, because their language are very spoken. They don´t need the same tricks.

At least French has more non-native speakers than Spanish which only has 20 million and its native speakers speak different variants different from standard Castillian.

BTW this so called 20 million non-native "Spanish speakers" could only speak hola, como se llama, como estas, and other common Spanish phrases.


That's too bad for a simple language to learn. It is not taken seriously.

Spanish language

Mother tongue 400 million people, 100 million as second language speakers. Total 500 million people.


French language


Mother tongue 80 million people, 50 million as second language speakers. Total 130 million people.

That´s very poor!! I think that an international language has a minimum: 100 million people as mother tongue. If we are stricter, French is not an international language, because it is almost no spoken!!!

French is the native language of 90 million people, the near-native language of 240 million Francophone Africans and the non-native language of 300 million a total of 630 million people.

Spanish is the mother tongue of just 320 million people and the non-native language of just 20 million total 340 million.

And give us a link that there are 100 million non-native speakers of Spanish. Don't give us a link made by hispanics and by Instituto Cervantes.

You are right. Your language is more spoken as mother tongue, as second language and total speakers.

We need to accept the decline of French language, and the personal decision of Africans to speak Arabic and English, more important languages in Africa.

You are wrong. It's the personal decision of the Africans to Speak French than English or Arabic because to them it is the language that gain the respect of others. You're just envy becvause Spanish is dead in Africa, Philippines and is dying in Spain, and Hispanic America because it's disintigrating into Neo-Spanish languages just like Latin and Afrikaans from Dutch.

I don't believe your link because they're hispanic and therefore full of lies.

Spanish enjoys a large demographic base but is of little significance on in international level. It carries a stigma as primarily an immigrant language, associated with little developed countries.

Even in its core stronghold Spanish is challenged by Catalan. With Barcelona being Spain's economic and industrial capital, Catalan is becoming more important than Castillan to conduct business with Spain.

Spanish is 2nd foreign language in French schools but its presence is clearly low quality. Elite students are directed to German classes. Learning Spanish (oh well, pretending to) is for the lazy ones and the dunces.

<< Even in its core stronghold Spanish is challenged by Catalan. With Barcelona being Spain's economic and industrial capital, Catalan is becoming more important than Castillan to conduct business with Spain. >>

Yes, it's because Catalonia is the economic and industrial powerhouse of Spain. Thanks to the French and Italian who influenced them that made their region industrialized.

5 important points:

1. French is almost no spoken. It is the mother tongue of 75-80 million people. The size of a small language in Asia, like a regional language in India (Tamil or Telugu).

2. French is 5th in Africa, after Arabic, English, Swahili and Hausa. So, it is a minority language there.

3. French is REALLY desintegrating in several French creoles, not only in Haiti, but in all Africa. There are several articles that show this important problem.

4. You are jealous of Spanish language because French is a minority language in the Americas, in Africa, and Asia-Pacific. In Asia is a dead language. It is a pitty that nobody speak it in Vietnam or Laos. They prefer an important language like English.

5. Spanish is the second most studied language. In France there are 2 million that study/know the language in several degrees. So, according to your opinions, there are 2 million people in France that are lazy.

Well, if you go to school on the Moon, you will have to study English and Russian as second languages.

There's no direction in your 5 points, Sam alias Liar-ée Français.

French is very much alive because it's spoken by more than 85 million native speakers, 240 million near native speakers in Francophone Africa, by 300 million non-native speakers in Europe, North America, Hispanic America, and Asia.

In Spain alone 20% of its 40 million people speak it fluently which is 8 million .

It's more a pity that Spanish spoken by 300+ million native speakers has only 20 million non-native speakers.

You're just envious because Spanish is dead in the Philippines and French is making a comeback in Vietnam and in Laos it is still spoken.

As it is stated in Wikipedia the number of native French speakers in Africa is growing because of education and it engulfed the Spanish speakers in Morocco, Equatorial Guinea, and Spanish Sahara.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language.