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Modern Languages and Classics |
Why Learn French?
PRACTICAL REASONS:
28 countries have French as an official language.
French, along with English, is the official working language
of
- the United Nations
- UNESCO
- NATO
- IOC (International Olympic Committee)
- the International Red Cross
SCIENTIFIC REASONS:
- France is fourth in research among countries of the Organization
for Economic Development and Cooperation (after Japan,
Germany, and the US).
- France is a major world research center in the field
of high energy physics.
- The
French are a world leader in medical research: the AIDS virus was
first isolated by French doctors.
- The French are the world's third manufacturers of
electronics equipment.
- The
fastest train (TGV) is French.
- France is the world's third military power
(after the US and Russia), and has the world's second largest defense
industry (i.e. exocet missiles, radar technology.)
- France is the world's second largest builder and exporter
of civilian and military aircraft and helicopters (Airbus is
the world's second largest fleet of commercial airliners,
and many of the US Coast Guard helicopters are made by Aérospatiale
in Toulouse.)
- France has one of the most advanced systems
of telecommunications in the world. Fiber optics were invented in
France.
ACADEMIC REASONS
- Knowing French will improve your vocabulary in English,
since over 40% of English vocabulary comes from French.
- Learning a new
language like French will also help develop your critical
and creative thinking skills.
- Proficiency in French will significantly improve
your changes of being accepted to the university and to graduate
school, since most American institutions require a reading
knowledge of French or German. Thus knowing French can open
the doors to graduate school and to important research.
- French is the language
of many great masterpieces of Literature and Philosophy, and France
has won more Nobel Prizes for Literature than any other country.
If you know French, you can enjoy works like Les Misérables,
The Three Musketeers and The Little Prince, as well as works
by Descartes, Pascal, Rousseau, Voltaire and Sartre in the
original.
ECONOMIC REASONS
- French is one of the two official languages of Canada, the
U.S.'s largest trading partner
- Between 1995 and 2001, exports
from the U.S. to France increased by 57%, imports from
France went up 72%.
- France is the fourth largest economy in the
world, after the U.S., Japan, and Germany.
- Among foreign languages doing business with the U.S., France
employs the third largest number of Americans (currently
around 650,000).
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