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French in Africa? French or Portuguese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| dondrimexm8 Diglot Newbie Colombia Joined 5879 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 1 of 22 11 February 2010 at 11:14am | IP Logged |
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I've been trying to decide on my next language to learn now that I'm satisfied with my Spanish level and have no fear of forgetting since I live almost entirely in Spanish. I've been thinking of both French and Portuguese. The purpose of the next language I learn is a combination of future international travel and literature (modern fiction, more than anything).
Portuguese sounds absolutely beautiful to me, and I really enjoy Bossa Nova music, but French seems to have an advantage in that it is an official language in several African countries, though this seems to be deceiving. What I'm having a hard time discovering through internet research is how prevalent French actually is in Africa, and if it's understandable for French speakers of other nations. I've read one anecdotal account of a man with a French wife who could not understand the French spoken of some people from Africa. I've also read that although French is an official language of several countries, hardly anyone speaks it and it mainly serves for diplomacy or amongst highly educated individuals, whom I will likely never meet in any future travels. I've also read that two African countries have Portuguese as an official language, but don't know if their Portuguese would be understandable for someone speaking Brazilian Portuguese. I've been trying to decide between the two for several days. For entertainment and practice at home, French seems to have the literary edge and Portuguese the musical edge, and I like how it sounds more than French. Basically the prevalence and actual usefulness of French and Portuguese in Africa is what I'm missing to make a conclusive decision. Thank you for any input on the subject Edited by dondrimexm8 on 11 February 2010 at 11:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6469 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 2 of 22 11 February 2010 at 11:39am | IP Logged |
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French is definitely more useful in Africa. In many parts of Africa it is used for the
higher levels of schooling, so you can use French to talk to educated people, such as most Africans online. Africans tend to use somewhat different vowels in French and often miss the nasalization, but nothing that a bit of listening practise can't cure. I am not sure about the intelligibility of African Portuguese, particularly as Brazilian Portuguese is non-standard itself, but Portuguese is really spoken in a very limited part of Africa. I would not go for Portuguese for Africa's sake, though if you're planning to travel to Brazil, things are looking quite different. The issue with Africa is that most people speak a very small African language as a native language and then a bigger African language (such as Hausa, Yoruba or Swahili, depending on the area) or a European colonial language for communicating with people of other tribes. Quite a few people also speak a third foreign language, which would be either French or English, in most parts of Africa. So it is basically impossible to travel to Africa and expect to speak people's native language, unless you limit yourself to a very small area. If you limit yourself to a general region, such as Uganda-Kenya-Tanzania-Mozambique, you can learn one of the bigger African languages (Swahili in this case), which are also used as a lingua franca by people with a different native language, but those bigger African languages won't be of any help if you travel outside of that region. There are several big language families in Africa, so the languages spoken e. g. in East Africa have NOTHING in common with the languages spoken in West Africa. Hence French and English, as the main colonial and touristy languages, are the only ones that can cover most of Africa. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6767 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 3 of 22 11 February 2010 at 12:49pm | IP Logged |
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French is obviously a major language in Africa, probably the most widely used on the continent. There are 31
francophone countries in Africa, and many use it exclusively in education, business, and government. That said, Portuguese is reasonably important too, being official in 6 African countries. However, the only African country in which it is a major first language, rather than just a lingua franca, is Angola, where 80% or so speak it natively. From what I've heard, Angolan Portuguese is much like European but spoken a bit more slowly. I imagine they have no difficulty understanding Brazilian Portuguese as well. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| canada38 Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5494 days ago 304 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Japanese | Message 4 of 22 11 February 2010 at 2:54pm | IP Logged |
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I have seen lots of pictures of Africa with signs posted in French, though I cannot
recall where these places were. I apologize for the generalization of Africa and not a specific country, but I think French would be very useful for daily business transactions. It has been suggested that French might perhaps only be spoken by the upper levels of society; I don't know if this is true or not. Even if this is true, and you don't encounter any CEO's or politicians, I'd be willing to bet that most doctors, people at the bank, and police speak French at a reasonable level. I have a friend from Ethiopia (East Africa) who speaks basic French. I have heard the Portuguese of Africa is indeed closer to that of Portugal, but sometimes has a phonology closer to the Brazilian variant. I don't know much about Portuguese though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| brendanj Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5407 days ago 14 posts - 25 votes Speaks: English*, Latin Studies: Arabic (Written), French, German, Arabic (classical) | Message 5 of 22 11 February 2010 at 7:27pm | IP Logged |
French is a great language to learn if you intend to travel to several African nations. Unless you are going to spend a lot of time in Angola or Mozambique (or even Cape Verde), French is certainly the more practical language for travel in Africa.
There's even some overlap; Equatorial Guineans speak more French than Portuguese but Portuguese has become the third official language of that country. Edited by brendanj on 11 February 2010 at 7:38pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 7164 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 6 of 22 11 February 2010 at 8:55pm | IP Logged |
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Just to second Captain Haddock: I used to work in a call center, and the Angolan girl had no problems communicating with the Brazilian girls.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| vilas Pentaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6959 days ago 531 posts - 722 votes Speaks: Spanish, Italian*, English, French, Portuguese | Message 7 of 22 11 February 2010 at 9:14pm | IP Logged |
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I have been in Angola and everybody speak portuguese . It is taught from primary school.Radio and Tv are primarily in portuguese . I think the more or less is the same situation in the other afican lusophones countries like Moçambique, Cabo verde etc.
This happens because there a lot of languages in Africa and they need a lingua franca . It is not the same thing in the Northern African Arab Countries like Morocco,Tunisia and Algeria where french is taught but only high educated people speak good french . In Italy we have a lot of Moroccans and Tunisians immigrants but I met few of them that speak a decent french . and some of them told me that usually they don't even speak the classic arab but only dialects. I met in Italy sub-saharian africans ((Ivory Coast, Senegal etc)and they speak a good french. Dondrimexm8 You are colombian , portuguese is the easiest for a Spanish speaker , first learn portuguese and then french. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| canada38 Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5494 days ago 304 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Japanese | Message 8 of 22 11 February 2010 at 9:51pm | IP Logged |
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Do those maps of Africa reflect what is truly spoken on a day-to-day basis by the people
in the highlighted countries, or at least when conducting ordinary business transactions? Or are they only indicative of the languages spoken by the the governments and in courts & universities of these countries? While these maps do clearly show the comparative spread of French and Portuguese, they don't implicitly state the usage of the language in each particular country. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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