French Interpreting

Despite the growing importance of English, French remains a global language and is one of the six official languages of the United Nations (along with English, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese) and one of the three working languages of the European Commission (with English and German). French also enjoys official status at organisations as diverse as the African Union, the European Space Agency, the World Trade Organization and the International Olympic Committee.

French is spoken as a native language by over 60 million people in France itself and more than 75 million in the rest of the world. In addition, around 190 million people speak French as a second language and over 200 million have it as an acquired second language. Countries which have a sizeable French-speaking population include: Canada (11.5m), Belgium (6.3m), Switzerland (3.6m), Haiti (6.3m), Algeria (21m), Morocco (10.1m), Tunisia (6.3m), Democratic Republic of the Congo (24.3m), Ivory Coast (12.7m), Cameroon (7.3m), Guinea (6m), Senegal (3.6m) and Madagascar (3.5m).

The French language has had a great influence on world culture for centuries. Many of the world’s greatest works of literature were composed in French, such as ‘The Age of Reason’ (Jean-Paul Sartre), ‘The Stranger’ (Albert Camus), ‘The Red and the Black’ (Stendhal), ‘Madame Bovary’ (Gustave Flaubert), ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ (Victor Hugo), ‘The Three Musketeers’ (Alexandre Dumas) or ‘In Search of Lost Time’ (Marcel Proust).

Linguaset offers French interpreting services for both simultaneous and consecutive interpreting, using only the most experienced professional interpreters.