France is the most visited country in the world: 75 million tourists crowd its streets every year.

This isn’t difficult to believe, being such a charming place of tranquil villages and beautiful seaside, sophisticated cuisine and classical art, worldwide renowned medieval and port cities whose history shaped our own history.

French is spoken on five different continents and it’s the only language, apart from English, to be taught in every single country of the world. It is a truly global language of culture, art and business.

Like Spanish and Italian, French is a Romance language derived from Latin, but it presents several distinctive features.

Maybe the most obvious one is that French words are pronounced and spelled differently: in fact French spelling reflects more the language that was spoken four or five centuries ago.

The accents have an important role to play and three different kinds are used: grave, acute and circumflex.

Also, a large number of letters are actually silent.

French institutions are very determined in preserving the purity of this beautiful language: laws in France ban the use of non-French words in official publications and websites. This is also thanks to the The French Academy who has been ruling over the use of the language since the far 1635.

Despite this, in recent years French has been inundated with English words of all kinds, giving life to the so called ‘Franglais’, a funny combination of ‘Français’ and ‘Anglais’.

Said that, it’s only fair to mention that about a third to a half of basic English words come from French in first place.

So, this is your moment to take a great journey into this peculiar culture and tongue: you are in the right place to join the other 100 million French students in the world and master this melodic language once and for all.