Naissance de la langue française

"Naissance de la langue française" has been shared to the blog from the French reading practice section of the learning library where you can find a large selection of interactive texts to help you with your reading skills. This article also has audio for you to practice your French listening skills; you can find many more listening activities in the French listening exercises section.


Modern French dates from about the year 1300, but where did it come from? Learn about the birth of the French language in this 5-part series of bilingual articles about the development of French over the centuries.*

After listening to the audio, click any word for the English translation and links to related grammar lessons.

Note: The tenses in this French article and its English translation don’t match! In French, we use the present tense to describe historical stories like this to evoke a sense of immediacy, whereas in English, we commonly use the past tense – learn more about historical French tenses.

Listening:

 

Click any word in the text to see its translation and related grammar lessons.

*The Development of French

  1. Birth of the French language
  2. Dialects and regional languages
  3. Middle French
  4. Classical French
  5. Modern French

Learn more

Author info

Aurélie Drouard

Aurélie is our resident French Expert. She has created most of the wonderful content you see on the site and is usually the person answering your tricky help questions. She comes from a small village near Chartres in Central France, country of cereal fields and not much else. She left (in a hurry) to study English at the world-famous Sorbonne in Paris, before leaving France in 2007 to experience the “London lifestyle” - and never looked back! She's worked as a professional French teacher, translator and linguist in the UK since.  She loves to share her love of languages and is a self-professed cinema and literature geek!

Laura K Lawless

Laura is a French expert and Kwiziq's Head of Quality Control. Online educator since '99, Laura is passionate about language, travel, and cooking. She's American by birth and a permanent ex-pat by choice - freelancing made it possible for her to travel extensively and live in several countries before settling permanently in Guadeloupe. Laura is the author of Lawless French, Lawless Spanish, and other websites and books on French, Spanish, Italian, English, and vegetarianism. She spends most of her spare time reading, playing with food, and enjoying water sports.

Comments: 6

Chère Aurélie, Chère Laura,
Merci mille fois pour ce que vous avez crée. Je suis en train d'apprendre un peu de Français, quelque chose que je voulais faire très longtemps - quand je l'ai entendu parler dans ma jeunesse, c'était en 1960 et j'avais 20 ans - et vous le rendre possible. Votre contenu est intéressant, assez difficile, et les explications de la grammaire sont sans pareil.
Merci pour votre professionnalisme et vos competences!
Léon

Merci beaucoup pour ce superbe message, Léon !
Ça nous fait toujours très plaisir de recevoir de gentils retours comme le vôtre :)

N'hésitez pas à nous contacter si vous avez des questions !

Merci encore et à bientôt !

Yes, really fascinating. It's lovely to have the dual language facility. I'll do a test next time.

Happy Thanksgiving Laura and your husband and this new instructor ..I have been a fan of yours from way back when you moved to H. FRANCE...

I always have enjoyed your great sense of humor and all that you have taught, including the vegetarian food...
Best regards to you and your husband... and have a Merry Christmas in case i don't find a spot to leave you a message...
Love, Jacqueline

Merci beaucoup Jacqueline! I hope you and your family had a lovely Thanksgiving. :-)

bonjour