Is it possible to live in Paris if you know barely any/very little French? Absolutely. Well, I am cheating a little bit when I say that as for people with bilingual abilities it is always easier to pick up a second language, but, in any case, one can always survive in Paris knowing only English.
I am taking French level A1 at Sciences Po and that course is one of the best language courses I have ever taken (I clearly have taken many, since I am writing this post in my second language) all thanks to my wonderful professor Myriam Dumont. If you are planning to study abroad at Sciences Po in the future, certainly try to take a language class with her. Sciences Po doesn’t have a standardized language curricular, and therefore professors go about language teaching, especially on the elementary level, all sorts of ways. Some of my friends make powerpoint presentations about their countries, others focus a lot on learning new grammatical structures…In my class I happened to have a perfect balance of learning both, new grammatical constructions and a lot of useful every day vocabulary, and what I certainly like the most is that Myriam puts a strong emphasis on oral comprehension, so at this point I can certainly say that I CAN SPEAK French…maybe not well, maybe only about 8% of topics, but I can and its a wonderful start.
Living in such large cosmopolitan city like Paris, it is hard to find yourself in “lost in translation” moments. If I have to buy a medicine, for example, I usually reserve to English as all pharmacists here speak perfect (although, if you ask them “Parlez-vous anglais?” they will immediately say “Just a little bit” or “not well, but go on…”) English. Moreover, contrary to stereotype, many Parisians, especially younger ones, appreciate an opportunity to practice their English. I have heard on many occasions from Sciences Po students from France that they absolutely have to speak perfect English in order to find a decent job after graduation (well, you usually will hear it in a form of complaint from a person who speaks nearly fluent English :).
At times I feel that I had more chances to utilize my Russian rather than French. Sosososo many Russian speakers here and I often find myself helping fellow comrades in the metro, for example. Once I was on the train with my Russian friend, at one of the stops we were interrupted by a Frenchman sitting next to us who said “Excuse me, may I go through?” in Russian. To say that he left us speechless is probably not enough to describe our amusement.
If you are desperately trying to improve your French abilities Paris probably is not the best place for you. I am sure that my experience with language would be much different in any other French city. I probably would have to get out of my comfort zone and would have learned the language way quicker, but cosmopolitan Paris allows you to stay comfortable and learn the new language at a slower pace…or even not to learn it at all.
