French phrasebook

French (français) is a Romance language (descended from Latin), and one of the most widely spoken languages in the world: 277 million people speak French, including about 100 million native speakers. While the French language originated in France, in modern times it is spoken on every continent; it is an official language of 29 countries, an important business, cultural, or minority language in dozens of other countries and regions, and is used officially by scores of international organisations including the United Nations, the European Union, and the International Olympic Committee. French was the main international lingua franca well into the 20th century, and at one point, French was the language spoken in most of the royal courts of Europe. To this day, it remains de rigueur for educated people in many societies around the world to have some level of basic French ability.

French is the sole official language of France, including all of its overseas departments and territories, and is the only language you will need to communicate with French nationals. Beyond France, French is widely spoken in many nearby countries in Europe, including the southern half of Belgium (Wallonia and Brussels), western Switzerland, Monaco, Luxembourg, and the Aosta Valley of northwestern Italy. A small number of second-language speakers are also found on the Channel Island of Jersey (where a dialect of Norman extremely similar to French persists) and in the tiny Pyrenean country of Andorra.

In the Americas, French is spoken primarily in the Canadian provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, the northern and eastern parts of Ontario, around the Winnipeg area of Manitoba, and the city of Whitehorse in Yukon. Indeed, Canada is an officially bilingual nation and there are Francophone enclaves in almost every province, though outside of the four provinces and territory mentioned, it's quite rare to encounter anyone in Canada who speaks more than a few words of French without hunting down off-the-beaten-track French-speaking communities. French is also spoken in a few parts of the United States, namely parts of Louisiana and northern Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. In the Caribbean, French is an official language of Haiti, a former colonial possession of France. The Americas also host the French departments of Martinique, Guadeloupe, and French Guiana, plus the overseas collectivities of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Barthélemy, and the northern half of Saint Martin.

Elsewhere, French is an official language of many former French and Belgian colonies in Africa, like Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Republic of the Congo, and is unofficial but carries prestige in others, namely Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. It is an important administrative, educational, and cultural language in the former French Southeast Asian possessions of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. In the Indian Ocean, Réunion and Mayotte are French overseas departments, while French is also an official language in Mauritius, the Seychelles, and Comoros. In Oceania, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and Wallis and Futuna remain overseas territories of France, and French is also one of the official languages of Vanuatu.

The French Wikivoyage's page Francophonie can help you locate French-speaking regions.