The study was conducted by the creators of the language learning app Babbel among 15,000 users. According to the data, 63% of Australians, 47% of Italians, and 43% of Americans consider the French accent the sexiest in the world, reports Le Figaro.
Users rated the Polish accent as the least sexy, followed by Russian, Danish, Dutch, and Turkish in the anti-ranking. The French, in turn, consider Italian pronunciation the most attractive. Only 23% of app users in France found the British accent sexy. Spanish pronunciation is liked by only 18% of the French.
Linguist and semiologist Marie Treps, in an interview with RFI, explains why French topped the ranking and what factors are associated with it. "First, because compared to other languages, French is not hard to recognize. Also, you need to understand that French has always attracted foreigners; in the 18th century, knowing it was considered a privilege. We have long moved away from those times, but the French accent is still considered attractive. French pronunciation and, accordingly, the language are liked because of its richness, because of the culture it carries. There is no doubt that this is also related to its seductiveness. The lifestyle, French women and men have always been considered a symbol of elegance and attractiveness," the researcher said.
Despite the attractiveness of Molière's language, according to a study by the language school ABA English, only 4% of the French are fluent in English. A third of the French population, according to the survey, has never studied foreign languages. Linguist Marie Treps explains this by the fact that French was long considered elitist and everyone in Europe knew it.
"Historically, it so happened that the French are bad at speaking foreign languages. Today everything is changing, but earlier in Europe there was no need to study other languages, since the elite and intelligentsia were fluent in French," explained Marie Treps.