Ooh la la, it’s magnifique to speak French!

When an adult chooses to undertake a new course in learning, it’s usually down to one of two motives: either to boost their career prospects or for the personal joy of it. Learning a new language can be useful in both ways – after all, some languages are perhaps more useful than others.

Having tried to learn French at university as a student, Shelley Yeung found she was bored by the way it was taught. In 1997 she enrolled at Alliance Française in order to learn the language properly. However, despite enjoying it, circumstances distracted her away from her studies.

So it was perhaps with surprise that she recently found herself engaged to a French-born Chinese man. Suddenly, the language that she had tried to learn in the past became even more useful.

"It’s also useful at work. I’m in the financial industry and work with clients who are high net worth individuals. I meet CEOs and others who speak French – and as someone who grew up speaking Cantonese, Putonghua and English, I know how useful languages are," Yeung explains. "I believe that if I can speak French too, it creates a good impression with my client."

In fact, Yeung found that while she might not be able to conduct an entire meeting in French, joining in friendly chit-chat helps to cement good relations and can go a long way. "It also makes me proud that I can do it, to see what I've achieved by engaging with someone in French," she says.

It wasn't personal interaction that first inspired Yeung to learn French, however. "I loved the song Joe Le Taxi by Vanessa Paradis – I was young then! But it really made an impression on me. I had a French pen pal too and I like French movies, so I became very curious about the country and the language," she says. Yeung cites Fanfan, starring Sophie Marceau, as her favourite film. Studying the Impressionist artists at University provided further inspiration to feed her appetite for learning French. “I wanted to be able to better pronounce the names of artists and places that I came across. I even wanted to learn to sing songs properly, I really was inspired," she adds.