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Do people in France speak French a lot? Is it necessary for me to learn French before I travel there?I am curious. What do you think people in France speak, if they don’t speak French “a lot”? People in France speak just as much as people anywhere else, and their native language is French. It is just as natural for them to speak French as it is for you to speak English in America. Perhaps some people in Brittany speak Breton at home, and some in the south of France speak Occitan or similar regional languages, but really French people speak French. It’s their language.Do they speak a second language like English as well? Some do, especially in places like Paris where they have lots of international visitors. In a small village, not so likely. It can help to learn a little French, especially to read signs and menus. It depends on what you want to see. If you only visit common tourist sites and go with a tour group, then you will need hardly any French. If you are staying in a small village by yourself and need to buy food and talk to the person who manages your accommodation, then you may well need some knowledge of French.Moi? Je ne parle pas français. But I have been to France.

Ask yourself how many English speakers would reply to comments made on their posts in another language?This is a bit of a side bar to your question, but I think it is relevant.The thing many don’t realize is that French USED to be the international language of business, politics and technology. English diplomats spoke French. Treaties were signed in French. Scientists wrote their papers in French. It was the dominant language internationally, not English.And then the world war happened.Not the one in 1914–1918 we call the First World War. Rather, the original world war in 1753–1760. What North Americans call the French-Indian War, and the Europeans call the Seven Years War.In that war, France (and its allies) fought a worldwide conflict with England (not yet a United Kingdom) and its allies. Battles were fought as far afield as Manilla in the Philippines, Pondicherry in India, Prague, Berlin and Belgium, as well as Nicaragua in Central America and Senegal in Africa, Quebec and upstate New York and across the Caribbean. At the end of it all, France lost.France lost Canada, India, and it lost many colonies in the east indies and Caribbean. It went from being the dominant global power, able to extend its reach almost anywhere, to being a (more or less) regional power concentrated in Europe and northern Africa with some colonies in south-east asia and the Caribbean.The outcome of that war was some heavy taxation by the English to pay for it, which in turn led to a disturbance among some colonists in New England. Fast forward a few hundred years. Those colonists have built a country that dominates worldwide culture with its movies and music. It dominates business and it dominates technology. And oh yeah, they speak English.So French is no longer the language of politics or diplomacy. It is no longer the defacto language of all things cultural and it is certainly no longer the language of business. But it used to be. And most francophones know that. And being French in an English dominated world, that might be a little bit of a sore point, especially when someone just expects you to talk English.It isn’t the only reason, but it may be a big indicator as to why French people (in general) are slightly reticent to speak English, especially when they are “at home”.And when you are commenting on their posts that they made in French, I cannot blame them if they can’t be bothered to respond. Especially if you can’t be bothered to post in French.

Full disclosure: I work at Factual.Regarding the quality of the data, I suppose it depends on the places you need data for and the kind of data you need. Factual currently has 13 million entities in it's United States local dataset (in beta). Also, Factual has international coverage (as of the current date) for the U.K., Japan, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, Indonesia, Poland, Singapore, and Ireland. For all local data sets, the basic schema contain address, contact, category, and lat/lng data. If those are the areas and facts you need, it should be a good place to get your data from. More countries and attributes are coming soon, of course.The principle behind Factual data is that it is constantly being updated and expanded to incorporate data we structure from the internet via machine learning, private repositories, and end user contributions. So, consider that a significant plus.As far as the geo tools, right now the basics are covered. You can run queries like "find [search terms] near point [lat, lng]" and expect to get exactly that. You can also apply more sophisticated filters to your searches ("category must be X or Y"). There is a mobile SDK coming out this upcoming week which will make geo-queries like this from iPhone apps a lot easier.I'd say one of the biggest pluses here is the robustness of the query language. The APIs are interfaced similar to a no-SQL database, and not just specific to local data. That means that, as new attributes are added to tables, you'll be able to do quite sophisticated things. For example: "Find moderately priced sushi with a beer and wine license or a full liquor license and an A+ health service rating near within 1 mile of a subway stop AND that has a pub with a pool table or a foos table within half a mile of it that's open until 2 a.m. on a Monday..."Another big plus, Factual is a startup, and like most, is very open to (and quick to move on) suggested features that help developers build apps faster and better.Some honest reflection on minuses:Learning the Server API query language requires a bit of patience.The Google maps integration (using the "Web Apps" API) takes patience.There are business listings that need more data. Of course, that's where user's using the data really helps, since the APIs let you submit corrections and additions.Most international data is in the the home language of the businesses. If your app isn't intended for people that live there, that might be an issue.Factual's U.S. Local dataset is beta.Hope this helps!