spanish is easier than french - not!

8/3/2019 Spanish is Easier Than French - Not!

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/spanish-is-easier-than-french-not 1/25

Is Spanish easier to learn than

French?

There is a common myth among English speakers, at least in the UnitedStates, that Spanish is much easier to learn than French. In high school, morethan 95% percent of my fellow students chose Spanish in order to meet theforeign language requirement. Since I was completely enamored of French, Icouldn't understand why, so I asked them. Some said that Spanish is moreuseful in the US (an interesting discussion for another day), but most claimedthat Spanish is much easier and thus they wouldn't have to work as hard. Thesame rumor abounded when I was in college, and I still hear it today. Whenasked for more information, perpetrators of this urban legend invariablymention how difficult French pronunciation and spelling are, in comparison to

Spanish. And in this, at least, there is some truth.I started studying Spanish after I'd already taken two years of French. I doremember Spanish seeming very easy at first, because it was so much likethe French I'd already struggled through, but then Spanish suddenly becamevery difficult, which makes these claims about how easy Spanish is seemsuspicious. So I sat down and analyzed the two languages to see what I couldcome up with - here are the results.

Spanish is easier

Spanish is what I like to call a phonetic language, meaning that the rules of orthography are very close to the rules of pronunciation. Each Spanish vowelhas a single pronunciation and although consonants may have two or more,there are very specific rules regarding their usage, depending on where theletter is in the word and what letters are around it. There are some trickletters, like the silent H and the identically-pronounced B and V, but all in allSpanish pronunciation and spelling are pretty straightforward. In comparison,French has many silent letters and multiple rules with plenty of exceptions,as well as liaisons and enchaînement which add additional difficulties topronunciation and aural comprehension.

There are precise rules for the accentuation of Spanish words and accents tolet you know when those rules are overridden, whereas in Frenchaccentuation goes by the sentence rather than the word. The fact is thatonce you've memorized the Spanish rules of pronunciation and accentuation,you can pronounce brand-new words with no hesitation. This is rarely thecase in French (or English, for that matter).

The most common French past tense, the passé composé, is more difficult



than Spanish's pretérito.* The pretérito is a single word, while the passécomposé has two parts (auxiliary verb + past participle). The passé composéis just one of several French compound verbs** and the questions of auxiliaryverb (avoir or être), word order, and agreement with these verbs are some of French's great difficulties.

*The true French equivalent of the pretérito, the passé simple, is a literarytense which French students are usually expected to recognize but not touse.

**Spanish compound verbs are much simpler: there is only one auxiliary verband the two parts of the verb stay together, so word order is not a problem.

In addition, French's two-part negation ne... pas is more complicated in termsof usage and word order than Spanish's no.

French is easier

The Spanish subject pronoun is usually dropped, thus it is essential to haveall verb conjugations memorized in order to recognize (as the listener) andexpress (as the speaker) which subject is performing the action. The Frenchsubject pronoun is always stated, which means that verb conjugations - whilestill important, of course - are not as vital to comprehension: your own oryour listener's. In addition, French has just two words for you(singular/familiar and plural/formal), while Spanish has four (singular familiar,plural familiar, singular formal, and plural formal), or even five - there's adifferent singular/familiar used in parts of Latin America with its own

conjugations.French has fewer verb tenses/moods than Spanish. French has a total of 15verb tenses/moods, four of which are literary and rarely used, thus only 11are used in daily French. Spanish has 17, one of which is literary (pretéritoanterior) and two judicial/administrative (futuro de subjuntivo and futuroanterior de subjuntivo), which leaves 14 for regular use. Lots of conjugations!

The final straw, for me, is the subjunctive. While the subjunctive mood is thebane of students of both languages, it is more difficult and much morecommon in Spanish.

The French subjunctive is used almost solely after que, whereas the Spanishsubjunctive is used regularly after many different conjunctions: que, cuando,como, etc.

There are two different sets of conjugations for the Spanish imperfectsubjunctive and pluperfect subjunctive. You can choose just one set of conjugations to learn, but you must be able to recognize both.



Si clauses (If... then... clauses) are very similar in French and English but aremore difficult in Spanish. Note the two subjunctive tenses that are used in theSpanish si clauses. In French the imperfect subjunctive and pluperfectsubjunctive are literary and extremely rare, but in Spanish, they arecommonplace.

Neither one is easier

There are sounds in both languages which can be very difficult for Englishspeakers: French has the infamous R apical (learn more), nasal vowels (learnmore), and the subtle (to untrained ears) differences between tu/tous (learnmore) and parlai/parlais (learn more). In Spanish, the rolled R, the J (similar tothe French R), and the B/V are the trickiest sounds.

Nouns in both languages have a gender and require gender and numberagreement for adjectives, articles, and certain types of pronouns.

The use of prepositions in both languages can be difficult, as there is oftenlittle correlation between them and their English counterparts.

Confusing pairs abound in both:

French - c'est vs il est, encore vs toujours

Spanish - ser vs estar, por vs para

Both have the tricky two past-tense division (Fr - passé composé vs imparfait;Sp - pretérito vs imperfecto), two verbs that mean "to know," and the bon-

bien, mauvais-mal (Fr) / bueno-bien, malo-mal (Sp) distinctions.

Both French and Spanish have reflexive verbs, numerous false cognates withEnglish that can trip up non-native speakers of either language, andpotentially confusing word order due to the positions of adjectives and objectpronouns.

The Bottom Line

Spanish is arguably somewhat easier for the first year or so - beginners maystruggle less with pronunciation than their French-studying colleagues, and

one of the most basic Spanish verb tenses is easier than French. However,beginners in Spanish have to deal with dropped subject pronouns and fourwords for you, while French only has two. Later on, Spanish grammarbecomes more complicated, and some aspects are certainly more difficultthan French. All in all, neither language is definitively more or less difficultthan the other.

Also keep in mind that each language you learn tends to be progressively



easier than the previous one, so if you learn, for example, French first andthen Spanish, Spanish will seem easier. But don't let that fool you!

------------------------

Comments

Hi Laura,

I really like the work you did on the article. I can only argue with one point ; Ithink that you can, after learning the phonemes and the different ways theyare written in French, know how to pronounce many brand new words. I liketo think of French as phonetic with exceptions. What drives me insane istrying to figure out how to pronounce proper names and names of towns.

One factor that I don't think you touched on is that French is really hard tounderstand if not pronounced correctly because of all of the words that sound

similar to foreign ears. This makes getting by with poor French more difficultthan getting by with poor Spanish.

The Spanish speakers tend to be more relaxed about bad Spanish than theFrench about bad French because bad Spanish is so much easier tounderstand (I speak from personal experience). This perhaps gives learnersof Spanish more of an impression that their Spanish is more effective at anearlier stage than French speakers.

If you want to be fluent in either of these languages, I think, you have to putin a great deal of effort just the same.

-------------

AHHHHHHH!!!!!!! My least favorite urban myth...years ago, when I taughtFrench, this made me crazy. Now that my son is taking French (he wouldnever learn from me, of course) he is faced with the same thing - and heargued endlessly with me when I forced him to choose French over Spanish,which is taken by a large majority of his peers, BECAUSE it is easier...!!!

Here are my thoughts: there is a "best" foreign language for each person,unrelated to level of difficulty, and no child should be assigned to a foreign

language class without careful consideration, especially (as is too often thecase in the US) when study does not begin until high school.

In my case, I took to French instantly when I began it in ninth grade. I learnedit painlessly, won prizes and amazed my teachers. (I do not say that to boast,but to set the foundation for what follows.) I have neither spoken nor read norwritten French for almost 20 years, yet now that I have discovered the ForumI find that most of it is still with me.



But I have never been able to learn another language, except for a painfulsemi-successful effort at Italian, which I learned from a textbook written forFrench speakers. My German professor told me in disgust that I was the onlyAmerican he ever heard to speak German with a French accent. Spanish wasa disaster. Russian and Serbian no better (my father was Serbian).

Why is this? Do other people have this experience? Or do most people have agift for language, period, not just one specific language? If not, what wouldexplain a gift for one specific language, if that language was never heardprior to study? And what should be the criteria for assigning a student to aforeign language class?

---------------

In my view each language will complicate itself to the maximum extent of human intelligence. I take this to be self-evident. Why would speakers of onelanguage stop its development until they had reached the maximumcomplexity? I am assuming that the intelligence level of different languagegroups is more or less equal. But that's not necessarily true. My point is thatnative speakers will reach the highest level in complexity no matter whateverthe language. So, in general, all languages should be about as difficult as anyanother.

--------------

Your article is really interesting ! The same cliches exist in France concerningEnglish, Spanish and German. Most French schoolchildren learn English as asecond language for obvious international reasons. But when a child wants tolearn German as a second language, he is often told that German is only forgood pupils because it is more difficult.

The same thing occurs two years later when children have to choose a thirdlanguage : most schools offer German and Spanish courses. Only hard-working pupils are told that they will be able to cope with German whereasthe others are frightened into taking Spanish courses, because it is "sooooooomuch easier".

I guess Spanish vocabulary is easier to learn for French-speaking studentsthan English or German vocabulary because many words look the same. Butonly children with a firm grasp on grammar are able to master the dreadfulSpanish subjunctive.



On the contrary, German grammar always looked very logical to me, with fewexceptions. You only have to be able to learn genders and plurals by heart,which does not require intelligence but memory.

English basic grammar is easy to understand but when it comes to speakingfluently and to pronouncing correctly, "c'est une autre paire de manches" !

-----------------

You mentioned the awful Spanish subjunctive... What about your Frenchone?! It seems to give me enough problems!! :) Native English speakers aredefinitely spoilt with the subjunctive.... :)

-----------------

Well, I didn't mention the awful French subjunctive because it doesn't soundawful to me. I was suckled with French subjunctive !

The Spanish subjunctive must really be awful because it looks awful even tosuch subjunctive addicts as the French !

--------------

Excuse-moi, mais une raison pour laquelle on ne pousse pas les enfantsprésentant des difficultés dans leur scolarité à faire de l'allemand est qu'il n'ypas de filières prévues dans les études "courtes" (CAP, etc...) On sait doncque s'ils doivent se diriger vers des études courtes, ils devront changer de

langue et se mettre à faire de l'anglais... Seul l'anglais est enseigné dans cesfilières... Attention, je ne dis pas que c'est un point positif, loin de là.

Quand je faisais des vacations en Chambre de Commerce et donnais descours d'anglais en CFA, j'ai vu des jeunes obligés de faire de l'anglais pour lapremière fois de leur vie...

Ce qui est triste, c'est que nos collègues d'allemand ont de moins en moinsd'élèves et ont du mal à trouver un poste complet... Il n'y en a plus que pourl'espagnol...

Une consolation pour nos collègues d'allemand est qu'ils ont assez souventaffaire aux meilleurs élèves de la classe (surtout pour les élèves ayant faitallemand 1ère langue) et qu'ils enseignent dans des classes très réduites...



Amitiés. Marie

------------

>>My German professor told me in disgust that I was the only American heever heard to speak German with a French accent.

LOL

Je suppose que c'est possible d'apprendre une langue avec facilite et de nepas pouvoir apprendre des autres langues, mais je ne connais personne quil'a fait. Moi, ma langue maternalle est anglais (je suis americane). J'etudiela francais au lycee depuis 3 annees, et maintenant je suit un cours defrancais a l'universite. J'ai suivi un cours d'espagnol aussi, mais je parlefrancais meillur. Pourtant, quelquefois je utilise les mots espanol ou anglais

quand je parle en francais, ou des mots francais ou espagnol quand je parleanglais, et je ne ressens pas de ca. C'est amusant, non?

-----------------

Salut Edwin,

Thanks for your comments.

>>I think that you can, after learning the phonemes and the different ways

they are written in French, know how to pronounce many brand new words. Ilike to think of French as phonetic with exceptions. What drives me insane istrying to figure out how to pronounce proper names and names of towns.

Well there you go. In Spanish that's not an issue. Plus, I think getting to thepoint in French where you can pronounce new words (barring proper names)without too much trouble requires at least twice as much effort in French.Spanish pronunciation can be pretty much summed up on two pieces of paper, not including regional variations. I've never tried to summarize French

pronunciation, but I'm certain that it would take a lot more room.

>>One factor that I don't think you touched on is that French is really hard tounderstand if not pronounced correctly because of all of the words that soundsimilar to foreign ears. This makes getting by with poor French more difficultthan getting by with poor Spanish.



That's an interesting point. Here's my take on it: I think it's equal in the twolanguages, but it depends where you go. In Mexico and French-speakingCanada, I think English speakers can get by with "poor" language skills,

because the non-English speakers in those countries are used to hearing a lotof English, both as a foreign language and mixed in with Spanish and Frenchrespectively. However, I think that it's more difficult for an English speaker tomake him/herself understood in Spain and France, because those countriesare not as inured to English. Personally speaking, I had more trouble makingmyself understood in Spain than in Mexico. I've never been to Québec, so Ihave no personal experience, but from what I've heard, I think it would beparallel. (Note: all of the above is just my personal opinion, and I'd be happyfor anyone in the know to step in and correct me.)

>>The Spanish speakers tend to be more relaxed about bad Spanish thanthe French about bad French because bad Spanish is so much easier tounderstand (I speak from personal experience). This perhaps gives learnersof Spanish more of an impression that their Spanish is more effective at anearlier stage than French speakers.

Very interesting point. I'd love to hear from some Spanish learners to see if they've found this to be the case. For myself, the answer is no - when I was inSpain I might as well have been speaking Greek.

>>If you want to be fluent in either of these languages, I think, you have toput in a great deal of effort just the same.

Absolutely!! :-)

------------------

Salut Paris,

>>The same cliches exist in France concerning English, Spanish and German.Most French schoolchildren learn English as a second language for obviousinternational reasons. But when a child wants to learn German as a secondlanguage, he is often told that German is only for good pupils because it ismore difficult.



>>The same thing occurs two years later when children have to choose athird language : most schools offer German and Spanish courses. Only hard-working pupils are told that they will be able to cope with German whereas

the others are frightened into taking Spanish courses, because it is "sooooooomuch easier".

That's very interesting, especially since there is so much German influence inFrench. I would think that German and Spanish would be equally difficult forFrench-speakers.

Thanks for your comments! :-)

---------------

Referring to your point about most children learning English instead of German:

Well, I think that English is much easier to learn than German. It's not likecomparing Spanish to French, because these two languages have their hard-to-learn rules or verbs etc., each its own. But modern English is REALLYsimple compared to German, since most of its rules and conjugations of verbsare gone or now simplified. There are two conjugations of verbs for present

tense; the infinitive is easy to recognize and is usually the same form theverb takes in present tense; There are no gender differences; Nobody everuses the subjunctive or knows how to; There are no cases like in German (Imean nouns don't change nor do adjectives) etc. And besides, many nativeEnglish speakers make a lot of mistakes themselves.

Personally I think it's easier to learn Latin languages than it is to learnGermanic languages, because the verb systems are easier to understand, thewords are shorter and many of them got into a lot of non-Latin languagesanyway so they're easy to recognize. Anyway, that's just my opinion.

-------------

Hi Laura,

I think you a correct when you say that some countries are more used to



having English speaking tourists so they are more exprerienced in figuringout bad Spanish/French. It's something that I had thought about but notsomething I have had personal experience with. I have never been to acountry where I was not fluent in the local language.

The reason I think that Spanish is not that phonetic, but no doubt morephonetic than French, as people generally think is that I see a great deal of spelling errors in written Spanish. Although many have to do with themisplacement of v for b, s for z and the dropping of the letter h. «Has dichoque ay que saver bivir.» for example

I think that the pronunciation of phrases like : «J'ai deux frères» are easier tomake unintelligeable in French than its Spanish equivalent: «Tengo dos

hermanos.»

If the French phrase is mispronounced as:

«Je du frères.»

or

«J'ai doux frères.»

My perception is that it's really hard to grasp the meaning of the phrase.

But if the Spanish phrase is mispronounces as:

«Tango douce hermanos».

or



«Tingo dis hermanos.»

It's not as difficult, I think, to guess what the speaker is saying.

Of course this is not a scientific study. I just grabbed one phrase at randomand it happens to appear to demonstrate my point. Many will disagree thateven this example fails to illustrate my idea but it would be interesting to seeif anyone has done this as a lingusitic experiment.

One misconception that people have about Spanish, however, is that it is

simple. As far as languages go, Spanish has its fair share of exceptions andcomplex rules.

But it is my impression that the French are more active in «selling thelanguage» so it's is easier for me to find a wide variety of tools to help meimprove my French. But then again, I have not been looking for books onSpanish since the days I tooks Spanish 300 in College.

I wonder what you and the rest think of this.

---------------

I tend to agree with you. My first language is Spanish, but being from PuertoRico I had to start learning English on second grade. I didn't progress muchuntil I traveled to the US and stayed with in an all-English environment for acouple of weeks. And even after 10 years of studying English, I received theprize for Thickest Accent as a freshman in college. Now, another 10 yearsafter that, they tell me I speak better than some locals, which pleases me

after such hard work. (That's why I think I'll never get any good in Frenchuntil I visit Europe again, which I intend to do...)

I think I have an advantage in reading French over most English speakersbecause of the parallellism in SP-FR sentence structure. When I started, Icould figure out most of what I was reading without looking words up.However, when I listened to French movies on Bravo, I spent most of my time



reading the subtitles. And the first time I talked what I thought was French toa Belgian friend, he just gave me a blank stare and asked if I was OK orchanneling somebody :) Now that I've discovered the DVD, I'm starting to geta tiny, minuscule bit better at listening (even if the accent is Canadian--alongthe same vein of the problems of learning Spanish in America or Europe;

BWT, if somebody has listened to the French track of "Air Force One", let meknow, I have some questions...)

Risking insulting most of the group on my first post, my brain sees French asa bad mélange between English and French, with the bad things of bothlanguages. As has been posted elsewhere, Spanish is almost completelyphonetical, even though la Real Academia could still simplify some more.French and English are neither! When my wife teaches Spanish to adults,they have a lot more problems with grammar than with pronunciation except

for the rr, which I guess you have to grow up with (even my children cannotmake that sound, sigh). Then Spanish and French have the verb issues, whichEnglish lacks: two tenses and some auxiliaries, yes!. But then again, whenyou venture into the unknown, you mostly notice the bad :)

Like the tools they are, each language excels at something. One good thing Ifind about English is that you can express a great deal of complexity withvery few phonemes, as most common words are monosyllabic (you knowwhat I mean? :) However, I find there's little like swearing in Spanish (or

expresing strong emotions, just like Italian), or listening to romantic songs inFrench.

J'espère que j'écrirai plus en français en le futur.

A bientôt,

Alfredo

---------------------

'In Mexico and French-speaking Canada, I think English speakers can get bywith "poor" language skills, because the non-English speakers in thosecountries are used to hearing a lot of English, both as a foreign language andmixed in with Spanish and French respectively. However, I think that it's more



difficult for an English speaker to make him/herself understood in Spain andFrance, because those countries are not as inured to English. Personallyspeaking, I had more trouble making myself understood in Spain than inMexico. '

I have little experience of American Spanish but my experience of speakingFrench in France and Spanish in Spain would back up the theory that theSpanish will make a great deal of effort to understand foreigners while theFrench not only tend to refuse to understand French spoken with animperfect pronunciation but also find it a source of great amusement.

I have lived in Spain now for over 25 years and although the language Ilearned at school was French in which I reached a low intermediate level, I

found Spanish much easier to learn. I had always understood because it wasan easier language.You have convinced me otherwise.

I think you are wrong in thinking that the Spanish are not used to hearingEnglish.Here in Spain there are a great many foreigners a large number of whom speak English.(Not to mention the foreign television, films and radioavailable here.)

-------------------

Salut Edwin,

>>The reason I think that Spanish is not that phonetic, but no doubt morephonetic than French, as people generally think is that I see a great deal of spelling errors in written Spanish. Although many have to do with themisplacement of v for b, s for z and the dropping of the letter h. «Has dichoque ay que saver bivir.» for example

Well, there are bad spellers in every language! I agree about B and V and the

dropped H, but S and Z have different sounds and should *never* beconfused. If anything, I would thing the C and Z might get confused, sincethey are pronounced the same in certain situations. In any case, I don't thinkthese three potential difficulties come anywhere near French (or English, forthat matter), where vowel combinations and accents leave French with 16vowel sounds (including 4 nasals), 3 semi-vowels, and 18 consonant sounds.Compared to that, Spanish's 5 vowels, 5 dipthongs, 2 semi-vowels, and (I



believe) 23 consonant sounds, 98% of which have easy to memorize rules of pronunciation, is a piece of cake, in my opinion.

>>I think that the pronunciation of phrases like : «J'ai deux frères» are easier

to make unintelligeable in French than its Spanish equivalent: «Tengo doshermanos.»...

This is a very good point. Are there really so few similar words in Spanish, oris it partly because vowels are more, let's say, "bold" in Spanish than inFrench? It seems to me that vowels in Spanish are very distinct from one tothe next. In French, there's a different but fairly close sound in each of thefollowing: papa/pâte, tous/tu, le/peu/peur, etc. I think this is really whatcauses the phenomenon that you mentioned. Not only does Spanish have,

perhaps, fewer similar-sounding words, but the sounds aren't that similar tobegin with - who could mix up tengo and tingo?

>>One misconception that people have about Spanish, however, is that it issimple. As far as languages go, Spanish has its fair share of exceptions andcomplex rules.

Absolutely - I couldn't agree more. That was the point of my article. I dobelieve that Spanish pronunciation is relatively simple, but as for grammar,no way!

>>But it is my impression that the French are more active in «selling thelanguage» so it's is easier for me to find a wide variety of tools to help meimprove my French. But then again, I have not been looking for books onSpanish since the days I tooks Spanish 300 in College.

Hmm, I don't know. I don't buy as many Spanish materials as I do French. ButI definitely agree about the French selling their language! Just look at theAlliance française. I've tried to find a Spanish equivalent, and it seems to methat would be the Cervantes Institute, but they are not as active or well-known, I'd wager.

--------------------



Salut Jump121,

>>I have little experience of American Spanish but my experience of speaking French in France and Spanish in Spain would back up the theorythat the Spanish will make a great deal of effort to understand foreigners

while the French not only tend to refuse to understand French spoken with animperfect pronunciation but also find it a source of great amusement.

I don't think that's true. Yes, there are *some* French people, perhaps morethan there are Spanish people, who are intolerant of poor French speakers.However, the only ones I've ever met or heard about were from Paris or otherlarge cities, and they certainly weren't in the majority. In fact, I've been toFrance 5 or 6 times, as a débutante, a fluent speaker, and every level inbetween, and in all that time I met only one French man who was rude aboutmy French. I had two years of high school French under my belt at the time,and he was the clerk in a touristy little knickknack shop. During that verysame trip, I got separated from my group while wandering through a marché,and stopped an elderly woman to ask her how to get back to the marché,only I said "Oú est le marké?" She was perfectly nice, despite my pidginFrench and lousy pronunciation. Everyone else I've ever met has been atleast tolerant, if not downright thrilled by my effort and, during later visits,my French skills.

>>I have lived in Spain now for over 25 years and although the language Ilearned at school was French in which I reached a low intermediate level, Ifound Spanish much easier to learn. I had always understood because it wasan easier language. You have convinced me otherwise.

Yay! ;-) No, but seriously, I think it's partly because you had already struggledthrough French, which gives you an edge when you learn another language,and partly because, perhaps, Spanish grabbed your interest in a way thatFrench did not. If you learned Spanish while in Spain, that may also help toexplain why you found Spanish easier - you were immersed in the languageand culture, got a lot more listening practice, had plenty of people to talk to,etc. Compare that to a few hours a week in a classroom, with maybe a fewmore in the language lab - those two learning experiences are a world apart.

>>I think you are wrong in thinking that the Spanish are not used to hearingEnglish. Here in Spain there are a great many foreigners a large number of



whom speak English. (Not to mention the foreign television, films and radioavailable here.)

I didn't say that the Spanish are not used to hearing English; I was simply

saying that they hear it less than Mexicans.

--------------------

Interesting that I should find this post in the Spanish forum. I'll hightlight therelevant points:

Me parece recordar que Ortega y Gasset dijo que para mejorar el castellanohabía que aprender alemán.

Concuerdo con lo que Twain plantea, pero lo bueno de aprender alemán, es

fijarse en cosas como acusativo, dativo, que en el castellano no parecierantan importantes y debido a eso surgen los errores como el loísmo, leísmo y ellaísmo.

Conozco el texto de Twain y es interesante notar que el verbo vermiethen(arrendar, alquilar) ya no se escribe así, ahora

es sin la hache. Por lo menos en Alemania se han preocupado de iradecuando el idioma a los tiempos, mientras que en el castellano seguimoscon reglas contradictorias y a veces anacrónicas.

At least in Germany they have been concerned with changing the language

to adapt to the times, while in Spainsh we stay with contradictory rules andsometimes anacronistic ones.

Una de las cosas que más me llama la atención es el grado de faltas deortografía que me ha tocado ver en idiomas como inglés, alemán ycastellano. Personalmente pienso que un hablante inglés comete menoserrores ortográficos que uno en castellano. Y lo mismo para un hablantealemán.

One thing that grabs my attention is the frequency of spelling errors that Ifind in languages like English, German and Spanish. Personally, I think that an

English speaker makes less spelling errors that a Spanish speaker. The samegoes for a German speaker.

En el caso del idioma inglés es interesante hacer notar que no exista (creo)una regla de la cual uno pueda deducir la forma de escribir una palabra, porlo que los niños son "obligados" a aprenderse las palabras de memoria (hayque recordar los famosos consursos de "spelling"). El alemán en ese contextotambién es más regular que el castellano.



In the case of English, it is interesting to note that there is no rule (I think) toguess the way a word is written so children have to learn the spelling of thewords by heart (remember those famous spelling bees?). German, in thatrespect, is more consistant than Spanish.

En todo caso Andrés Bello ya hizo su aporte para tratar de mejorar elcastellano, pero lamentablemente hoy en día no es recordado como esdebido. Más información enhttp://www.analitica.com/bitblioteca/abello/ortografia1.asp

http://www.analitica.com/bitblioteca/abello/ortografia2.asp


El castellano me encanta, pero me disgusta esa duda perenne que a vecesme asalta ¿se escribe con j o con g?, ¿porqué se escribe rey con y, pero reinacon i?.

I love Spanish, but I do not like that perenial doubt that sometimesovercomes me. Do you write is with j or with g? Why rey(king) is written witha y but reina(queen) with an i?

Hagan la prueba: vayan al google e ingresen como palabra de búsqueda

"surgen" y luego "surjen".

Try it for yourself: go to google.com and search for "surgen" and then for"surjen".

**BTW, I am not a fluent Spanish reader or writer but although I know whatthe word means, I cannot guess which spelling is correct without grabbing adictionary.

Saludos

* I forgot that not everyone speaks Spanish. I apologize if you read this postbefore I made the translations.

-------------------

I had a conversation the other night at a party with someone who wasconvinced that Spanish was "easy" and French "very difficult". I mentionedthat both languages have a word order that is not easy for English speakers,ditto the fact that all nouns have gender and adjectives must agree withnouns in gender and number. She shrugged off all of this as of no concern toher. It turned out she was an art museum tour guide and only had topronounce the names of foreign artists and the titles of their works. Shethought Spanish was pronounced "just like it looks" and that made it easy for









her.

I have also talked to a number of American high school students who arestruggling with their foreign language requirement and convinced that they

cannot learn any foreign language, after they were told to take Spanishbecause it was the easiest.

My belief is that no foreign language is easy to learn, so choose the one thatreally interests you, and then you will have the motivation to put in thenecessary effort. I know a few people with no unusual "aptitude forlanguages" who have mastered Chinese just because they were interested.

----------------

"In Mexico and French-speaking Canada, I think English speakers can get bywith "poor" language skills, because the non-English speakers in thosecountries are used to hearing a lot of English, both as a foreign language andmixed in with Spanish and French respectively. I've never been to Québec, soI have no personal experience, but from what I've heard, I think it would beparallel."

I have spent some time in Quebec and a lot of time in Maine (we own a homethere) where French is common, and I would make a distinction between thecities (especially Montreal, which is thoroughly bilingual, but even Quebec

city) and the country. In rural Quebec, English is a pretty rare commodity,and their French is very localized, so speaking either French or English isfraught with problems. My husband just spent some time on a Canadiannaval vessel, and some of the sailors from very rural Quebec can really onlycommunicate well among themselves. (There was one sailor who no onecould understand, from very very rural northern Quebec province. Thevisiting French officer was disgusted, my husband said...)

I am not sure that being exposed to English will help to understand a nativeEnglish speaker who is struggling with French, though. That assumes that theerrors or omissions will be English usage or pronunciations that are

superinmposed upon the French. Many errors and omissions are simplyinexplicable (or they were among my students, at least!)

-----------------

Dear Laura,



This is a discussion very near to my heart. I teach both languages as well asbeing the dept chair. Every fall, I try my darndest to convince 8th graders(and their parents) that Spanish is not the easier language, nor the languagethey will use the most. As some of you have already noted, motivation iseverything! Kids will use the language they want to use--and they will learn

the language they need to use. As for difficulty, any language is easy tospeak badly. Millions of Americans speak and write English badly, and weunderstand each other fairly well--but that is another forum. To develop anyoral fluency one must spend time in a setting where the target language isspoken. Reading and writing can be taught. We can teach students how tomake the sounds of French and the letter-sound correspondances, but toreally become fluent (and there are plenty of experts who maintain thattechnical fluency cannot be attained after the age of 6), a student needs togo to France or Martinique or Québec or....

Merci pour tous les pensées

----------------

I read a scholarly work comparing about eight languages--i wish i couldremember the name, you'd probably know it--but the comparison of spanishand french was summarized in this way: spanish is easier for the beginnerthan french grammatically, but once the grammar has been understood, thereverse is true because spanish has many more layers of vocabulary withmany subtle differences. what do you think of this accessment? ~laura inoregon (petitmoineau)

------------

I have studied both French and Spanish, but I teach French. My feeling is thatSpanish is easier only in the pronunciation. The grammar seems moredifficult (ser vs. estar, the personal "a", various subjunctive tenses, multipleplacement of objects, etc.)

I went to a seminar for FL teachers last year. The presenter taught a roomfull of language teachers a "new" language. Within five minutes, we all wereable to follow about a dozen commands (via modeling) in a language thatwas complete gibberish to us. A half-hour later, we still understood what todo. The presenter put a transparency on the overhead of this language. Theletters looked somewhat like English, but not quite... Then he turned overthe transparency to reveal all English words. He had been pronouncingeverything completely backwards!

So, what is the most difficult language to learn? Any language you don't



know!

Bonne chance, bon courage, and keep fighting for French.

-----------------------

c'était une drôle d'histoire, je l'ai aimé beaucoup, merci! je pense que c'estvrai, n'importe quelle langue que tu ne connait pas ça c'est la plus difficile àapprendre. j'ai étudié espagnol aussi il y a quatre ans. c'était très facile àapprendre à cause de mon français. mais je ne peux plus m'en souvenirparce que je n'ai pas continué à l'utiliser. un jour peut-être.

je suis folle de français depuis 1979, maintenant complètement isolée desfrancophones sauf par le net. j'écris, je lis, j'écoute les radios, mais j'espèrede trouver quelqu'un avec qui je peux parler. il y a un prof dans ma petiteville et mon conjoint vient de lui téléphoner hier mais elle est en vacances.croisez les doigts pour moi. je veux parler comme jamais. ~laura

------------

Salut Laura -

>>the comparison of spanish and french was summarized in this way:spanish is easier for the beginner than french grammatically, but once thegrammar has been understood, the reverse is true because spanish hasmany more layers of vocabulary with many subtle differences

I agree that Spanish is - or at least seems - easier in the beginning, but I thinkthat later on they are equally difficult. The Spanish subjunctive, for one thing,is horrendous, but there are equally difficult aspects of French. :-)

-------------------

Such a delay in my reply! I have not visited the forums for a while for avariety of reasons - but wanted to reply that your facility with languages,whether or not germanic, may be in part due to being exposed to a differentlanguage than English as a small child. I have seen a great deal of researchthat would indicate the validity of that. Your brain, while developing its

language-processing parts, incorporated non-English elements that cannot befitted into the language that you learned as your mother tongue. Thus, yourbrain developed a certain facility, albeit rudimentary, in separating outlanguages. When you took up another foreign language, you developed that.

----------------

"hellish" sounds like exactly the right word! But your comments do make



sense to me - I really believe so strongly that a child should be individuallycounseled about which language they prefer, and not just placed randomlyinto a foreign language.

In Norfolk, as much as I hate this silly little course, we do offer something

called "Introduction to Foreign Language". It is a one semester course: fourweeks each of French, Spanish, German, and two weeks of Latin (thelanguages offered here). It is offered in 7th and 8th grade, but unfortunatelythe execution is awful - the teachers generally speak only one languagethemselves, and muddle as best they can through the other three and end upencouraging their students to take the language that they generally teach!But it could be excellent if done properly.

----------------

Hi everyone,

I have to say that Spanish was very easy for me up until this year, howevernow it is hard. I am starting to learn French and plan on taking my first classof it next year. The pronuciation seems harder, but I WANT to learn French,so I think in the end it will be easier than Spanish because I have a passionfor French, and not Spanish.

I'm sure everyone is wondering why I didn't take French in the first place, but

the answer is simple I wanted to achieve flunecy in Spanish so I couldsomeday go to Colombia and communicate with my biological parents (I'madopted). If this was not the case I would have taken French.

So to some it up I think that if you have passion for something it will comeeasier to you then if you don't have passion for it.

-------------------

I agree that Spanish is an easier language for a number of reasons. One, at

least in my case, I grew up around many Spanish speaking people so that Iwas more familiar with the language (not that I can speak it). Also, it is easierto hear Spanish in the US than French.

Originally I had plan to take French in high school. But the year I entered theyphased French out and only taught Spanish, much to my dismay. But when I



finally took French in college I was glad I was exposed to Spanish because Ifind it closer to English. I also think French became easier because I wasused to thinking in a different language already. Currently I am learning Japanese.

-----------------A lot of people think that Spanish is easier than French because its spellingcode is simpler than the English and French systems.

This is true, but the Grammar of Spanish is just as complicated as thegrammars of other Romance languages. Spanish verbs have a morecomplicated person-number system of suffixes and more irregular verbs.

----------------

The harder Romance language is not doubt : italian. I'm learning it right now.

"Les prépositions et articles contractés" sont ma douleur.

The prepositions & contracted articles are my pain.

-------------

Salut Cannadienne,

À mon avis la langue romane la plus difficile n'est pas l'italien, mais leroumain. N'importe quelle langue avec plus de cas (cases?) que l'espagnol, lefrançais, le portugais et l'italien me rend, litéralement "fou"!

On the Spanish vs. French issue, I truly think both can be/are easy and bothcan be/are hard. It all depends on a number of factors that are different fromperson to person. Of course, we "Spanishers" (mexican in my case) wish tothink ours is easier and you "Frenchies" (québécoise in yours) wish to thinkyours is. We're both right (or wrong)! It all depends on who you ask!

Até logo :)

------------------------

Yeah. There are more forms in Italian than in the other Romance languages.

Get a chart of them and write them out with an appropriate noun, e.g. "dellalingua" > "delle lingue," "lo sbaglio" > "gli sbagli," etc.

I am pretty sure that if you write out all the forms with the appropriate nounsat least twice, you will find that you will find the system as easy as "acountry" "an egg."



Probably, just by reading these charts just once, you will find you willrecognize them all in written texts with no trouble.

One nice thing about Italian is that their irregular verbs follow a smallernumber of consistent patterns than their counterparts in the other Romancelanguages. I once wrote a programmed-instruction sequence to teach them.Unfortunately, I have lost it.

--------------

<<One nice thing about Italian is that their irregular verbs follow a smallernumber of consistent patterns than their counterparts in the other Romancelanguages.>> You cannot possibly imagine how this has calmed my linguistic

anxieties. Wray

----------------

My name is Dages. I am currently studing french. While I was reading thearticles "Spanish is earsier than French...Not!" I flet I need to add some wordsfrom my personal experience.

Well, my few months of studing French are really difficult. At the beginning itwas a real nightmare with pronunciation. Still, I am not fluent in French

reading. I has too many particularities that are in fact enoying, but the beautyof French language makes me feel nice with newly learned French words andsounds.

From my experience, I have studied Arabic for some years previously. Arabicis too not an easy language to learn. Arabic newspapers and litrature all arewritten in raw style, meaning no signs to know wether to read "a","u", or "e".Arabic is a littile bit close to Chinese that required the memorization of words,before being able to read them in any text. My discussion goes a littile astray

from our main topic, the beautiful French language.

Yes, so for French language their some identity with Arabic in the manner of treating the articles and making liasons and joing words and massing allwords in a sentence into one single French calbasa.



Secondly, as a Muslim I perfectly know that French in the Muslim world isvery popular. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the World! Arabic andFrench can be be conquering the World very soon. Muslims are very fond of

French plus others who see French as a means for looking into anddiscovering other cultures and nations.

At this very moment, being in Asia, I am surprized to khow that Asian are toogreatly favor the French language.

Another plus for French is that Russian are too studing French and it is verypopular in TV programs.

French is an aristocratic language, with interesting pronunciation and strange

sound.

However, is very difficult for any one to suggest or advise to study a foreignlanguage. It depends on wether that parson will ever need to use French forany purpose.

The only reason is that is rational is the actual financial and social successthat the knowledge of foreign language can generate.

However, if the someone studies a foreign language, be it French or other, just to talk to some stranger on a street, be it even in Frence, is not worthy

of. It is too much of effort for some momentary opportunity of showing yourFrench skills. Why woldn't you consider the other person learning your ownmother toung. Is it worthy of learing your mather toung for someone foryears, just to have some chat or lese with you? For my critical view, it isworthy only if your survival depends on your ability to talk in French.Otherwise, it isn't.

The only good reason can be the real job position or social survival that theforeign language offers. Everything else, is meaningless.

Best Regards. Dages.

-----------------

I think this article is very interesting. I started learning spanish at a veryyoung age and It came very easy to me. I've always understood grammarconcepts fairly well.

I started learning french this year in college, and although I got good gradesI don't feel that I have nearly as good of a grasp on it as I did when I started



learning spanish. I think I've made way with pronunciation though. My biggestobstacle right now the order of words when there are negations and pronounsat the same time. That get's me pretty confused.

Oh well, I hope it's true about French getting easier. I do find that I don't have

trouble with many grammatical concepts because many are the same asspanish. I always tell people that spanish is easier, but hey maybe I'll see.

------------

If you learned Spanish at an early age, it's logical you'll find Spanish easierthan French, because French is new to you. But the truth is Spanish is morecomplicated for English-speaking people than French, not because therearen't words that aren't similar, but because of the grammar, like the articlesand genders in Spanish are different and the pronouciation that Spanish hasis difficult to learn for English-speakers. I live in Puerto Rico, we speakSpanish, but my English is as good as my Spanish. Last year I took French asa thrid language, and it was more difficult to learn than English, because,as inyou case, I know English since I was little. Not that Spanish is impossible tolearn, because it's not true, but French has more in common with English instructure than Spanish. Take my word for it, I have friends in both Englandand France, and they say French is easier than Spanish.

But never give up, because it's possible to learn the 3 languages if youdedicate them time ;)

---------------

I agree with you. Its logical than when you know a language since you'relittle, it's going to be easier than another language. But for those who studyFrench and Spanish at the same time, they say French is easier if you have afirm base in English.

spanish is easier than french - not!

Documents