Is Spanish easier to learn than French?

There is a common myth among English speakers, at least in the United States, that Spanish is much easier to learn than French. In high school, more than 95% percent of my fellow students chose Spanish in order to meet the foreign language requirement. Since I was completely enamored of French, I couldn't understand why, so I asked them. Some said that Spanish is more useful in the US (an interesting discussion for another day), but most claimed that Spanish is much easier and thus they wouldn't have to work as hard. The same rumor abounded when I was in college, and I still hear it today. When asked for more information, perpetrators of this urban legend invariably mention 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 do remember Spanish seeming very easy at first, because it was so much like the French I'd already struggled through, but then Spanish suddenly became very difficult, which makes these claims about how easy Spanish is seem suspicious. So I sat down and analyzed the two languages to see what I could come 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 vowel has a single pronunciation and although consonants may have two or more, there are very specific rules regarding their usage, depending on where the letter is in the word and what letters are around it. There are some trick letters, like the silent H and the identically-pronounced B and V, but all in all Spanish 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 enchanement which add additional difficulties to pronunciation and aural comprehension. There are precise rules for the accentuation of Spanish words and accents to let you know when those rules are overridden, whereas in French accentuation goes by the sentence rather than the word. The fact is that once you've memorized the Spanish rules of pronunciation and accentuation, you can pronounce brand-new words with no hesitation. This is rarely the case in French (or English, for that matter). The most common French past tense, the pass compos, is more difficult

than Spanish's pretrito.* The pretrito is a single word, while the pass compos has two parts (auxiliary verb + past participle). The pass compos is just one of several French compound verbs** and the questions of auxiliary verb (avoir or tre), word order, and agreement with these verbs are some of French's great difficulties. *The true French equivalent of the pretrito, the pass simple, is a literary tense which French students are usually expected to recognize but not to use. **Spanish compound verbs are much simpler: there is only one auxiliary verb and 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 terms of usage and word order than Spanish's no.

French is easier
The Spanish subject pronoun is usually dropped, thus it is essential to have all verb conjugations memorized in order to recognize (as the listener) and express (as the speaker) which subject is performing the action. The French subject pronoun is always stated, which means that verb conjugations - while still important, of course - are not as vital to comprehension: your own or your 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 a different 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 15 verb tenses/moods, four of which are literary and rarely used, thus only 11 are used in daily French. Spanish has 17, one of which is literary (pretrito anterior) and two judicial/administrative (futuro de subjuntivo and futuro anterior de subjuntivo), which leaves 14 for regular use. Lots of conjugations! The final straw, for me, is the subjunctive. While the subjunctive mood is the bane of students of both languages, it is more difficult and much more common in Spanish. The French subjunctive is used almost solely after que, whereas the Spanish subjunctive is used regularly after many different conjunctions: que, cuando, como, etc. There are two different sets of conjugations for the Spanish imperfect subjunctive 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 are more difficult in Spanish. Note the two subjunctive tenses that are used in the Spanish si clauses. In French the imperfect subjunctive and pluperfect subjunctive are literary and extremely rare, but in Spanish, they are commonplace.

Neither one is easier

There are sounds in both languages which can be very difficult for English speakers: French has the infamous R apical (learn more), nasal vowels (learn more), and the subtle (to untrained ears) differences between tu/tous (learn more) and parlai/parlais (learn more). In Spanish, the rolled R, the J (similar to the French R), and the B/V are the trickiest sounds. Nouns in both languages have a gender and require gender and number agreement for adjectives, articles, and certain types of pronouns. The use of prepositions in both languages can be difficult, as there is often little 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 - pass compos vs imparfait; Sp - pretrito vs imperfecto), two verbs that mean "to know," and the bonbien, mauvais-mal (Fr) / bueno-bien, malo-mal (Sp) distinctions. Both French and Spanish have reflexive verbs, numerous false cognates with English that can trip up non-native speakers of either language, and potentially confusing word order due to the positions of adjectives and object pronouns.

The Bottom Line

Spanish is arguably somewhat easier for the first year or so - beginners may struggle 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 four words for you, while French only has two. Later on, Spanish grammar becomes more complicated, and some aspects are certainly more difficult than French. All in all, neither language is definitively more or less difficult than 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 and then 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 ; 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. I like to think of French as phonetic with exceptions. What drives me insane is trying 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 to understand if not pronounced correctly because of all of the words that sound similar to foreign ears. This makes getting by with poor French more difficult than getting by with poor Spanish. The Spanish speakers tend to be more relaxed about bad Spanish than the French about bad French because bad Spanish is so much easier to understand (I speak from personal experience). This perhaps gives learners of Spanish more of an impression that their Spanish is more effective at an earlier stage than French speakers. If you want to be fluent in either of these languages, I think, you have to put in a great deal of effort just the same. ------------AHHHHHHH!!!!!!! My least favorite urban myth...years ago, when I taught French, this made me crazy. Now that my son is taking French (he would never learn from me, of course) he is faced with the same thing - and he argued 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 the case 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 learned it 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 nor written French for almost 20 years, yet now that I have discovered the Forum I find that most of it is still with me.

But I have never been able to learn another language, except for a painful semi-successful effort at Italian, which I learned from a textbook written for French speakers. My German professor told me in disgust that I was the only American he ever heard to speak German with a French accent. Spanish was a disaster. Russian and Serbian no better (my father was Serbian). Why is this? Do other people have this experience? Or do most people have a gift for language, period, not just one specific language? If not, what would explain a gift for one specific language, if that language was never heard prior to study? And what should be the criteria for assigning a student to a foreign 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 one language stop its development until they had reached the maximum complexity? I am assuming that the intelligence level of different language groups is more or less equal. But that's not necessarily true. My point is that native speakers will reach the highest level in complexity no matter whatever the language. So, in general, all languages should be about as difficult as any another. -------------Your article is really interesting ! The same cliches exist in France concerning English, Spanish and German. Most French schoolchildren learn English as a second language for obvious international reasons. But when a child wants to learn German as a second language, he is often told that German is only for good pupils because it is more difficult.

The same thing occurs two years later when children have to choose a third language : most schools offer German and Spanish courses. Only hardworking pupils are told that they will be able to cope with German whereas the others are frightened into taking Spanish courses, because it is "sooooooo much easier".

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

On the contrary, German grammar always looked very logical to me, with few exceptions. 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 speaking fluently and to pronouncing correctly, "c'est une autre paire de manches" ! ----------------You mentioned the awful Spanish subjunctive... What about your French one?! It seems to give me enough problems!! :) Native English speakers are definitely spoilt with the subjunctive.... :) ----------------Well, I didn't mention the awful French subjunctive because it doesn't sound awful to me. I was suckled with French subjunctive ! The Spanish subjunctive must really be awful because it looks awful even to such subjunctive addicts as the French ! -------------Excuse-moi, mais une raison pour laquelle on ne pousse pas les enfants prsentant des difficults dans leur scolarit faire de l'allemand est qu'il n'y pas de filires prvues dans les tudes "courtes" (CAP, etc...) On sait donc que s'ils doivent se diriger vers des tudes courtes, ils devront changer de langue et se mettre faire de l'anglais... Seul l'anglais est enseign dans ces filires... Attention, je ne dis pas que c'est un point positif, loin de l.

Quand je faisais des vacations en Chambre de Commerce et donnais des cours d'anglais en CFA, j'ai vu des jeunes obligs de faire de l'anglais pour la premire fois de leur vie...

Ce qui est triste, c'est que nos collgues d'allemand ont de moins en moins d'lves et ont du mal trouver un poste complet... Il n'y en a plus que pour l'espagnol...

Une consolation pour nos collgues d'allemand est qu'ils ont assez souvent affaire aux meilleurs lves de la classe (surtout pour les lves ayant fait allemand 1re langue) et qu'ils enseignent dans des classes trs rduites...

Amitis. Marie ----------->>My German professor told me in disgust that I was the only American he ever heard to speak German with a French accent.

LOL Je suppose que c'est possible d'apprendre une langue avec facilite et de ne pas pouvoir apprendre des autres langues, mais je ne connais personne qui l'a fait. Moi, ma langue maternalle est anglais (je suis americane). J'etudie la francais au lycee depuis 3 annees, et maintenant je suit un cours de francais a l'universite. J'ai suivi un cours d'espagnol aussi, mais je parle francais meillur. Pourtant, quelquefois je utilise les mots espanol ou anglais quand je parle en francais, ou des mots francais ou espagnol quand je parle anglais, 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. I like to think of French as phonetic with exceptions. What drives me insane is trying 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 the point 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 to understand if not pronounced correctly because of all of the words that sound similar to foreign ears. This makes getting by with poor French more difficult than getting by with poor Spanish.

That's an interesting point. Here's my take on it: I think it's equal in the two languages, but it depends where you go. In Mexico and French-speaking Canada, I think English speakers can get by with "poor" language skills, because the non-English speakers in those countries are used to hearing a lot of English, both as a foreign language and mixed 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 and France, because those countries are not as inured to English. Personally speaking, I had more trouble making myself understood in Spain than in Mexico. I've never been to Qubec, so I have no personal experience, but from what I've heard, I think it would be parallel. (Note: all of the above is just my personal opinion, and I'd be happy for anyone in the know to step in and correct me.)

>>The Spanish speakers tend to be more relaxed about bad Spanish than the French about bad French because bad Spanish is so much easier to understand (I speak from personal experience). This perhaps gives learners of Spanish more of an impression that their Spanish is more effective at an earlier 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 in Spain I might as well have been speaking Greek.

>>If you want to be fluent in either of these languages, I think, you have to put 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 obvious international reasons. But when a child wants to learn German as a second language, he is often told that German is only for good pupils because it is more difficult.

>>The same thing occurs two years later when children have to choose a third language : most schools offer German and Spanish courses. Only hardworking pupils are told that they will be able to cope with German whereas the others are frightened into taking Spanish courses, because it is "sooooooo much easier".

That's very interesting, especially since there is so much German influence in French. I would think that German and Spanish would be equally difficult for French-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 like comparing Spanish to French, because these two languages have their hardto-learn rules or verbs etc., each its own. But modern English is REALLY simple compared to German, since most of its rules and conjugations of verbs are 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 the verb takes in present tense; There are no gender differences; Nobody ever uses the subjunctive or knows how to; There are no cases like in German (I mean nouns don't change nor do adjectives) etc. And besides, many native English speakers make a lot of mistakes themselves.

Personally I think it's easier to learn Latin languages than it is to learn Germanic languages, because the verb systems are easier to understand, the words are shorter and many of them got into a lot of non-Latin languages anyway 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 figuring out bad Spanish/French. It's something that I had thought about but not something I have had personal experience with. I have never been to a country where I was not fluent in the local language.

The reason I think that Spanish is not that phonetic, but no doubt more phonetic 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 the misplacement of v for b, s for z and the dropping of the letter h. Has dicho que ay que saver bivir. for example

I think that the pronunciation of phrases like : J'ai deux frres are easier to make unintelligeable in French than its Spanish equivalent: Tengo dos hermanos.

If the French phrase is mispronounced as:

Je du frres.

or

J'ai doux frres.

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 random and it happens to appear to demonstrate my point. Many will disagree that even this example fails to illustrate my idea but it would be interesting to see if 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 and complex rules.

But it is my impression that the French are more active in selling the language so it's is easier for me to find a wide variety of tools to help me improve my French. But then again, I have not been looking for books on Spanish 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 Puerto Rico I had to start learning English on second grade. I didn't progress much until I traveled to the US and stayed with in an all-English environment for a couple of weeks. And even after 10 years of studying English, I received the prize for Thickest Accent as a freshman in college. Now, another 10 years after 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 French until I visit Europe again, which I intend to do...)

I think I have an advantage in reading French over most English speakers because of the parallellism in SP-FR sentence structure. When I started, I could 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 to a Belgian friend, he just gave me a blank stare and asked if I was OK or channeling somebody :) Now that I've discovered the DVD, I'm starting to get a tiny, minuscule bit better at listening (even if the accent is Canadian--along the 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 me know, I have some questions...)

Risking insulting most of the group on my first post, my brain sees French as a bad mlange between English and French, with the bad things of both languages. As has been posted elsewhere, Spanish is almost completely phonetical, 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 cannot make that sound, sigh). Then Spanish and French have the verb issues, which English lacks: two tenses and some auxiliaries, yes!. But then again, when you venture into the unknown, you mostly notice the bad :)

Like the tools they are, each language excels at something. One good thing I find about English is that you can express a great deal of complexity with very few phonemes, as most common words are monosyllabic (you know what I mean? :) However, I find there's little like swearing in Spanish (or expresing strong emotions, just like Italian), or listening to romantic songs in French.

J'espre que j'crirai plus en franais en le futur.

A bientt,

Alfredo --------------------'In Mexico and French-speaking Canada, I think English speakers can get by with "poor" language skills, because the non-English speakers in those countries are used to hearing a lot of English, both as a foreign language and mixed 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 and France, because those countries are not as inured to English. Personally speaking, I had more trouble making myself understood in Spain than in Mexico. '

I have little experience of American Spanish but my experience of speaking French in France and Spanish in Spain would back up the theory that 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 an imperfect pronunciation but also find it a source of great amusement.

I have lived in Spain now for over 25 years and although the language I learned 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 was an easier language.You have convinced me otherwise.

I think you are wrong in thinking that the Spanish are not used to hearing English.Here in Spain there are a great many foreigners a large number of whom speak English.(Not to mention the foreign television, films and radio available here.) ------------------Salut Edwin, >>The reason I think that Spanish is not that phonetic, but no doubt more phonetic 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 the misplacement of v for b, s for z and the dropping of the letter h. Has dicho que 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* be confused. If anything, I would thing the C and Z might get confused, since they are pronounced the same in certain situations. In any case, I don't think these three potential difficulties come anywhere near French (or English, for that matter), where vowel combinations and accents leave French with 16 vowel 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 frres are easier to make unintelligeable in French than its Spanish equivalent: Tengo dos hermanos....

This is a very good point. Are there really so few similar words in Spanish, or is it partly because vowels are more, let's say, "bold" in Spanish than in French? It seems to me that vowels in Spanish are very distinct from one to the next. In French, there's a different but fairly close sound in each of the following: papa/pte, tous/tu, le/peu/peur, etc. I think this is really what causes the phenomenon that you mentioned. Not only does Spanish have, perhaps, fewer similar-sounding words, but the sounds aren't that similar to begin with - who could mix up tengo and tingo?

>>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 and complex rules.

Absolutely - I couldn't agree more. That was the point of my article. I do believe 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 the language so it's is easier for me to find a wide variety of tools to help me improve my French. But then again, I have not been looking for books on Spanish 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. But I definitely agree about the French selling their language! Just look at the Alliance franaise. I've tried to find a Spanish equivalent, and it seems to me that would be the Cervantes Institute, but they are not as active or wellknown, 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 theory that 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 an imperfect pronunciation but also find it a source of great amusement.

I don't think that's true. Yes, there are *some* French people, perhaps more than 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 other large cities, and they certainly weren't in the majority. In fact, I've been to France 5 or 6 times, as a dbutante, a fluent speaker, and every level in between, and in all that time I met only one French man who was rude about my 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 very same trip, I got separated from my group while wandering through a march, and stopped an elderly woman to ask her how to get back to the march, only I said "O est le mark?" She was perfectly nice, despite my pidgin French and lousy pronunciation. Everyone else I've ever met has been at least 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 I learned 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 was an easier language. You have convinced me otherwise.

Yay! ;-) No, but seriously, I think it's partly because you had already struggled through French, which gives you an edge when you learn another language, and partly because, perhaps, Spanish grabbed your interest in a way that French did not. If you learned Spanish while in Spain, that may also help to explain why you found Spanish easier - you were immersed in the language and 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 few more 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 hearing English. Here in Spain there are a great many foreigners a large number of

whom speak English. (Not to mention the foreign television, films and radio available 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 the relevant points: Me parece recordar que Ortega y Gasset dijo que para mejorar el castellano haba que aprender alemn. Concuerdo con lo que Twain plantea, pero lo bueno de aprender alemn, es fijarse en cosas como acusativo, dativo, que en el castellano no parecieran tan importantes y debido a eso surgen los errores como el losmo, lesmo y el lasmo. Conozco el texto de Twain y es interesante notar que el verbo vermiethen (arrendar, alquilar) ya no se escribe as, ahora es sin la hache. Por lo menos en Alemania se han preocupado de ir adecuando el idioma a los tiempos, mientras que en el castellano seguimos con reglas contradictorias y a veces anacrnicas. 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 and sometimes anacronistic ones. Una de las cosas que ms me llama la atencin es el grado de faltas de ortografa que me ha tocado ver en idiomas como ingls, alemn y castellano. Personalmente pienso que un hablante ingls comete menos errores ortogrficos que uno en castellano. Y lo mismo para un hablante alemn. One thing that grabs my attention is the frequency of spelling errors that I find in languages like English, German and Spanish. Personally, I think that an English speaker makes less spelling errors that a Spanish speaker. The same goes for a German speaker. En el caso del idioma ingls es interesante hacer notar que no exista (creo) una regla de la cual uno pueda deducir la forma de escribir una palabra, por lo que los nios son "obligados" a aprenderse las palabras de memoria (hay que recordar los famosos consursos de "spelling"). El alemn en ese contexto tambin es ms regular que el castellano.

In the case of English, it is interesting to note that there is no rule (I think) to guess the way a word is written so children have to learn the spelling of the words by heart (remember those famous spelling bees?). German, in that respect, is more consistant than Spanish. En todo caso Andrs Bello ya hizo su aporte para tratar de mejorar el castellano, pero lamentablemente hoy en da no es recordado como es debido. Ms informacin en http://www.analitica.com/bitblioteca/abello/ortografia1.asp http://www.analitica.com/bitblioteca/abello/ortografia2.asp http://www.analitica.com/bitblioteca/abello/ortografia3.asp El castellano me encanta, pero me disgusta esa duda perenne que a veces me asalta se escribe con j o con g?, porqu se escribe rey con y, pero reina con i?. I love Spanish, but I do not like that perenial doubt that sometimes overcomes me. Do you write is with j or with g? Why rey(king) is written with a y but reina(queen) with an i? Hagan la prueba: vayan al google e ingresen como palabra de bsqueda "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 what the word means, I cannot guess which spelling is correct without grabbing a dictionary. Saludos * I forgot that not everyone speaks Spanish. I apologize if you read this post before I made the translations. ------------------I had a conversation the other night at a party with someone who was convinced that Spanish was "easy" and French "very difficult". I mentioned that 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 with nouns in gender and number. She shrugged off all of this as of no concern to her. It turned out she was an art museum tour guide and only had to pronounce the names of foreign artists and the titles of their works. She thought 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 are struggling with their foreign language requirement and convinced that they cannot learn any foreign language, after they were told to take Spanish because it was the easiest.

My belief is that no foreign language is easy to learn, so choose the one that really interests you, and then you will have the motivation to put in the necessary effort. I know a few people with no unusual "aptitude for languages" who have mastered Chinese just because they were interested. ---------------"In Mexico and French-speaking Canada, I think English speakers can get by with "poor" language skills, because the non-English speakers in those countries are used to hearing a lot of English, both as a foreign language and mixed in with Spanish and French respectively. I've never been to Qubec, so I have no personal experience, but from what I've heard, I think it would be parallel." I have spent some time in Quebec and a lot of time in Maine (we own a home there) where French is common, and I would make a distinction between the cities (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 is fraught with problems. My husband just spent some time on a Canadian naval vessel, and some of the sailors from very rural Quebec can really only communicate well among themselves. (There was one sailor who no one could understand, from very very rural northern Quebec province. The visiting French officer was disgusted, my husband said...) I am not sure that being exposed to English will help to understand a native English speaker who is struggling with French, though. That assumes that the errors or omissions will be English usage or pronunciations that are superinmposed upon the French. Many errors and omissions are simply inexplicable (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 as being 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 language they will use the most. As some of you have already noted, motivation is everything! 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 to speak badly. Millions of Americans speak and write English badly, and we understand each other fairly well--but that is another forum. To develop any oral fluency one must spend time in a setting where the target language is spoken. Reading and writing can be taught. We can teach students how to make the sounds of French and the letter-sound correspondances, but to really become fluent (and there are plenty of experts who maintain that technical fluency cannot be attained after the age of 6), a student needs to go to France or Martinique or Qubec or.... Merci pour tous les penses ---------------I read a scholarly work comparing about eight languages--i wish i could remember the name, you'd probably know it--but the comparison of spanish and french was summarized in this way: spanish is easier for the beginner than french grammatically, but once the grammar has been understood, the reverse is true because spanish has many more layers of vocabulary with many subtle differences. what do you think of this accessment? ~laura in oregon (petitmoineau) -----------I have studied both French and Spanish, but I teach French. My feeling is that Spanish is easier only in the pronunciation. The grammar seems more difficult (ser vs. estar, the personal "a", various subjunctive tenses, multiple placement of objects, etc.)

I went to a seminar for FL teachers last year. The presenter taught a room full of language teachers a "new" language. Within five minutes, we all were able to follow about a dozen commands (via modeling) in a language that was complete gibberish to us. A half-hour later, we still understood what to do. The presenter put a transparency on the overhead of this language. The letters looked somewhat like English, but not quite... Then he turned over the transparency to reveal all English words. He had been pronouncing everything 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'tait une drle d'histoire, je l'ai aim beaucoup, merci! je pense que c'est vrai, n'importe quelle langue que tu ne connait pas a c'est la plus difficile apprendre. j'ai tudi espagnol aussi il y a quatre ans. c'tait trs facile apprendre cause de mon franais. mais je ne peux plus m'en souvenir parce que je n'ai pas continu l'utiliser. un jour peut-tre. je suis folle de franais depuis 1979, maintenant compltement isole des francophones sauf par le net. j'cris, je lis, j'coute les radios, mais j'espre de trouver quelqu'un avec qui je peux parler. il y a un prof dans ma petite ville et mon conjoint vient de lui tlphoner 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 the grammar has been understood, the reverse is true because spanish has many more layers of vocabulary with many subtle differences

I agree that Spanish is - or at least seems - easier in the beginning, but I think that 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 a variety 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 different language than English as a small child. I have seen a great deal of research that would indicate the validity of that. Your brain, while developing its language-processing parts, incorporated non-English elements that cannot be fitted into the language that you learned as your mother tongue. Thus, your brain developed a certain facility, albeit rudimentary, in separating out languages. 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 individually counseled about which language they prefer, and not just placed randomly into 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: four weeks each of French, Spanish, German, and two weeks of Latin (the languages offered here). It is offered in 7th and 8th grade, but unfortunately the execution is awful - the teachers generally speak only one language themselves, and muddle as best they can through the other three and end up encouraging 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, however now it is hard. I am starting to learn French and plan on taking my first class of 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 passion for 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 could someday go to Colombia and communicate with my biological parents (I'm adopted). 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 come easier 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 I was more familiar with the language (not that I can speak it). Also, it is easier to hear Spanish in the US than French.

Originally I had plan to take French in high school. But the year I entered they phased 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 I find it closer to English. I also think French became easier because I was used 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 spelling code is simpler than the English and French systems. This is true, but the Grammar of Spanish is just as complicated as the grammars of other Romance languages. Spanish verbs have a more complicated person-number system of suffixes and more irregular verbs. ---------------The harder Romance language is not doubt : italian. I'm learning it right now. "Les prpositions et articles contracts" sont ma douleur. The prepositions & contracted articles are my pain. ------------Salut Cannadienne, mon avis la langue romane la plus difficile n'est pas l'italien, mais le roumain. N'importe quelle langue avec plus de cas (cases?) que l'espagnol, le franais, le portugais et l'italien me rend, litralement "fou"! On the Spanish vs. French issue, I truly think both can be/are easy and both can be/are hard. It all depends on a number of factors that are different from person to person. Of course, we "Spanishers" (mexican in my case) wish to think ours is easier and you "Frenchies" (qubcoise in yours) wish to think yours is. We're both right (or wrong)! It all depends on who you ask! At 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. "della lingua" > "delle lingue," "lo sbaglio" > "gli sbagli," etc.

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

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

One nice thing about Italian is that their irregular verbs follow a smaller number of consistent patterns than their counterparts in the other Romance languages. 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 smaller number of consistent patterns than their counterparts in the other Romance languages.>> 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 the articles "Spanish is earsier than French...Not!" I flet I need to add some words from my personal experience.

Well, my few months of studing French are really difficult. At the beginning it was 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 beauty of French language makes me feel nice with newly learned French words and sounds.

From my experience, I have studied Arabic for some years previously. Arabic is too not an easy language to learn. Arabic newspapers and litrature all are written 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 all words in a sentence into one single French calbasa.

Secondly, as a Muslim I perfectly know that French in the Muslim world is very popular. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the World! Arabic and French 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 and discovering other cultures and nations.

At this very moment, being in Asia, I am surprized to khow that Asian are too greatly favor the French language. Another plus for French is that Russian are too studing French and it is very popular 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 foreign language. It depends on wether that parson will ever need to use French for any purpose. The only reason is that is rational is the actual financial and social success that 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 your French skills. Why woldn't you consider the other person learning your own mother toung. Is it worthy of learing your mather toung for someone for years, just to have some chat or lese with you? For my critical view, it is worthy 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 the foreign language offers. Everything else, is meaningless. Best Regards. Dages. ----------------I think this article is very interesting. I started learning spanish at a very young age and It came very easy to me. I've always understood grammar concepts fairly well. I started learning french this year in college, and although I got good grades I 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 biggest obstacle right now the order of words when there are negations and pronouns at 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 as spanish. 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 easier than French, because French is new to you. But the truth is Spanish is more complicated for English-speaking people than French, not because there aren't words that aren't similar, but because of the grammar, like the articles and genders in Spanish are different and the pronouciation that Spanish has is difficult to learn for English-speakers. I live in Puerto Rico, we speak Spanish, but my English is as good as my Spanish. Last year I took French as a thrid language, and it was more difficult to learn than English, because,as in you case, I know English since I was little. Not that Spanish is impossible to learn, because it's not true, but French has more in common with English in structure than Spanish. Take my word for it, I have friends in both England and France, and they say French is easier than Spanish. But never give up, because it's possible to learn the 3 languages if you dedicate them time ;) --------------I agree with you. Its logical than when you know a language since you're little, it's going to be easier than another language. But for those who study French and Spanish at the same time, they say French is easier if you have a firm base in English.