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Is French really easier than English? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5228 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 113 of 131 24 August 2011 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | ||
It's tough to tell, because the subjunctive with verbs besides "to be" only differs in the third person singular. So here's the subjunctive in English: I do You do He do We do They do Indicative to compare: I do You do He does We do They do So how can we tell if that's subjunctive? "I brought it to you in order that you repair it." For the non-native speaker, probably to memorize "in order" introduces subjunctive. For the native speaker, I just put it in the third person. "I brought it to him in order that he repair it." That sounds right, hence it must be the subjunctive. Otherwise it would be "repairs." 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ygangerg Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5318 days ago 100 posts - 140 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, French Studies: German | Message 114 of 131 24 August 2011 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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For "No creo que sea facil", I would say "I don't think it's easy". Yours could be a better translation, but here is my point: pragmatics and usage are as important as the word endings that we think of as "indicative" or "subjunctive". The concepts exist, and are expressed, in any language. Slovak, French, English, Latin.
Look at it this way: English "has no case". But are we (at least native speakers) ever at a loss about whether the "dog" in "the dog caught the ball" is the subject or the object, or if maybe it's the object of a preposition? No, it's clear by the sentence order that it's the subject. And the concept at hand is still "case". It's just not expressed by a suffix; it's expressed by sentence order. To respond to the OP though, French is harder. I learned English by the time I was three ; ) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| floydak Tetraglot Groupie Slovakia Joined 4854 days ago 60 posts - 85 votes Speaks: Slovak*, English, German, Spanish Studies: French | Message 115 of 131 24 August 2011 at 8:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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well actually I'm glad and asking how is it in English.. (albeit maybe little offtopic
O:-) ) Becouse as a non-native speaker, I just learned English and we never were told that subjunctive even exists in English. Which is obviously not true (however it's probably easier than the Spanish one). one more think: (I dont want to make new topic), which one is correct: I need a TV that has/have a big screen? I would 100% that has as in indicative should be but now I'm really not sure.. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ygangerg Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5318 days ago 100 posts - 140 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, French Studies: German | Message 116 of 131 24 August 2011 at 8:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good one! It would have to be "I need a TV that has a big screen."
But: "It's best that the TV have a big screen." And, your point taken, in French and Spanish those would both be subjunctive. Edited by Ygangerg on 24 August 2011 at 8:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5228 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 117 of 131 24 August 2011 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | ||
Agreed. Which reminds me of something I read once about the Spanish subjunctive. It was advice, that I'm going to paraphrase: Forget all that crap about the subjunctive is used to express uncertainty or counterfactuals or opinion. Understand the subjunctive as just the following: some phrases introduce a different conjugation of verb than others. Memorize them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Haldor Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5615 days ago 103 posts - 122 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Swedish Studies: French, Spanish | Message 118 of 131 28 August 2011 at 7:45pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't know about the scientific experiments, but I you're definetely right about the differences in grammar. I dunno about reading or writing in America, but reading English has never been hard for me, with regards to pronounciation and accents that is. On the other hand, I'm from a very anglophone country 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| deniz2 Groupie TurkeyRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5152 days ago 53 posts - 62 votes | Message 119 of 131 29 August 2011 at 9:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know about the scientific experiments, but I you're definetely right about the differences in grammar. I dunno about reading or writing in America, but reading English has never been hard for me, with regards to pronounciation and accents that is. On the other hand, I'm from a very anglophone country[/QUOTE]
No experiment is really necessary. Just by taking a survey you can get the information about how long it takes learning to read in the US and to write in France. You learn the words with their readings in English just like that you learn them with their genders in French. Even an idiot boy in primary school can easily learn it quickly. Reading and grammar of English are stupidly and ridiculously exaggerated. Verb conjugations are just PATTERNS and SAME for 6 persons! You don’t need to memorize anything like in French. Just one conjugation in one tense or mood in French is harder than all conjugations in English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| learnvietnamese Diglot Groupie Singapore yourvietnamese.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4949 days ago 98 posts - 132 votes Speaks: Vietnamese*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 120 of 131 29 August 2011 at 3:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I personally, before reading this thread and its replies, think that French is more difficult than English, because it did took me more time to learn than English and because I generally feel that my English is much better than my French.
But at the end of the day, I think it's really difficult to give a reasonable and unbiased explanation for whether language A is harder than language B. One of the reasons is because the same person might have allocated or devoted different amounts of time, resources, and commitment, not saying natural affinity, to the study of the two languages. This may seriously affect what they achieved. The second reason is the person's native language(s). If the language A is more similar to their native language(s) (but I don't go into what it means by "similar" here), I'd imagine that the person might conclude that A "is easier" than B. Edited by learnvietnamese on 30 August 2011 at 4:07am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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