Is French really easier than English? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Is French really easier than English?
Tags: Difficulty \| English \| French
Share with: Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon
Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

131 messages over 17 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 16 17 Next >>

Ygangerg
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5318 days ago
100 posts - 140 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, French
Studies: German

Message 121 of 131

30 August 2011 at 8:12am | IP Logged

deniz2 wrote:

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.

Deniz, as an ESL teacher, I can say that English verb conjugation is not always so easy for foreign learners. In fact, the third person conjugation can be quite difficult just because it's the only present tense conjugation a learner has to try to remember. In any case, you say (in poor English) that the verb patterns are the same for all six persons. This is obviously false, and the third person singular can certainly give learners some trouble. That, and the phrasal verbs, and the rather large number of irregular past tense verbs, and the handful of auxiliaries that don't take the present conjugation.

If you say that you can't call English grammar "grammar," you're poorly informed. Ever learn any Chinese? English has a plethora of verb conjugations compared to Chinese. And despite that, Chinese still has "grammar." Grammar is fully and intensely present in every language.

You're giving false statements and seem to be attempting to make an overzealous point. I'm not sure why, but I think it's a largely social backlash against the English language. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Greg

p.s. wrt your English grammar, you need to work on your use of the definite article.

Edited by Ygangerg on 30 August 2011 at 9:37am
3 persons have 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 122 of 131

30 August 2011 at 8:40am | IP Logged

deniz2 wrote:

Reading in English is quiet regular and easy with few exceptions. One can easily guess. Just forget the grammars, even writing in French is much harder than reading in English. An adult French man can easily make many mistakes while writing but I don’t think a 10 year old primary school boy in UK or US would make any mistakes while reading. How long does it take a 7 year old boy in America to learn reading? But many French adults write ‘il connaitra’ instead of ‘il connaîtra’ or ‘il connaît’ instead of ‘il connait’. Many French people do mistakes like this. But I can’t imagine an American adult who doesn’t know the reading of any kind of word in a text. How many words are there in English and French? Let’s say 500-600 thousand words. Even just memorizing all the words with their genders in French (don’t mind the grammatical rules) far exceeds in difficulty than memorizing the reading of all words in English. I bet this can easily be proved by a scientific experiment. Just find someone who doesn’t know English and French. Let him take a course in English and French just one month. In one month he will understand the concept of reading in English but he won’t understand anything for guessing the gender of any words in French. Then just choose 100 words in English and French randomly. Read the English words once and say the genders of French words. Then ask him the reading of the English words from the beginning and the genders of the French words. I bet that he will remember almost all the English words but make more mistakes with the genders. Though there are 3 genders in German the words ending with –ung or –keit have the article –die. It is even easier to memorize the genders in German. This is not even grammar. What I say can very easily be proved by a scientific experiment. Sorry but this is objective, not SUBJECTIVE! There may be some difficulties in measurements of some things but this doesn’t mean that it is TOTALLY UNMEASUREABLE! YES, you can DO MEASURE the difficulty to some degree. Even an experiment is unnecessary. You can observe the time required for learning to read in primary schools in America and compare it with the time required for writing in primary schools in France. Here is a scientific study about the difficulty of reading in Arabic in http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100831102621.ht m. But no scientific study is really necessary to prove how easy reading in English is. The proxy can be the time required. As to grammars this is even more ridiculous. ))) In English only in simple past tense and past perfect tense there are exceptions in verb conjugations and they are very few (see, saw, seen). Also they are all the same for 6 persons (I saw, you saw…they saw). Sorry but do you really say that this is a grammar?)))) It can’t even be simpler. English doesn’t deserve to be called as grammar. If English wasn’t the most useful language I would never learn it. It is the simplest grammar by far, the most boring one. There is absolutely nothing interesting in grammar.

This is the other deniz2 post I was referencing. To see why it's utter bologna (pronounced bulowny), I would direct anyone to the second post on this thread, a poem that Ari posted.

Greg

Edited by Ygangerg on 30 August 2011 at 8:42am
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 123 of 131

30 August 2011 at 3:53pm | IP Logged

despite that, Chinese still has "grammar." Grammar is fully and intensely present in every language.QUOTE]

Are you trying to give a lesson of philosophy? Grammar is present in every language. Having no rule is also a rule. Believing nothing is also a religion. Atheism is also a religion. In present tense just ‘s’ is added in the 3rd person. I wait, you wait, he waits. I wonder what kind of a trouble this is for foreigners. I don’t know Chinese but English conjugation can’t be compared with the other languages. French is an ordinary language in grammatical complexity (easier than German). Just English is very easy.
2 persons have 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 124 of 131

30 August 2011 at 7:53pm | IP Logged

I'm not trying to give a lesson in philosophy. We were talking about grammar. I'm not sure what you mean by saying that French is an "ordinary" language, as languages vary so much.

But as I said, I'm an English teacher, and English grammar is something that must be learned and can cause problems for learners. Perhaps for a Turkish speaker, English is easier than French. I don't know. But it's all relative.
3 persons have 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 125 of 131

03 September 2011 at 5:10pm | IP Logged

deniz2 wrote:

I think he's right. This was never a discussion of grammar in general, simply whether which language is easier on a general basis. There is no doubt that French grammar is harder, even though Chinese might be easier (than English). Speaking of which, I know Chinese has a very easy grammatical system, although it is nowhere near being easy as a whole. Just a comment to your digression..
1 person has voted this message useful

Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 5056 days ago
2096 posts - 2972 votes

Speaks: Russian*

Message 126 of 131

03 September 2011 at 5:59pm | IP Logged

Haldor wrote:

There is no doubt that French grammar is harder, even though Chinese might be easier
(than English).

There is doubt. English grammar is probably easier for a Germanic speaker, but French
will be much easier for a Romance speaker. From my point of view they are equal.
2 persons have voted this message useful

deniz2
Groupie
TurkeyRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5152 days ago
53 posts - 62 votes

Message 127 of 131

03 September 2011 at 8:19pm | IP Logged

There is no doubt that French grammar is harder, even though Chinese might be easier (than English). [/QUOTE]

This web site says Chinese is about the same difficulty as English (not easier). Turkish has no similarity with any of the Indo-European languages. I have never seen any Turkish speaker claiming that English is harder. French and the other grammars have many more rules and exceptions than English.
2 persons have 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 128 of 131

08 September 2011 at 8:59pm | IP Logged

I don't even know if French is easier for a Romance speaker, since its grammar is so simple. Pronunciation, however, may be tricky. I don't think Chinese is easier than English, no matter how easy its grammar is. I don't know about Turks, but they're neither Germanic nor Romance- speaking, thus I actually think it should be considered what they think..

1 person has voted this message useful

This discussion contains 131 messages over 17 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Next >>

Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum

This page was generated in 0.3281 seconds.