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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 9 of 131 13 June 2011 at 4:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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As others have pointed out, it depends on which part of the language you focus on. When it comes to spelling, French doesn't stand a chance. English has simpler verbs (in some senses). Its phrasal verbs are difficult, I've heard, but it also has no gender to worry about.*
That being said, I'm sure one language is harder than the other, but it's a difficult thing to test. One can't look at second language acquisition of either language alone, because of course that depends on what languages one already speaks. Perhaps the best measurement would to look at the amount of time taken for people who speak entirely unrelated languages to achieve proficiency in either language. How long does it take a Chinese person to learn either language? But that's still unsatisfactory--even if languages are unrelated, they may have things in common that speed up the learning process (or vice versa). Perhaps we could just look at how long it takes infants to become proficient in either language. That way there's no previous language to confound the results. Other factors (perhaps one culture is more taciturn than the other, impeding linguistic learning, e.g.) could be controlled for. *On a tangent, people often speak of the difficulty of English phrasal verbs. Is learning a phrasal verb harder than learning a simple verb? Is there anything different in the memorizing of a list of phrasal verbs from memorizing a list of simple verbs? Being a native speaker, I don't know, and I've never tried to learn a language with a significant amount of phrasal verbs. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lianne Senior Member Canada thetoweringpile.blog Joined 5115 days ago 284 posts - 410 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Toki Pona, German, French | Message 10 of 131 13 June 2011 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
This one threw me off. I was like "umm, made and bade do rhyme". So then I looked it up. Apparently it can be pronounced two ways. I've always heard it rhyme with "made", but it can also rhyme with "plaid". Who knew? Great poem! Thanks Ari! Edited by Lianne on 13 June 2011 at 4:58pm 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 11 of 131 13 June 2011 at 6:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It's a fantastic poem. For more information on it and its author, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chaos
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| Thatzright Diglot Senior Member Finland Joined 5672 days ago 202 posts - 311 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English Studies: French, Swedish, German, Russian | Message 12 of 131 13 June 2011 at 7:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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French is probably the most difficult out of the languages that the OP has studied and knows, though not by a wide margin at all. English is surely not far behind exactly due to the ridiculous amount of irregularities and poor spelling rules, as Ari has pointed out, but I do have to say that I consider English to be "easier" simply because it's practically everywhere and you're almost bound to naturally get exposed to it if you live in a developed country. French, in contrast, enjoys no such status and so it's going to take longer to attain a proficient level. I'd no doubt be scratching my head with English a lot too had I not been studying it from a very young age. I'd also imagine understanding spoken French is harder than spoken English since English has no liaison, i.e. words don't really (or at least are not supposed to) sort of 'blur' together.
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| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5453 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 13 of 131 13 June 2011 at 9:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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English words do "blur" together. Non-rhotic dialects even have a "linking R".
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| 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 14 of 131 13 June 2011 at 9:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yes, but I don't think they do so to the degree of, say, Spanish, probably because more of our words are consonant final.
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| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 15 of 131 13 June 2011 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
Not as much as French.
The main problem with phrasal verbs is that there are the ones that make sense and the ones that don't. And oftentimes you have several of both types for a base verb. (And then there are sentences with verbs and prepositons that don't form a lexical unit.) For example - to put sth down, to put up with sth. Because the base verb comes first in a sentence and so is parsed first, a learner will activate the verb/phrasal verb s/he is most acquainted with - which often enough is the wrong one. That kind of interference makes memorizing phrasal verbs from word lists very inefficient. I probably learnt to understand "Put the pen down!" first, so when I tried to understand "Just put up with it!" I probably misunderstood it as "Whatever you have in your hands, place it somewhere up high." first. Well, maybe; I don't remember. English is a lot easier for a German speaker who doesn't happen to loathe English and love French. 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 16 of 131 13 June 2011 at 10:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
Hey thatzright, I think ur abslutely right! About all of it really, I also think English spelling is ridiculous, but so is French.. But based on the overall perception I'd say French is harder, simply because of the complex verb conjugation and the fact that nouns and adjectives are also conjugated.. And like you said the lack of liaisons makes it easier. French also has a lot of homophones. But like you said, English is more exposed in the media, good point! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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