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Is French really easier than English? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5056 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes  Speaks: Russian* | Message 73 of 131 17 August 2011 at 8:03am | IP Logged | ||
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"The pronunciation seems to be a lot easier than English pronunciation. I know that
there are exceptions, but they are definitely fewer and further between than they are in English. French has accents to help make it more phonetic, and English suppresses them." You mix pronunciation and spelling. "And I would say that French grammar would be easier to learn than English grammar. There are no modals to learn, there is no emphatic or progressive, and overall, there are just fewer tenses/moods to learn." There are a lot of difficulties in French too: pronouns, partitive articles, gender etc. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| AriD2385 Groupie United States Joined 4850 days ago 44 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 74 of 131 17 August 2011 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, I'm a native English speaker and I've also studied French to just under basic fluency, and though of course I can't make an objective statement about it, I would much rather be learning French as a second language than English. The fact that English is widely accessible around the world might make it easier for some, but I'm thinking of how it would be if the languages were studied in a vacuum.
I personally never had an issue with French pronunciation. I feel like people balk at it when it's not as they expect. But if you get over the initial mental block, you see that it's pretty consistent, moreso than English, imo. I had a French teacher who didn't bother to teach us the alphabet or phonics, which seemed quite strange at the time, but I think what it accomplished was that in simply seeing and hearing the words, we just passively began to understand how it worked without trying to pick apart every individual sound and letter and analyze how it all came together. You just accept the language as it is instead of trying to "make sense" of it. I also find French grammar to be pretty consistent. It is very idiomatic, but I think idioms can be treated like vocabulary words--you just learn a phrase as a concept rather than just an individual word. I would think French idioms would tend to be easier than English phrasal verbs because I haven't seen so many variations of one root verb in French as there are in English. I can see how that could be very confusing to a new learner, especially if the rate of speech is rapid. Lastly--and I would like to hear what non-native English speakers think--there are so many Americans at least (educated, at that) who haven't even mastered English grammar. I'm sure I could go through this post right now and find some of my own grammatical inaccuracies if I really tried. There are plenty of nuances in English grammar that are regularly forgotten or ignored by English speakers--like when to use "me" vs. "I" or the fact that splitting infinitives is incorrect, or the rule that you're really not supposed to leave prepositions dangling at the end of sentences (which differs in formal v. informal contexts). (Hence, why I know several people who designate themselves "grammar police" and mercilessly attack incorrect English--and their victims are native speakers.) I also see a wider gap between informal and formal English than between informal and formal French. So I understand how it is that people might get to a certain conversational level in English but find it difficult to progress beyond that. You would probably have to read a lot of formal English writing to pick up the difference. I don't feel that the gap is as wide in French. Edited by AriD2385 on 17 August 2011 at 5:19pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| floydak Tetraglot Groupie Slovakia Joined 4854 days ago 60 posts - 85 votes Speaks: Slovak*, English, German, Spanish Studies: French | Message 75 of 131 17 August 2011 at 5:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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As a native slavic-language-group speaker I can assure you, that 90% of slavic natives
would consider french more difficult than English. Many people consider English even an easy language! (which seems funny reading from native English native speakers how difficult their language is) well all this (IMHO) is becouse of factor which has not been mentioned yet. (maybe has been but I'm not sure) this is the fact, that you can speak virtually any English(even very very bad English) and no one will tell you nothing. However when you make one small error in french they probably would like to kill you :) (I'm exagerating but you have the point). so actually many people think that they speak English but in reallity their English is bad. but I think that not many people will tell you they speak french unless they really master it. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| AriD2385 Groupie United States Joined 4850 days ago 44 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 76 of 131 17 August 2011 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | ||
Good points. Maybe the question then is which language is easier to master? I studied French for 4 years in a high school classroom, a semester in college, and bits and pieces on my own, and I can read the French discussion threads on here; but no, I will not say that I speak French. I agree that English speakers seem to have a lot more tolerance for poor speech than French speakers. In the US at least, it's really more about whether we can understand what you are trying to say rather than correctness, per se. That might give people a false sense of security, though, as certain situations will require more formal mastery. Edited by AriD2385 on 17 August 2011 at 6:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5565 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 77 of 131 17 August 2011 at 7:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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'this is the fact, that you can speak virtually any English(even very very bad English)
and no one will tell you nothing. However when you make one small error in french they probably would like to kill you :) (I'm exagerating but you have the point).' Very true - and strangely, when French people (and Germans for that matter) correct your bad French/German they will do it in badly broken English. Ironic. Edited by Elexi on 17 August 2011 at 7:30pm 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 78 of 131 20 August 2011 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry but I believe there are some people who have inferiority complex about their native language English in this forum so they post under different names (not English or American) about the difficulty (!) of English grammar. If anyone compares English grammar with another grammar in the world I don’t care about any judgments of him related with grammars. English grammar is FAR FAR EASIER than French, German, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, and Greek. There is absolutely no grammar which can be compared with English. English is just a piece of cake. The comparison of English and French grammars reduces the credibility of this web site. But this discussion has been very useful. For example I don’t know any Finnish or Swedish. I have learned that I shouldn’t ask the people on this forum which is more difficult.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| boon Diglot Groupie Ireland Joined 6159 days ago 91 posts - 177 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Mandarin, Latin | Message 79 of 131 21 August 2011 at 3:13pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm a native speaker. People certainly make "me" vs. "I" mistakes, but the rules about splitting infinitives and dangling prepositions are nonsense. The rules were invented by scholars who thought English should follow Latin rules. You can't split an infinitive in Latin. Facere, audire, errare are some Latin infinitives. English infinitives are different in structure: to go, to make etc. But those scholars decided to shoehorn alien grammatical rules on English for whatever reasons. Ditto for dangling prepositions. To needlessly follow these rules is something I won't bother with. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5565 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 80 of 131 21 August 2011 at 5:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you boon for trashing the stupid and unfounded nineteenth century 'rule' (because it has never gained the status of a true rule amongst grammarians) against split infinitives - I can watch Star Trek again in peace.
3 persons have voted this message useful |
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