|
 |
Is French really easier than English? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 5081 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes  Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French | Message 81 of 131 21 August 2011 at 9:57pm | IP Logged | ||
|
My two cents about English Vs French:
Spelling - I think that English is the second hardest language to spell in the world (Latin alphabet), the first is French. Reading - English is the most difficult language to read in the world (Latin alphabet). You know how the word is pronounced, or you don't. With French if you know the rules, it's more or less regular. In my opinion, English grammar is easier than French grammar, but just a little bit. Both are difficult in their own ways. French has gender, but English has illogical prepositions. Learning prepositions, in my opinion, is much harder than Learning a word with a gender, which will always be the same. For example,"in the morning, on Friday, On Earth, at 5 o' clock, based on, in my opinion, on a farm, on the street, in the airport, I arrived at the airport, on the page, in the newspaper". There's just no rule for that! (Or would it be, "to that"? For example: In the city, In the state, In country, In the continent, On the Earth (Why not In the Earth?) then if you use this logic to say "on the world" (thinking of the "world" as being the same as "Earth", you will be incorrect). I am in the airport - I arrived at the airport (different preposition) I am in the US - I arrived in the US (same preposition) In Portuguese, we would use "no" in the first example, and in the second, "nos", because US is plural, but the preposition is still the same. Or Languages of the world - Most beautiful place in the world (different prepositions). In Portuguese we would use only one preposition, "do". I know that the phrases are different, then the preposition has to be different, but translating to my native language, we would use the same preposition, that's why it's so hard. It would be easier to learn a word plus gender; O mundo (the world) / Le monde (the world), then learning a lot of illogical prepositions. Also, this one is not so difficult, "to do and to make", in Spanish or Portuguese, we use only one verb, but we have ser/estar, when English only has "to be". For those who speak Romance languages and are aware of it, prepositions are just a big trouble, there is no way, just strong memorization. Also, gerunds and infinitives. Like, you can say "I like doing/I like to do", but you can only say "I enjoy swimming". This one is also memorization. Or for example, sometimes you can use either ways, but with different meanings. A common Portuguese speaker's mistake regarding Gerunds and Infinitives is when they use the verb "to stop". If they wanted to say "I stopped smoking" (meaning that they stopped smoking), they would say "I stopped to smoke" (which means that they stopped doing something to start smoking). I don't believe English grammar is easy, unless people are unaware of their mistakes. I am so glad that English is the world's most useful language, because English native speakers don't mind your mistakes if they are simple and not huge things like "I doesn't" for example". Based on what I wrote, you can see that I'm not a native English speaker saying that my language is difficult, because I am not even near to native like fluency and I still make mistakes. Sorry for the long post, but I don't agree that English grammar is a piece of cake. At least for me. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| AriD2385 Groupie United States Joined 4850 days ago 44 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 82 of 131 21 August 2011 at 10:46pm | IP Logged | ||
Hmm...Well first, if you meant that you can only say "I enjoy swimming" in English, you could just as well say "I like swimming" and also "I like to swim." I like running = I like to run = I enjoy running. I like to sing = I like singing = I enjoy singing. All of them mean the same thing and are equally acceptable. I'm sure there are exceptions, but I can't think of them at the moment. What you can't do is to mix infinitives and gerunds. So, you can't say, "I like to swimming" and you can't use enjoy with infinitives. So, one wouldn't say "I enjoy to swim." Prepositions...someone else might have a different perspective, but I think the issue is not grammatical so much as conceptual. "I'm at the airport" tells someone your general location. "I'm in the airport," gives a more specific location, since you're not just in the general area of the airport (like the parking lot), but within the airport building itself. You are inside versus being outside. If you were to tell someone "I just arrived at the store," you would be giving your general location. If you wanted to tell them that you were inside the store, you'd just say, "I'm in the store," or "I just walked into the store." On versus in. Like "On the earth" vs. "In the earth." If you said "In the earth, that would imply being inside the earth, rather than on its surface. Which preposition you use will many times depend on what in particular you wish to convey. But it seems like you have a pretty solid grip on English anyway! Edited by AriD2385 on 21 August 2011 at 10:56pm 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 83 of 131 21 August 2011 at 11:30pm | IP Logged | ||
|
The prepositions are used in different places in English, just like in French and German. Do you want me to give many examples like you did? You also confuse the prepositions.
l'endroit le plus bel du monde = the most beautiful place of the world. l'endroit le plus bel dans le monde = the most beautiful place of the world Both are correct in both languages because they mean different things. It is not related with the usage of the prepositions. And someone says English has modal verbs which French doesn’t (!) have. What modal verbs are you talking about? I can go= Je peux aller I could go= J’ai pû aller English has nothing which the other languages don’t have. If you think that reading in English is difficult then try to learn Arabic. 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 84 of 131 21 August 2011 at 11:32pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Sorry I have written wrong in the previous post. It should be in the world
The prepositions are used in different places in English, just like in French and German. Do you want me to give many examples like you did? You also confuse the prepositions. l'endroit le plus bel du monde = the most beautiful place of the world. l'endroit le plus bel dans le monde = the most beautiful place in the world Both are correct in both languages because they mean different things. It is not related with the usage of the prepositions. And someone says English has modal verbs which French doesn’t (!) have. What modal verbs are you talking about? I can go= Je peux aller I could go= J’ai pû aller English has nothing which the other languages don’t have. If you think that reading in English is difficult then try to learn Arabic. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| AriD2385 Groupie United States Joined 4850 days ago 44 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 85 of 131 21 August 2011 at 11:44pm | IP Logged | ||
|
deniz2, were you referring to my post? I'm just asking so I know whether it was a response to something I said or a
response to someone else. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5056 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 86 of 131 22 August 2011 at 12:09am | IP Logged | ||
|
pouvoir is a usual verb in French. Modal verbs in English are special class of verbs.
They are much more complicated than in French. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 5081 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French | Message 87 of 131 22 August 2011 at 10:12am | IP Logged | ||
|
I don't mean reading English is difficult that one might have problems understanding the content. I understand it all, what I mean by reading is that if you read to someone else, you won't know how to pronounce unknown words, because the spelling is irregular and it follows no rules.
In German you can, in French (most of times), in Portuguese, in Spanish, in Italian, and many others that use Latin Alphabet, but with English you can only guess the pronunciation, nothing more. That's why in my opinion English is the most difficult to read out loud. Even reading to yourself, without pronouncing the words, there's a sound in your head, your mind is making the sound, so that's it. And Arabic doesn't use Latin alphabet. 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 88 of 131 22 August 2011 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I would say prepositions are among the hardest parts of French, although it can be complicated in English as well. An example is the similar ways of using à la/au, en, dans and sur. Dans le pays, en campagne, à Paris, sur la terre, au Danemark. They all denote place, but one uses different prepositions according to a vast number of rules. I found this extremely hard when starting to learn French.
Just for the record, is it l'endroit le plus bel or plus beau du monde? I thought it'd be beau, even though it's bel endroit, it's l'endroit est beau, non? 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
