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German vs. French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| canada38 Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5496 days ago 304 posts - 417 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Japanese | Message 9 of 19 06 October 2010 at 11:35am | IP Logged | |||||
German has a hard coefficient of 2.87, while that of French is only 1.92. Also, to become fluent in both... well German it takes about 2 years and 6 months, and French one year and 8 months... So to become fluent in both... Here's how you calculate how long it will take to learn two languages? [sic] (2.5(2.87) + 1.67(1.92))/2 = (4.675 + 3.2064)/2 = 3.9407 years exactly A serious answer: roughly under 2 years each, if you learn them together but don't start at the same time, I'd say 3.5 years total. Edited by canada38 on 06 October 2010 at 11:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lucas Pentaglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5168 days ago 85 posts - 130 votes Speaks: French*, English, German, Italian, Russian Studies: Mandarin | Message 10 of 19 06 October 2010 at 1:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You think french will be easy because you already know Spanish, but it's a complete
illusion: maybe the vocabulary will be quite easier, but the illogical french prononciation and orthograph will be a nigtmare for you in comparison with Spanish! You'll find some difficulties in the German grammar, but almost everything is logical and regular...and the orthograph is completely logic. It will be easier for you to learn french at the beginnig, but you have to know this language is very hard to masterize for a foreigner. Then be prepared to spent a lot of times with inexplicable and illogical rules! German will be harder at the beginning beacause the vocabulary is not related with latin, like 60% of English words, but the grammar (more complex than the English one) is simple and logical. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tyr Senior Member Sweden Joined 5783 days ago 316 posts - 384 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 11 of 19 06 October 2010 at 2:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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French is easier to read, German to speak. Edited by Tyr on 06 October 2010 at 2:45pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Old Chemist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5174 days ago 227 posts - 285 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 12 of 19 07 October 2010 at 10:24am | IP Logged | |||||
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Surely we need to add " for English speakers" I would imagine for an Italian, French would be much easier and a Dutchman would find German much easier.
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| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6273 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 13 of 19 07 October 2010 at 1:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I personally think they are about the same in difficulty for English speakers. German has three genders to the two of French, and despite a closer genetic relationship to English, there is rather less vocabulary transparency with English. On the other hand, German has a slower speech tempo, while colloquial French runs words together much more.
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| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6950 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 14 of 19 07 October 2010 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
The 'extra gender' of German seems to scare people off (perhaps they think that 50% more genders -> 50% more work), but I really don't think it makes much of a difference in reality. The masculine and neuter conjugate pretty similarly, for one thing. Having three genders is probably not much more difficult than having two genders. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6035 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 15 of 19 08 October 2010 at 7:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A number of people have mentioned that French pronunciation is harder. And then they add
"for a native English speaker". As native speaker of a Slavic language, I find the opposite to be true, for me German pronunciation is harder. German also has a steeper learning curve, at least in the beginning. On the positive side, there is some great literature in German (not that French is lacking...). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tyr Senior Member Sweden Joined 5783 days ago 316 posts - 384 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 16 of 19 08 October 2010 at 9:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
That was what made pretty much my entire class from primary school choose French instead of German for our language when we started senior scool- some damn teacher giving us a French taster class saying German was even worse with its 3. Damn her. She fooled me into suffering with French. :P 1 person has voted this message useful |
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