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French - most difficult "Roman" language? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| matt25 Pentaglot Newbie Germany Joined 6385 days ago 19 posts - 19 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 1 of 11 16 June 2010 at 8:36pm | IP Logged |
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I had learnt a little French at school but now I spent almost a year abroad studying in
French. I have the feeling that French really is a difficult language, especially in comparison with other Roman languages. I mean, English always is different, coming from Germany one is pretty much everywhere exposed to English/American culture and language, so that I consider for myself learning English as a lot easier than most of the other languages (did not try Dutch though, not sure about that ;) ). But, in comparison to Portuguese, which I learnt to a reasonable niveau in just a couple of months, French seems to me to be of an extraordinary difficulty. For me, understanding as speaking as writing and reading just seem to be so much more difficult to improve in French than in, say Portuguese or Spanish. Have you made the same experience or is that just something personal? It might have to do with personal tendencies or talents, what do you say Thanks for replies. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| GREGORG4000 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5522 days ago 307 posts - 479 votes  Speaks: English*, Finnish Studies: Japanese, Korean, Amharic, French | Message 2 of 11 16 June 2010 at 9:08pm | IP Logged |
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I'd say Romanian would be the most difficult of the Romance languages, at least at the beginning level, because of a ton of Slavic loans and at the same time keeping a fairly complicated grammar. At the same time, I'd say it's the best sounding of them all. Edited by GREGORG4000 on 16 June 2010 at 9:09pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 11 16 June 2010 at 10:03pm | IP Logged |
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Among the larger Romance languages Romanian is the most isolated, so for most language learners it will be the one that takes most time to learn.
But it must be even more difficult to learn small languages like Occitan, Sardinian and Romantsch (plus some North Italian dialects that may or not be different enough from standard Italian to be seen as languages). There are few materials, both written and spoken, few opportunities to train them with native speakers and lacking/competing standards. On the other hand they ressemble other Romance languages so much that you soon can learn to understand texts in these languages, so there is little more to gain from undertaking the large and ardous and ungrateful job of learning them fully. Personally I have spent more time on Old French and Old Occitan than on the three supposedly living languages I mentioned above. I'm not against learning languages with few speakers, but then I would prefer spending my time on fringe projects outside the Romance framework. French in itself presents a few special problems: the span between written and spoken language is larger than in other Romance languages, and the writing system is organized in a way that sometimes makes it difficult to spell correctly (though knowledge of grammar will solve many of those problems). But apart from that French is not a particularly difficult language. Matt25 doesn't mention the order in which he learnt his Romance languages, but the first is always the worst - and the next ones become easy because all Romance languages have a lot in common. If for some reason you had learnt Portuguese before French you would probably not have felt that French was that bad. Edited by Iversen on 18 June 2010 at 10:18am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 4 of 11 17 June 2010 at 12:04am | IP Logged |
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Difficulty of a language is a very relative thing, if only because it is often hard to define what is the target level of proficiency and it depends on the starting point. But let's assume of course that we agree on a certain level--something like CEFR B1--and then choose the native language as starting point. I would say that French is intrinsically probably one of the most difficult of the Romance languages because of its writing system and its complex phonology.
I don't know all the Romance languages very well, but I do know that French has some unusual sounds that (I think) the other Romance languages do not share. In addition there are some rather tricky rules of liaison for the blending of words in the spoken language. That said, I don't want to say that learning the other Romance languages is easy. I think that learning a new language at an adult age is very difficult. I certainly would not want to get into a fight over which Romance language is the hardest or the easiest. Also, as Iversen has correctly noted, if you know one Romance language, you have a head-start when it comes to the other Romance languages. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5566 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 5 of 11 17 June 2010 at 8:10pm | IP Logged |
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Relative, indeed. It was the unusual orthography/pronunciation which got me interested in French to begin with and provided the motivation to get me through the beginning stages of the language.
The spelling system is certainly more irregular than Spanish or Italian, but not as much as English. You may not be able to always guess the spelling from the pronunciation, but unlike English you can usually guess the pronunciation from the spelling. It takes some getting used to, but there's a lot more logic to the system than you would think at first glance, and knowing English will help you to remember a lot of the spellings. The most difficult Romance language is the one you have the least motivation to learn and the least opportunity to practice. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5922 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian | Message 6 of 11 18 June 2010 at 5:25am | IP Logged |
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I think the similarity of romance languages gives you a false sense of security when learning them. They are equally challenging when learnt WELL. If you know one, yes you can blag it in another but don't confuse that with fluency.
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| stout Senior Member Ireland Joined 5370 days ago 108 posts - 140 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 7 of 11 18 June 2010 at 11:13pm | IP Logged |
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I would think that Portugese and Romanian are most difficult of the Latin languages
to learn.I would think that Italian is the easiest of the Latin languages to learn and I would think that French and Spanish are somewhere between Italian and Portugese/Romanian.French and Spanish I think are moderately difficult to learn. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| spartacus Newbie AlgeriaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5270 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English | Message 8 of 11 20 June 2010 at 11:35am | IP Logged |
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I think that no language is difficult and especially French because it is the first language derevied from Latin language,and in comparaison with the other Latin language French is difficult because of the interferences and this is due to the french civilisation ans its confrontation with the ohter civilisations ans populations also in the precedent century,France was a great colonial country that is why the french language is little complicated,and it is known as the language of exceptions in its grammar and linguistic system
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