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Roughly, how easy is French.. | ||
Tags: Difficulty | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Jme Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5822 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 1 of 13 22 December 2008 at 7:13pm | IP Logged |
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Roughly, how easy would it be for a native English speaker to learn French with a good amount of fluency? I'm very
serious about learning this language as in the future my dream is to move to Quebec. So really i'm asking, how easy would it be to learn French for a native English speaker who is willing to put the time in. I have experience already with learning a foreign language but not to fluency, German. Also how long would i be looking time wise before i would come to a good standard? I know that its impossible for someone to say as they dont know my abilities and it varies for everyone but roughly speaking. Thank you in advance. Edited by Jme on 22 December 2008 at 7:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| maya_star17 Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5921 days ago 269 posts - 291 votes  Speaks: English*, Russian*, French, Spanish Studies: Japanese | Message 2 of 13 22 December 2008 at 11:13pm | IP Logged |
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I think how "easy" a language is really depends on the person (how much effort they put into learning it, how much they want to learn it, etc), but here's what my experience has shown:
French is about as easy as it gets. For many reasons: -I wanted (and still want) learn it very much (it's a beautiful language), and so do you. This helps a lot - the hardest language in the world to learn is the one you don't want to learn. -A good third of the vocab is visibly similar to English, -The grammar is logical and nothing radically different. -French is a very living, breathing language. It's easy to find books, movies, music, etc. I think the only thing that might be kind of "hard" (if you're really aiming for native level fluency) is pronounciation, but even that can be overcome with time. As far as time goes, I can't really tell you how long it'll take - that really depends on how much time you put in. Generally though, if you want to be at a (relatively) solid level of fluency in French in 3 years or less, you're going to need to put in more than an hour a day. I've seen that number thrown around a lot on these forums as if it's some magical number that will "teach" you a language, but my experience is that you need 2-3+ hours of exposure to a language if you're really serious. Anyway, good luck =) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6017 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 3 of 13 23 December 2008 at 8:39am | IP Logged |
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This easy:
>-----------------------------------< (ask a silly question....) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ExtraLean Triglot Senior Member France languagelearners.myf Joined 6000 days ago 897 posts - 880 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 4 of 13 23 December 2008 at 9:36am | IP Logged |
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"Fairly".
(get a silly answer) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| J-Learner Senior Member Australia Joined 6036 days ago 556 posts - 636 votes Studies: Yiddish, English* Studies: Dutch | Message 5 of 13 24 December 2008 at 3:59am | IP Logged |
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I think it is somewhat valid to ask how hard a language is to learn. Try learning Georgian or Lithuanian for a first foreign language..... I bet that Spanish or French are going to pose less troubles to the English speaker.
Just because there is no definity answer and man factors involved does not mean that it can not be treated seriously as a real question. That make sense? Perhaps all answers are going to be missing something but all perspectives are....correct me if I'm wrong on this. :p 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| gebandemuishond Newbie France Joined 5821 days ago 5 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 6 of 13 24 December 2008 at 6:17am | IP Logged |
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It's harder than people often think. In my experience the hardest thing is learning not to say things 'the English way', e.g. "ça fait très classe", or "that makes very classy". I know literal translation is a problem in all languages, but I think when you're learning a language so similar to English, it can surprise you when you find such idiosyncrasies. Compared to learning, say, Mandarin or Japanese, where you don't even try direct translation.
Saying that, I think French is still a reasonably easy language to learn - as people have said, the similarities to English, the resources available, and the beauty of both the language itself and what can be read/watched/talked about in the language are all major plus points. I'd say go for it, don't underestimate it, and treat it with the combination of passion, love and respect you'd treat a beautiful French boy/girl and you'll be fine. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6378 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 7 of 13 24 December 2008 at 6:41am | IP Logged |
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I don't think this can be answered. Just get to it. You can hold a conversation in 6
months to a year. But you will be far from fluent-fluent. Edited by zerothinking on 24 December 2008 at 6:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7324 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 13 24 December 2008 at 10:38am | IP Logged |
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I don't know what your reasons are for wanting to move to Quebec - but provided that you pass the immigration point system (I presume you are an EU national, much easier to move to France), you have many challenges ahead of you - living in Quebec as an Anglophone is far from easy...
1 person has voted this message useful |
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