administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7335 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map
| Message 1 of 18 10 August 2005 at 3:45am | IP Logged |
I wish to write a new article about which Romance language is the most difficult to learn (that is, for people whose native language is not a Romance language).
My conception was that Spanish was the simplest and French the most difficult, and although I still believe this I would be highly interested to know the experiences of non-Romance-language-native-speakers.
French being highly irregular, with a difficult spelling, seems to me harder than Spanish with its extremely user-friendly spelling system.
What do you think?
Edited by administrator on 10 August 2005 at 3:46am
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Socrates Groupie United Kingdom Joined 7020 days ago 40 posts - 40 votes
| Message 2 of 18 10 August 2005 at 6:48am | IP Logged |
I would tend to agree with French being more difficult than Spanish for English learners not only because of spelling but pronunciation.
Followed by Italian.
However Brazilian Portuguese is I believe the most fiendishly difficult of all the Romance languages to learn.
It's more of a stress-timed language not unlike Russian rather than it's syllable-time Continental Portuguese counterpart.
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LaMofeta Triglot Newbie United States Joined 7113 days ago 14 posts - 15 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French
| Message 3 of 18 10 August 2005 at 12:39pm | IP Logged |
I have always found French more difficult than Spanish. It is harder to pronounce, and harder to understand. I also find it much harder to write. However, for a beginner, I think French would be easier to read than Spanish, because French vocabulary seems to have more similarity to English.
As for the others, I have never studied Italian or Portuguese, but I have briefly studied Romanian, and it seemed more difficult than the others.
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Shusaku Senior Member United States Joined 7059 days ago 145 posts - 157 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese
| Message 4 of 18 10 August 2005 at 1:20pm | IP Logged |
I agree that French is more difficult than Spanish from both a pronounciation and spelling standpoint.
I seem to remember someone (maybe Ardaschir?) stating that Romanian was the most difficult of the Romance family. I wonder if there is any specific reason for it, or if it's just because there isn't much opportunity to practice it outside Romania?
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czech Senior Member United States Joined 7153 days ago 395 posts - 378 votes Studies: English*
| Message 5 of 18 10 August 2005 at 5:06pm | IP Logged |
Is Latin a Romance language?
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Qbe Tetraglot Senior Member United States joewright.org/var Joined 7094 days ago 289 posts - 335 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Japanese, German, Mandarin, Aramaic
| Message 6 of 18 10 August 2005 at 7:21pm | IP Logged |
In my experience the term "Romance" is always used for languages which descend from Latin but not for Latin itself.
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administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7335 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map
| Message 7 of 18 11 August 2005 at 12:32am | IP Logged |
Right, Latin is the father of Romance languages but not really a Romance language for the purpose of this discussion. Or if he is, he must be in an honorary category and barred from participating - there would be no competition otherwise.
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czech Senior Member United States Joined 7153 days ago 395 posts - 378 votes Studies: English*
| Message 8 of 18 11 August 2005 at 8:42am | IP Logged |
How similiar are the intonation patterns of French to those of English? I know the pronounciation is hard. I'll have to go with that.
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