There is a common myth among English speakers in the United States that Spanish is much easier to learn than French. American high school students often chose Spanish to fulfill a foreign language requirement, sometimes under the premise that Spanish is the more useful language, and other times because it seems the easiest to learn.
In comparison to French, Spanish pronunciation and spelling seem less daunting to the average learner, butthere is more to a language than just itsphonetics.Once you take into consideration several other factorssuch as syntax and grammar, the idea that one language is inherently more complicated than the other loses all validity. Opinions about the levels of difficulty of French vs. Spanish are usually a matter of personal learning and speaking preferences; for students that have studied both languages,some might find Spanish easier than French, and others might find French easier than Spanish.
One Opinion: Spanish Is Easier
Spanish is aphonetic language, meaning that the rules of orthography are very close to the rules of pronunciation. Each Spanish vowel has a single pronunciation. Although consonants may have two or more, there are very specific rules regarding their usage, depending on where the letter is in the word and what letters are around it. There are some trick letters, like the silent "H" and the identically-pronounced "B" and "V", but all in all Spanish pronunciation and spelling are pretty straightforward. In comparison, French has many silent letters and multiple rules with plenty of exceptions, as well as liaisons andenchaînement,which add additional difficulties to pronunciation and aural comprehension.
There are precise rules for the accentuation of Spanish words and accents to let you know when those rules are overridden. In French, accentuation goes by the sentence rather than the word. Once you've memorized the Spanish rules of pronunciation and accentuation, you can pronounce brand-new words with no hesitation. This is rarely the case in French, or English, for that matter.
The most common French past tense, thepassé composé, is more difficult than Spanish'spretérito. The pretérito is a single word, while the passé composé has two parts (the auxiliary verb and thepast participle). The true French equivalent of the pretérito, thepassé simple, is a literary tense thatFrench studentsare usually expected to recognize but not to use.The passé composé is just one of several Frenchcompound verbsand the questions of the auxiliary verb (avoirorêtre), word order, and agreement with these verbs are some of French's great difficulties. Spanish compound verbs are much simpler. There is only one auxiliary verb and the two parts of the verb stay together, so word order is not a problem.
Lastly, French's two-part negationne... pasis more complicated in terms of usage and word order than Spanish'sno.
Another Opinion: French Is Easier
In a sentence, the Spanish subject pronoun is usually omitted. Because of this, it is essential to have all verb conjugations memorized in order to recognize and to express which subject is performing the action. InFrench, thesubject pronounis always stated, which means that verb conjugations, while still important, are not as vital to comprehension. In addition, French has justtwo words for "you"(singular/familiar and plural/formal), while Spanish has four (singular familiar/plural familiar/singular formal/and plural formal), or even five. There's a different singular/familiar used in parts of Latin America with its own conjugations.
Another thing that makes French easier than Spanish is that French has fewer verb tenses/moods. French has a total of 15 verb tenses/moods, four of which are literary and rarely used. Only 11 are used in daily French. Spanish has 17, one of which is literary (pretérito anterior) and two judicial/administrative (futurodesubjuntivoandfuturoanterior desubjuntivo), which leaves 14 for regular use. That creates a lot of verb conjugations in the Spanish language.
Then, there is the subjunctive conjugation. While the subjunctive mood is difficult in both languages, it is more difficult and much more common in Spanish.
- The Frenchsubjunctiveis used almost solely afterque, whereas the Spanish subjunctive is used regularly after many different conjunctions:que,cuando,como, etc.
- There are two different sets of conjugations for the Spanish imperfect subjunctive and pluperfect subjunctive. You can choose just one set of conjugations to learn, but you must be able to recognize both.
- Siclauses ("if/then"clauses) are very similar in French and English but are more difficult in Spanish. Note the two subjunctive tenses that are used in the Spanishsiclauses. In French, the imperfect subjunctive and pluperfect subjunctive are literary and extremely rare, but in Spanish, they are commonplace.
Comparison of Si Clauses
| Unlikely Situation | Impossible Situation | |
| English | If simple past + conditional | If pluperfect+ past conditional |
| If I had more time I would go | If I'd had more time I would have gone | |
| French | Si imperfect+ conditional | Si pluperfect+ past conditional |
| Si j'avais plus de temps j'y irais | Si j'avais eu plus de temps j'y serais allé | |
| Spanish | Si imperfect subj.+ conditional | Si pluperfect subj.+ past cond. or pluperfect subj. |
| Si tuviera más tiempo iría | Si hubiera tenido más tiempo habría ido or hubiera ido |
Both Languages Have Challenges
There are sounds in both languages thatcan be very difficult for English speakers: French has the infamous "R"pronunciation,nasal vowels, and the subtle (to untrained ears) differences betweentu/tousandparlai/parlais. In Spanish, the rolled "R", the "J" (similar tothe French R), and the "B/V" are the trickiest sounds.
Nouns in both languages have a gender and require gender and number agreement for adjectives, articles, and certain types of pronouns.
The use of prepositions in both languages can be also difficult, as there is often little correlation between them and their English counterparts.
Confusing pairs abound in both:
- French examples:c'estvs.il est,encorevs.toujours
- Spanish examples:servs.estar,porvs.para
- Both have the tricky two past-tense division (Fr - passé composé vs.imparfait; Sp - pretérito vs. imperfecto), two verbs that mean "to know," and the bon vs. bien,mauvais vs. mal (Fr)/bueno vs. bien, malo vs. mal (Sp) distinctions.
Both French and Spanish have reflexive verbs, numerous false cognates with English that can trip up non-native speakers of either languageand potentially confusing word order due to the positions of adjectives andobject pronouns.
Learning Spanish or French
All in all, neither language is definitively more or less difficult than the other. Spanish is arguably somewhat easier for the first year or so of learning, in large part because beginners may struggle less withpronunciationthan their French-studying colleagues.
However, beginners in Spanish have to deal with dropped subject pronouns andfour words for "you,"while French only hastwo. Later on, Spanish grammar becomes more complicated, and some aspects are certainly more difficult than French.
Keep in mind that each language learned tends to be progressively easier than the previous one, so if you learn, for example, French first and then Spanish, Spanish will seem easier. Still, it is more likely that both of these languages have challenges of their own than that one is objectively actually easier than the other.
Format
mlaapachicago
Your Citation
Team, ThoughtCo. "Why Spanish Isn't Easier to Learn Than French." ThoughtCo, Dec. 6, 2021, thoughtco.com/spanish-is-not-easier-than-french-1364660.Team, ThoughtCo. (2021, December 6). Why Spanish Isn't Easier to Learn Than French. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/spanish-is-not-easier-than-french-1364660Team, ThoughtCo. "Why Spanish Isn't Easier to Learn Than French." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/spanish-is-not-easier-than-french-1364660 (accessed March 30, 2024).
