Learning french is easy or spanish

@boomima (227)
India
January 31, 2010 2:24am CST
I have more interest in learning foreign language, and i find that all the foreign languages are hard to learn . I wanted to learn any one of the european languages, that is french or spanish or german. I think i love to learn the most easiest of it. Is learning french is easy or spanish or german. By the way how many months will it take for a normal man to learn a complete language..
2 people like this
3 responses
@ErickJ (186)
• United States
31 Jan 10
I think learning French is easier than learn Spanish, i took a Spanish class in college, i couldn't keep up. But French im more familiar with. For a normal person to lear any language would at least take a year or so to be fluent. The best way to learn a new language is to stay in a country that actually speaks that language.
1 person likes this
@GardenGerty (160708)
• United States
1 Feb 10
What I have read is that Spanish or Hispanic languages are growing faster in the United States than any other language group. German, they tell me, is a language of technology useful in manufacturing processes. I am not sure why I would want to learn French or what it would be useful for if I learned it.
1 person likes this
@ErickJ (186)
• United States
1 Feb 10
Spanish is the second language in Amercia, and if you are fluent in English and Spanish in the work area, you'll make more money. I think Russian and German are laguages for technology, if im not mistaken, most techology with instructions are in one of those two languages and or spanish. I wanted to learn French because my grandfather is French Creole, but he doesn't speak and nobody else in my family speaks it, so i tried to be the first family member to speak French. I tried but failed lol
@GardenGerty (160708)
• United States
1 Feb 10
I think for me, Spanish would be the easiest to learn. That is because I have studied Latin, which is similar. I am American and speak English. It takes a lot of its words from other languages. I do not know what would be easiest for you, though. I think how easily you would learn would depend on if you had a chance to practice it with someone. It also depends on how motivated you are. I have not had anyone in my family take French. My son took Spanish in high school, my daughter took German in high school, Spanish in college. I hope you can find a way to study whichever one you decide on.
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
4 Feb 10
I think that learning a language which has a similar syntax to one's own is easier than learning a language which is totally different. It is also quicker and easier to learn a language if you are constantly exposed to it, such as if you live in the country and have to use the language to communicate. I think, too, that it is easier to learn a language 'by ear' than just by writing it (though, once you know some of the basic vocabulary and grammar, it is easier to learn to read and understand a language than it is to speak and write it and it is also easier to write fluently than it is to speak fluently). The script, of course, is one thing which causes difficulty initially but most native scripts (for example Tamil, Devanagari and Urdu) are very logical and regular when compared to the Roman spellings in other languages, especially English. French, German, Spanish and Italian are much more regular (relate better to the spoken language) than English but each has its own peculiarity of how each letter and letter combinations are pronounced. I know very little about Hindi or Tamil (I know that Hindi and Urdu are Indo-European languages while Tamil is Dravidian and related to Malayalam and Afghan) but I have the impression that, for a European, Hindi would be easier to learn than Tamil because the grammar and syntax are closer to many European languages (Hindi, Urdu and most European languages share a common origin, so, although vocabularies vary, the structures are related). I think that, if you speak (or are, at least, familiar with) both Tamil and Hindi, you would find it easier to learn another language. Once one has learned at least one other language besides one's mother tongue, it becomes a great deal easier to acquire another. Of the European languages, it is said that Italian is the easiest to learn, but if you already know English, then German or Dutch might be easier because their vocabularies are related (though English also contains many words derived from French and the other 'Romance' languages - languages that had a lot of contact with the Romans and Latin). As to how long it takes to learn a language, that depends a great deal on how you learn, how early you learn and how much time you spend actually learning. If you are lucky enough to be exposed to a language before the age of about seven, you will have a definite advantage. Between the ages of five and seven, our language assimilation ability seems to change and we appear to become less able to pick up a language in the 'natural' way - by assimilation. After that age we either have to consciously 'regress' our minds in order to assimilate or need to learn a language in the conventional way - by building on a limited vocabulary, grammar and syntax in a structured way. There is no doubt that the quickest way to learn is by exposing yourself as much as possible to the spoken language. Language laboratories and tapes (or CDs or videos) are a good way to do this but there is really nothing better than living in the country and having to speak the language to survive!