Why is French so difficult to learn for those who speak in English?

Question

I once enrolled for the french classes. I gave up in no time. the spellings were too difficult. i found it hard to learn pronunciations.

Answer 1

French has more sounds that are not used in English. Many French sounds are "nasal" tones which are difficult for English speaks to pronounce.

Answer 2

I think it's easy to learn either the spelling OR the pronunciation, just hard to learn both. I'm a grammar person, so I like the endings on the written words, even though they're not pronounced or are pronounced wrong.

My pronunciation is still bad after 30 friggin years! but sometimes I try harder than others. But really very few of the sounds are the same as in English: j, r, p are all sounds we don't have, and the vowels have a very different quality. So that does make it hard!

Answer 3

First of all, I don't think it's hard for everyone. Some people are better at learning a foreign language than others.

I studied French for a long time, and I didn't have any trouble at all, but I think that is because I spoke Spanish fluently when I was a little kid. We lived in South America when I was growing up, so I spoke Spanish everywhere, and only spoke English when I was at home. Spanish and French are very similar because they are Romance languages, in the same family with Italian.

I have had this discussion with a lot of people, and I have noticed several things that are really hard for people to learn.

Romance languages have genders, and English does not, and that's really hard for people to wrap their head around. It also takes a lot of memorization or reading to remember which words are masculine, feminine, or neutral. I think that's a problem area, because it also affects spelling and pronunciation, and particularly so in French. In Spanish, a feminine word usually just has an 'a' at the end, but French is a little more complicated.

I think another problem area is the pronunciation itself. Native English speakers just don't have their mouths trained for proper pronunciation of French. I know people who have studied it for years and still cannot roll their 'r' properly. It's just a shape that we don't have to make when using English, and it's hard to get your mouth to do it later on. In all fairness, the English 'th' sound is really hard for French people to make, and it's for the same reason--they have to learn how to make it, and it's a lot harder to learn if you aren't a little kid. All languages have sounds that are hard for people to make. Arabic has some real killers, and so does Russian.

I think the other factor is that while we have borrowed a lot of words from French, we don't have a big French influence in English. English is a Germanic language, which is in a completely different area of the language tree than the Romance languages. Because of that, we just aren't exposed to it, or the sounds, or the concepts, such as verb conjugations, very frequently.

Don't give up on learning another language! It helps develop new neural pathways in your brain. If you don't want to learn French, why not try something else? Keep trying until you find one you want to stick with.

Answer 4

Good for you.In spite of your handicap you are really trying.It is not easy to learn Spanish for anybody.It will take a great many years.Don't worry too much about the R-s.On the bright side Spanish has the same alphabet and many words in common with English that are derived from the Latin.You will be able to learn a lot of words and some short sentences in a short time.Try to learn basic words first.Start where a child starts that is family,house,food, drink and all the basic needs and surroundingsYou don't have to be perfect , Spanish speakers make a lot of mistakes too.

Answer 5

i think pronunciation is difficult because the people in Ur french class were awkward
try buying french for dummy's if u wanna learn it
it has the way to pronounced and all

Answer 6

French words are very close to english words yet they have very strong pronunciations. ALso french has more grammar and has many stuff you have to memorize.

Answer 7

it worked well for me! i didn't even know a word in french before coming to france. i got enrolled in a very intensive class; ie mon-thu, 9am-3pm & within 6 months, i passed the basic level & it took me another 3 months to be in the intermediary level. now, to keep the language alive, i just practice it with the people around me. just be focused & determined & you can do it. nothing is impossible.

Answer 8

i can't really speak from experience but i do know that if you learn spanish then it is easier to learn french because the pronounciations are similar. i know its backwards to learn one language just so you can learn another but if you think about it you'll be tri-lingual (if right now you only know one language) and that is a BIG bonus when it comes to highend jobs. im learning spanish right now and when im done im going to try to pick up arabic and serbian. tough but i can do it and so can you.

Answer 9

first of all the pronunciation is so strange
second the passe compose most people dont understand how it is used

Answer 10

Oh so many ways to say " I surrender "