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Hey guys,
My friend is interested in learning a language, because she would find it fun and useful to her life. She is eastern european but enjoys travelling and is fluent in english. She is a qualified nurse, but now studying to be a beautician.
She read this article which compares Spanish with French languages.
She is leaning towards learning French, for reasons including "its a more major european, "1st-world" language" and "it would be rarer in certain places like USA, where a lot of people already speak spanish". She also thinks French would be "harder to start off with" but "easier as you get going".
We think choosing to learn a particular language is a very subjective thing, but I told her there might be several people on this forum who could provide some insight that we might otherwise overlook.
So which language, based on this extremely basic information, would you prefer my friend to start to learn? Why should she learn French rather than Spanish? Why should she pick Spanish over French?
We know that "learning a language" is pretty impractical? thing to do when it comes to job opportunities - people will say that a translators job requires fluency and is very competitive, and that many europeans (and spanish-speakers) also know english. But feel free to elaborate on these points aswell 
Here's a cool pic of a starcraft car you might not have seen before
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spanish is probably more widespread but in less interesting places imo Id go wtih French!
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once you learn either the other is extremely easy to also learn, tell her to go for spanish first then french.
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If she is already leaning towards learning French I'd have her go with that. Spanish of the two for me at least was easier to learn. However not having to worry about taking them for credits, each should be easy with time. Basically whichever she thinks she will use most will be the most beneficial.
Awesome paint job on the car too!
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I think she should first decide which culture she prefers. Granted they are similar, but I find that learning a language is easier and more pleasant if the there is a cultural appeal as well. Personally I think I'd pick French.
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Netherlands45349 Posts
Spanish is more widespread, French is only usefull in France, French colonies, certain african countries and Quebec in Canada. Spanish however is spoken much more, great parts of America, both north and south do it.
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Spanish is easier and Spanish more useful overall.
Everything else is a matter of personal preference.
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That article is pretty BS in my opinion. I'm in highschool and got class in 6 different languages, including french. According to the article, spanish is easier because the pronunciation is easier. Yes, french is a bit annoying with stupid letter combinations and silent letters, but it's not a big deal at all. You'll get used to that very soon. just do what she lieks the most
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I'm in my fourth year of both French and Spanish classes, but I feel like I'm a whole lot better at French. It just seems more natural to speak, for me at least (maybe it was just because of my teachers' different teaching styles)... Although it certainly has its quirks, French's seemingly-odd grammar structures are surprisingly easy to think through. Like she said, overall, French takes a bit to get used to, but it's definitely becomes easier as you learn more.
I'd advise your friend to learn French- and it's extremely easy to pick up the other after learning one!
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being spanish myself cant really tell how hard it can be to learn spanish :p
but i can tell you that the average spanish citizen knowledge about english its _VERY_ poor and being able to speak spanish/english can pretty much get you a job almost guaranteed here.
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As spanish myself i would recommend spanish objectively. Pronunciation and spelling are way more simple at spanish than french, and both use the same structure at grammar and syntax. So once one is mastered it provides a solid base to learn the other. However french is used, apart from france on switzerland aswel, 2 of the best european countries to go and work there, so depending what he's planning maybe would be worth the effort to try directly french.
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I'm spanish but I'm also learning french so I think I can give you some good advice.
My opinion is that Spanish is definitely easier, especially when it comes to pronounciation and spelling (words are pronounced as they are written). In French, it is more difficult and could be a bit confusing. Grammar is very similar (if not the same) in both languages.
If I had to choose, I'd learn french. Spanish can be learned after learning French properly. I admit that there is a larger amount of people that speak Spanish than French (over 450-500 million) but I feel like French is more useful especially when applying for certain jobs. Also, when travelling, you can find somebody that speaks French almost everywhere with whom you can talk.
Hope it helps your friend!
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i have yet to see a foreigner speaking spanish proficiently
anyways spanish is gonna be way more useful than french, it is way more widespread + there's not as many multilingual speakers that know spanish
but of course your head may explode while studying spanish because of the frustration caused by the million exceptions in grammar, syntax, vocabulary, etc. that this language has
as a person who speaks both spanish and french i'd suggest anything but spanish. the thing with spanish is that it may seem easy to learn at first but to master it is almost an unachievable feat. this could be applied to many other languages but french, in comparison to spanish, is way easier to master.
spanish people will not notice how itchy spanish language is because they're used to it, and will commend studying it due to arguable reasons such as ortography or pronunciation, but if you value your mental sanity or being actually good at speaking a language, spanish is not a good choice, unless you're some kind of genius or a language gifted individual.
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If she is already bilingual I don't think it will matter which language she chooses first. If she's only going to learn one language though, I would choose French because most people in Europe speak a multitude of languages and French is pretty well known throughout Europe and Africa. The reason why I said it might not matter which language she learns first, if she learns both is that French and Spanish are somewhat similar and therefore if she learns one, -if she decides to learn another it will be much more easier. I am taking french for my 6th year in college and I find that the people who know or are at least familiar with the Spanish language have an easier time than people who do not know Spanish beforehand.
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I'm french and lived in an spanish speaking country for 13 years so i know very well both languages
From my point of view, spanish is alot more usefull, widespread and easy to learn.
French is harder and is not speaken in many places... however, it still has some merit in many people eyes, important people in industry and economic areas speak it and girls love it.
I would still go with spanish tho
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I'm surprised, I thought more people would say Spanish over French. In my eyes French just isn't as useful a language. But I know jack shit Anyone else have anything to add?
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Bleh, her reasons for preferring French are annoying and nonsensical (why would you go speak French where there are almost no French speakers?). If she wants to miss out on the bigger amounts of literature, cinema, theater, music, culture, etc. from Spanish speaking countries then French is fine. As for which is harder, I'd say that at least Spanish orthography makes more sense (I know enough French to read books comfortably).
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Naturally Spanish is more widespread; you can usually hear a Hispanophone speaking from across your building, usually uttering four times as many words as a normal person, while producing a tenth of his semantic content. Not that I generally get talking with them, as they are always eyeing the nearest blonde girl in the pub. I don't know what they say in Spanish, but the French call a certain kind of person a dragueur, which I think is the rule rather than the exception in Latin America.
Tell her to learn French.
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There will be more Hispanics nearby than French ready to kick your ass for when you decide to spew out your prejudicial garbage too. Something to bear in mind.
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I find that highly unlikely. They're a bit like your National Anthem; people occasionally boasting of war and cannon, but only while locked up and bullied by their women.
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On May 11 2011 07:49 MoltkeWarding wrote:
Naturally Spanish is more widespread; you can usually hear a Hispanophone speaking from across your building, usually uttering four times as many words as a normal person, while producing a tenth of his semantic content. Not that I generally get talking with them, as they are always eyeing the nearest blonde girl in the pub. I don't know what they say in Spanish, but the French call a certain kind of person a dragueur, which I think is the rule rather than the exception in Latin America.
Tell her to learn French.
Last time I checked, racism/massive generalization is not really welcome here.
To the OP: It is incredibly silly and borderline racist to think of french as a "first-world language" and spanish as something else...
This has been said several times already, but if she is learning another language for any sort of practical purposes, Spanish would likely be far more helpful. Far more people speak spanish in the world than french, and that will not change any time soon.
What it really boils down to though is personal preference. Chances are this person will not become fluent enough to use it often in relation to work, so the choice really comes down to enjoyment of actually studying the language and preference in travel.
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Last time I checked, racism/massive generalization is not really welcome here.
It was also racist for the Elector of Brandenburg to imitate the gardens of Versailles and the cadence of Racine. How about Mme de Chatelet, who mastered Latin, English and Italian, but neglected her Spanish (in her time still considered one of the four civilized languages) because "the only book in it was unreadable?" How about Napoleon? According to him, the Spanish were "dirty, superstitious and priest-ridden."
At least I'm sticking with what I have generally experienced.
To the OP: It is incredibly silly and borderline racist to think of french as a "first-world language" and spanish as something else...
It might surprise you to know that the GDP of the Francosphere is, with less than a quarter of the population, nearly equivalent to the GDP of the entire Hispanosphere.
Anyway, how do you expect a person to answer the question French vs Spanish without a little racism here and there?
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France is also an old country. With it's birth rate barely above the mortality rate. Most of latin america is young countries in potency.
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So you bring up past occurences of xenophobia why exactly? I can bring up any number of quotes by Nietzsche that show misogyny, does that make it correct, or for that matter welcome on teamliquid?
This statement of yours now seems incredibly ironic "usually uttering four times as many words as a normal person, while producing a tenth of his semantic content." Perhaps you should take your own advice.
As to the question of GDP, I am not entirely sure how you are defining "roughly equivalent", but the spanish speaking world has an extremely high capacity for development, at least in the short term. Much higher than the french speaking world.
However this really has nothing to do with why I quoted your post. You generalizing about 500 million people with what? Anecdotal evidence from 200 year old megalomaniacs? You are simply a racist, and that kind of thought should not be welcome here.
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So you bring up past occurences of xenophobia why exactly? I can bring up any number of quotes by Nietzsche that show misogyny, does that make it correct, or for that matter welcome on teamliquid?
By all means, but to rid the world of misogyny, would you have to filter out of our literary cannon Homer, Aescylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Cervantes (what books would there be in Spanish then??), Milton, Shakespeare, Pope, Byron, Kipling, etc and so on. All megalomaniacs. There is a generalisation for you. Of generalisers you are by far the greater and more practiced. I only bound people into behavioural categories. You bind all categories into a single negative moral category. Talk about the sinner casting the stone!
At some point in our "critical" civilization, people ceased possessing the ability to refute other people. Now they no longer care whether a statement is true or not, as long as it is the acceptable kind of statement to make. Put a little effort into it; the OP asked for a propaganda war of French vs Spanish.
The only argument on the Hispanic side is "More people speak Spanish."
Now, I'm sorry to say, but if you are silly enough to accept such a case, there is no argument which one can make in favour of French except ones which are racist by your definition.
Claim French pedigree in culture, academics, or prestige? Racist. Claim that Francophones generally have higher standards of living? True, but racist. France as the more prolific tourist venue? Probably also racist. Haute Cuisine? Racist.
In other words, there is one argument that needs consideration: demographics. Every other one is either meaninglessly subjective, or racist.
As to the question of GDP, I am not entirely sure how you are defining "roughly equivalent", but the spanish speaking world has an extremely high capacity for development, at least in the short term. Much higher than the french speaking world.
Yes, yes. In the time-horizon of eternity, every person will become on average as productive as any other.
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It all depends on where she wants to go. Spanish is spoken by the whole of south America (with the exception of Brazil but there they speak Portuguese which is fairly similar) but French is spoken by a lot of people in countries in Africa (like cote d'Ivoire) and Asia (like Vietnam).
But if she want to learn a language that hardly anybody speaks in the place she's going because it gives her an extra skill I wouldn't bother at all. Almost all people going abroad speak at least English.
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On May 11 2011 08:55 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +So you bring up past occurences of xenophobia why exactly? I can bring up any number of quotes by Nietzsche that show misogyny, does that make it correct, or for that matter welcome on teamliquid? By all means, but to rid the world of misogyny, would you have to filter out of our literary cannon Homer, Aescylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Cervantes (what books would there be in Spanish then??), Milton, Shakespeare, Pope, Byron, Kipling, etc and so on. All megalomaniacs. There is a generalisation for you. Of generalisers you are by far the greater and more practiced. I only bound people into behavioural categories. You bind all categories into a single negative moral category. Talk about the sinner casting the stone! At some point in our "critical" civilization, people ceased possessing the ability to refute other people. Now they no longer care whether a statement is true or not, as long as it is the acceptable kind of statement to make. Put a little effort into it; the OP asked for a propaganda war of French vs Spanish. The only argument on the Hispanic side is "More people speak Spanish." Now, I'm sorry to say, but if you are silly enough to accept such a case, there is no argument which one can make in favour of French except ones which are racist by your definition. Claim French pedigree in culture, academics, or prestige? Racist. Claim that Francophones generally have higher standards of living? True, but racist. France as the more prolific tourist venue? Probably also racist. Haute Cuisine? Racist. In other words, there is one argument that needs consideration: demographics. Every other one is either meaninglessly subjective, or racist. Show nested quote +
As to the question of GDP, I am not entirely sure how you are defining "roughly equivalent", but the spanish speaking world has an extremely high capacity for development, at least in the short term. Much higher than the french speaking world.
Yes, yes. In the time-horizon of eternity, every person will become on average as productive as any other.
You have a much greater penchant for verbosity than for reading-comprehension clearly.
I am talking about OBJECTIVE facts regarding the usefulness of spanish versus french in practical pursuits(i.e. business) It is undeniable that in the SHORT term, not some "horizon of eternity" that more industry and wealth is/will be circulating in the spanish speaking world than the french-speaking world.
OF COURSE all other factors than go into the choice of a "recreational" language are subjective.
The way in which you order cultures in a linear fashion is really actually quite terrifying.
While the OP may have been, in a circular fashion, asking for an "ordering of cultures" that is not what my post was about. I was trying to show that this manner of thinking is incredibly silly and outdated.
Cultures cannot be ordered... especially when the only distinction being made is language.
You are living in the wrong century moltke... and not in a good way.
The only person in this thread who is discussing the "superiority" of language/culture is you. The rest of us are either talking about practical usefulness OR have stated that it is wholly a personal choice.
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do most french speaking peoples also speak english? how does that compare to spanish speakers?
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duoma, you say that there may be more wealth in spanish speaking job opportunities, but practically how true is that? do you just mean there is a greater abundance of opportunity for work? if you're living in europe and speaking french, wouldnt you have a considerably higher salary and standard of living than you would say having a similar job in spain or south america?
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I am talking about OBJECTIVE facts regarding the usefulness of spanish versus french in practical pursuits(i.e. business) It is undeniable that in the SHORT term, not some "horizon of eternity" that more industry and wealth is/will be circulating in the spanish speaking world than the french-speaking world.
Believe it or not, the objective fact is that the majority of people do not learn foreign languages for the purposes of employment, and even if they were, so what? Even if such a person were inclined to do business abroad, where would you recommend he emigrate? Venezuela? Spain, with an unemployment rate of 21%? Colombia? Argentina?
Or France/Belgium/Switzerland/Canada/Luxembourg?
Not to mention in terms of employability, even as an American, Spanish would give you the least additional benefit vis-a-vis other languages. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/SmallBiz/story?id=4349200&page=1
So much for that.
Cultures cannot be ordered... especially when the only distinction being made is language.
You are living in the wrong century moltke... and not in a good way.
The only person in this thread who is discussing the "superiority" of language/culture is you. The rest of us are either talking about practical usefulness OR have stated that it is wholly a personal choice.
Believe it or not, even anti-prejudicial remarks have to benefit from some exposition. Otherwise they remain what they purport not to be: prejudicial and biased.
I have never denied that I am purporting that French is the superior language. In fact, that's rather the point. Are you keeping up now?
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i wasnt asking for some "ordering of cultures" in any round-about way. i was just asking how other people feel about learning spanish vs french, since with our limited experience we're unable to consider the question ourselves. im quite happy for people to point out cultural differences between france and spain, since not being spanish or french nor having studied them i cant do this for myself. other than queuing up in disneyworld next to some tourists and having my ears drummed out of course
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On May 11 2011 08:21 Cloud wrote:
France is also an old country. With it's birth rate barely above the mortality rate. Most of latin america is young countries in potency.
Fyk France has a way better birth rate than Spain, it is really not that bad compared to the rest of Europe. Fertility is still > 2 and even if the population gets older it is still growing.
On May 11 2011 09:36 FFGenerations wrote:
do most french speaking peoples also speak english? how does that compare to spanish speakers?
French people are usually bad at English especially the older generations.
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By the way, I don't suppose anyone remembers the forums of antimoon.com? Our friend Duoma would really be throwing a fit there. 100+ threads of Franco-Spanish animosity; I think they still exist in archives.
Anything which needs to be said about this topic has been said there, and most things which didn't need to be said as well.
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On May 11 2011 07:45 Cloud wrote:
Bleh, her reasons for preferring French are annoying and nonsensical (why would you go speak French where there are almost no French speakers?). If she wants to miss out on the bigger amounts of literature, cinema, theater, music, culture, etc. from Spanish speaking countries then French is fine. As for which is harder, I'd say that at least Spanish orthography makes more sense (I know enough French to read books comfortably).
Laughable, i don't know whether this is even true for contemporary Art.
France is an examplarily High Culture with an intellectual and cultural output that, summed up over the last centuries, is simply situated in other categories than the spanish one.
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On May 11 2011 08:27 Duoma wrote:
This statement of yours now seems incredibly ironic "usually uttering four times as many words as a normal person, while producing a tenth of his semantic content." Perhaps you should take your own advice.
LMFAO
buuuuuuuuuuuuuurn
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lol first world language, that made me laugh.
French's awesome because I speak it.
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On May 12 2011 06:29 aqui wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2011 07:45 Cloud wrote:
Bleh, her reasons for preferring French are annoying and nonsensical (why would you go speak French where there are almost no French speakers?). If she wants to miss out on the bigger amounts of literature, cinema, theater, music, culture, etc. from Spanish speaking countries then French is fine. As for which is harder, I'd say that at least Spanish orthography makes more sense (I know enough French to read books comfortably). Laughable, i don't know whether this is even true for contemporary Art. France is an examplarily High Culture with an intellectual and cultural output that, summed up over the last centuries, is simply situated in other categories than the spanish one.
Yes, no kidding.
Edit: Sorry for the double post, I'm very sleep deprived.
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On May 11 2011 08:12 MoltkeWarding wrote:
Anyway, how do you expect a person to answer the question French vs Spanish without a little racism here and there?
Lol, wtf is this garbage? And why have these posts not received a warning at the very minimum? This guy drops into the blog to spew his verbose rhetoric about the semantics of racism and what not. The SC and TL community is an incredibly diverse one that has no borders, and you have that trashy attitude?
On May 11 2011 09:36 FFGenerations wrote:
do most french speaking peoples also speak english? how does that compare to spanish speakers?
In my experiences I've found far more English speakers in France as opposed to Spain and South American countries.
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well generally it would go by which race's females you find more attractive, but I don't think that'll really work in this case... I say go for French because French culture is a lot like team liquid, and I took a lot of french + I think most french girls are super cute.
My best experience with French was in Marseille when I was sitting next to a native girl and we got to talking (in english mind you, my french is terrible). She ended up saying something like "Vous êtes étonnant, je t'adore," so I scrambled for something to respond with that would be somewhat french and flirty. It came out as "donnes moi ta sous-vetements" which i thought was pretty damn close to give me your underwear. Anyways she laughed a lot at how bad my french was, and I got a number from her. Take french, they're awesome!
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Holy moly how did this question cause a massive flame war to erupt?
In any event, Moltke has a point, and I recommend french for its cultural and aural appeal (latter is subjective), though moltke is being somewhat condescending/verbose about it.
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I think French would be a good choice. Most American's advice here would be Spanish (for the practicality there). French is very similar to a lot of languages, so once you know French it is significantly easier to learn Spanish or even Italian.
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On May 11 2011 07:28 FFGenerations wrote:I'm surprised, I thought more people would say Spanish over French. In my eyes French just isn't as useful a language. But I know jack shit Anyone else have anything to add?
It depends.
I live in america (I'm a Canadian) and my main language is French. I feel it's a shame since I don't master perfectly a langage everyone around me speaks, in that sense I agree, French is a useless langage compared to other langages. French is the 9th spoken langage in the world: Madanrin is 1st, english the 2nd and spanish the 3rd; in that regard, I'd say Spanish is the optimal choice. On the other hand, I feel it's a good thing because I have acess to many cultural product since I was forced to learn english.
It depends what you mean by "useful". If you are interessed in French culture over other choices, french would become the optimal choice.
There are so much dudes trying to learn japanese, and frankly, it's probably one of the most complex language in the world and not very useful if not interessested in nippon culture.
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Hong Kong20321 Posts
french soudns like 120492012491024 :better.
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On May 13 2011 15:34 moose162 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2011 08:12 MoltkeWarding wrote:
Anyway, how do you expect a person to answer the question French vs Spanish without a little racism here and there? Lol, wtf is this garbage? And why have these posts not received a warning at the very minimum? This guy drops into the blog to spew his verbose rhetoric about the semantics of racism and what not. The SC and TL community is an incredibly diverse one that has no borders, and you have that trashy attitude?
Show nested quote +On May 11 2011 09:36 FFGenerations wrote:
do most french speaking peoples also speak english? how does that compare to spanish speakers? In my experiences I've found far more English speakers in France as opposed to Spain and South American countries.
Because it's Moltke who is 10 times smarter than everyone else which is a known fact to the mods.
In 99% of cases when people disagree with him, they either don't get what he is saying (but thinking they do) or they don't get what they are saying.
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Does she know actual english or just broken eastern european "GTA IV english"?
If it's the latter i'd suggest she spends her energy mastering the language she's already fluent in, too many people ignore this and just settle for whatever accent they have.
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EPT
