Learning French (credit, high school, college)

[unsmicck]

I am a college student in Colorado, and next semester I will be taking a class in French. Does anyone have any advice? A good site to learn, does any one want to help me? I am currently in a Spanish I class, and next semester will be in a Spanish II. Are there very many similarities between the two languages?
Any help would be appreciated.

[Huckleberry3911948]

i speak both. lived worked and went to school in the respective countries. i applaud your ambition.
any chance you could tackle these 2 bears 1 at a time? of the 2 french is the bigger bear.

[Neutre]

Originally Posted by unsmicck

I am a college student in Colorado, and next semester I will be taking a class in French. Does anyone have any advice? A good site to learn, does any one want to help me? I am currently in a Spanish I class, and next semester will be in a Spanish II. Are there very many similarities between the two languages?
Any help would be appreciated.

Honestly, I don't know if it's a good idea to learn both Spanish and French simulataneously, but I guess it can work, because in spite of the similarities, French and Spanish are different enough, unlike learning Portuguese & Spanish or Italian & French at the same time, which could produce too much confusion.

Spanish has an easier spelling than French, but for me personally that's all that makes it easier than French.
The pronunciation is equally hard for a native English speaker, and the French grammar is definitely easier than Spanish, something that people often overlook because French looks more difficult than Spanish through the spelling, and many then assume that everything else about French is also more difficult than Spanish.

[unsmicck]

Well that is exciting to hear Neutre. The grammar thing is what kicks my butt in spanish. I would like to spread it all out, but I want to become a police officer, and I need 60 college credits, not matter which ones they are. And I would like to be bi-, tri-, or even quad-lingual when application time comes up. (did I mention I am taking ASL also?)

[Verseau]

As the others have mentioned, Spanish and French share a very similar grammar, and French grammar is a little bit easier in the long run. There are also plenty of cognates (similar-looking words with the same meanings) in the two languages. However, French spelling and pronunciation are *much* more difficult than Spanish.

If you need any help learning French, feel free to send me a message with your questions.

[Neutre]

Originally Posted by unsmicck

Well that is exciting to hear Neutre. The grammar thing is what kicks my butt in spanish. I would like to spread it all out, but I want to become a police officer, and I need 60 college credits, not matter which ones they are. And I would like to be bi-, tri-, or even quad-lingual when application time comes up. (did I mention I am taking ASL also?)

I personally find Spanish more difficult than French, which is why I wondered why many people said the opposite. But I guess you only realize this after achieving a certain level.
What is ASL?

[shreypete]

Spanish and French are related indeed (they're after all from the same language family). But French is much harder, if not the hardest in the Romance language group. The biggest problem when learning two languages at the same time that are related is that students often tend to confuse the words and the syntax. This is especially a problem for beginners as they've not had experience with learning languages (for advanced or intermediate language learners, this becomes easier as they develop "different" compartments in their brain that can distinguish each language and differentiate the syntax and other complicated aspects of a language).

I would really recommend that you study Spanish for a fair bit of time before you start French (at least until you get to level 4 or 5). Once you can speak and understand Spanish fairly well, you will find it much easier to learn French (many things will start making sense and you will easily be able to correlate it with the stuff you learned in Spanish). This was the technique I used for learning French and Italian (after having learned 6 years of Spanish).

[LiveChick]

They are both Romance languages, and they are related a bit.
But the accents, pronunciation and spelling is different.

When you take French, you'll find that some words are similar.
I think French is easier.

[BlueWillowPlate]

Wow, that's interesting to hear people say that French is easier.
I learned Spanish in high school, and took French classes as an adult, and kept wanting to pronounce everything the Spanish way--French seemed *so hard* to me compared to Spanish.
But maybe I'm just old and set in my ways and not so good at language acquisition anymore.

[unsmicck]

Neutre: ASL means American Sign Language. I always see people doing sign language here in the Springs, at least once a week, and that is without looking for it.
Im really hoping that I can handle both of the classes. I have taken Spanish since my freshmen year of High school, I just never really took it seriously until now. I hear spanish plenty around here, I live on the hispanic side of town. Which is Awesome. I can pretty well distinguish between spanish and French words. Mainly because there are so many more accent marks in French.
I also think it would be super to be able to study abroad in either France or Spain, or some other Spanish speaking country.