This is how Spanish makes learning French harder and what you can do

THIS IS HOW SPANISH CAN MAKE LEARNING FRENCH HARDER

So, do you know Spanish, and now you want to learn French?

Other than Spanish food competing with the well renowned French cuisine, you may think that the two related languages should only support each other. : )

Are you fluent in Spanish, or are you just exposed to it from your environment?

And are you using it to help yourself learn French?

Logically speaking, having leant any romance language should help when we learn French.

They have common sounds, quite an extensive similar vocabulary and phrase structure.

Unexpectedly, the same romance languages may pose some problems, and can make learning French difficult, if we don’t know the traps ahead of time.

Read the article below to see how Spanish can make learning French harder, and watch the video for some French worth learning.

(This week: the verb APPRENDRE – to learn)

As you may know, I’m learning Spanish, Italian and German now, so here are a few thoughts based on my own experience and what I find that happens with my clients.

The first thing I’m asking my students is:
“What other languages they speak or tried to learn before?”

The brain places the acquired languages in the same area, so any language that you are exposed to, tried to learn or speak will affect your French.

If you speak or learned Spanish, here are three errors that you may already make, when trying to learn French:

1. Pronouncing final E as É

One of the most important rules of pronunciation in French is that the final E is silent, or pronounced Œ.

In Spanish, we pronounce the final E. If this bleeds into your French, then not only will you not pronounce the words correctly, but you will say a different word than you want to say. This way affecting the clarity of your communication.

Example:

Que (pronounced Qué in Spanish)
Verbs: marche (silent E in French) would sound like marché if you are not careful, which would either mean “walked” or “market”

2. Pronouncing the U that comes after Q

In Spanish, we have both silent and non-silent U after Q. Go with the silent U, because in French this is a hard rule, and you’ll never go wrong.

3. Y instead of ET

In Spanish, the word “and” can be either “Y” or “E”.

Go with “E”, because in French we only have one option, and that is “et” pronounced like é.

4. The pronunciation of G and J

In Spanish, G and J are closer to the English J, so your G and J in French would sound more like the English George than the French Georges.

Oh, so hard to ‘explain’ pronunciation, but I surely hope you’re reading this out loud.

It will help.

5. Genders

This may be the most difficult, because the genders in French will sometimes match the ones in English, sometimes they won’t.

And, as there are no rules for ‘WHY’ we have a particular gender for a noun, my trick remains the same: think of the French words as having two parts (article and the word itself) and always learn them together.

You may be subconsciously tempted to compare with the ones in Spanish, and, if they don’t match the French words may feel ‘strange’, so go with the mechanical way of memorizing.

This may be the one time it’s easier to learn French from English (which doesn’t have a gender bias) than from any other Latin language, which has genders for all nouns.

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These are the most frequent mistakes made by people who have been or are exposed to Spanish. Apart from people whose mother tongue is Spanish – in the United States most people are exposed to it more or less.

The most tricky part is learning the genders, knowing that the genders in the romance languages do not coincide. Meaning that, we are left with the good old “rule” of memorization for genders. No help there…

Follow these guidelines
and you’ll be safe when learning to speak French.

The caveat is that everybody’s memory is different, and the way the connections are made by the brain is not predictable. To get the results that you are looking for, you need a qualified language coach to guide you through the jungle of the words 🙂

I’m happy to have a chat with you about this, if you want to find your own way to a less frustrating French conversation, and make Spanish stop playing tricks on you.

NOW IT IS YOUR TURN!
Write in the comments below: what is your experience, does Spanish help or not in your French learning?

Let me guess.

Do you constantly have the feeling that you can’t hear what the French say and you don’t know how to read all the French words because they are written so much differently than they sound?

Learn 3 secrets that will help you be self sufficient in the way you pronounce French words – even if you don’t know what they mean – so that you can read that sophisticated menu in your favorite French restaurant.