Is French Difficult?

[@Thelinguist]

Do you think French is difficult? 10 Secrets of Language Learning ⇢ www.thelinguist.com LingQ Grammar Guides ⇢ www.lingq.com/en/grammar-resource/ My blog ⇢ blog.thelinguist.com/ The LingQ blog ⇢ www.lingq.com/blog/ My Podcast ⇢ soundcloud.com/lingostevepodcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/learn-languages-with-steve-kaufmann/id1437851870 --- Social Media Instagram ⇢ instagram.com/lingosteve_/ TikTok ⇢ www.tiktok.com/@lingosteve Facebook ⇢ facebook.com/lingosteve Twitter ⇢ twitter.com/lingosteve LingQ Discord ⇢ discord.gg/ShPTjyhwTN

[@brasidas33]

Un peu ; mais pas vraiment. Pratiquer... pratiquer... pratiquer !

[@teacherdy7767]

At least for me not beacause i studied phonetic in my first language and also with French italiano and now with German.

[@kokolexx]

Oui

[@whitie5142]

Please do the same thing with portugese

[@antoniussugianto7973]

For English speakers Indonesian language easier to learn than French then? French too many grammar rules...

[@markchavez738]

The most difficult thing about French is understanding spoken French. Everything else isn’t too bad.

[@queen-estherjohnokeah2025]

True 👌

[@ecnalms851]

Im finding the grammar kinda difficult rn but I guess it might just be a learning curve

[@gustavofelipe3383]

Not only that but also the fact that many sets of letters can represent de same sound, for instance without context you couldn't differentiate these words just with sound: "Os" "Haut" "Eau". Another point is the fact that if you wanna learn words just through listening it can be quite difficult. For instance, I had that experience once when I asked someone how to say sharpen in french, because the way it sounded i thought it would be written like this: "éguiser", but it was "aiguiser".

[@gustavofelipe3383]

Merci!

[@jeanfrancoisbe2]

@@gustavofelipe3383don't worry, heureusement, le mot "aiguiser" est très rarement employé dans la vie de tous les jours...

[@ksawerykaminski2606]

I'm Polish, i have learnt 6 languages. When it comes to listening comprehension, french is definitely the most difficult one with no doubt...Took years to understand normal daily conversations.

[@AdrictotdtTwitch]

Agree, french is hard as hell.

[@nostalgiatrip7331]

Agreed. Been learning French on and off since i did four year in school starting 8 years ago. I still struggle to understand much of casual listening, meanwhile i just started learning Spanish this year and it's already realllly easy to understand spoken Spanish

[@llamasarus1]

I thought Polish is ever harder and being that you have the harder one down that'll make French easier, but it prob doesn't work that way haha.

[@ksawerykaminski2606]

@@llamasarus1 i know my language is really hard haha it's for its complex grammar and phonetics but i'd say when it's about listening french is easily harder than mine since in Polish we have hard pronunciation but really regular and clear rules for it.

[@nickera876]

@@ksawerykaminski2606 how did you go about learning those languages? like your routine.

[@IndraGrey]

It's difficult for me mainly because of the pronunciation / accent. I find speaking with the proper pronunciation and understanding spoken French with thick French accents quite difficult while the reading and writing aspects are fairly straightforward.

[@teacherdy7767]

For me no , because of studied phonetic

[@imsad76]

Idk why ,but I have a good french accent. If i speak with french in majority case he cant guesse that i am foreigner

[@Trudloops]

Moi meme

[@abarette_]

@@Trudloops you just said "myself", I don't know what you meant to say but you did not say it

[@SaciNounou-bh2de]

am i the only one who think that french pronunciation is easy

[@ricois3]

École🇫🇷 --> Escuela🇪🇸 --> School🇬🇧 Some words are easier to see the similarity if you know other Latin languages, because French changed a lot (and isn't even the same Langue d'oïl) since the Normand invasion of England.

[@josepedro335]

Yeah, exacly. Portuguese is also similar to French. Many words are the same (however spelt differently of course). Btw, school is escola in portuguese

[@Littleton3513]

@@josepedro335 it’s “scuola” in Italian, probably closer to English than French ironically enough.

[@josepedro335]

@@Littleton3513 😅

[@frodethorsenbrseth5014]

To me, comprehension definitely seems more difficult with French than a lot of other languages I listen to. Compared to Spanish, for example, listening to French as a non-native is like a soup of vowels, nasal or otherwise, where a lot of information gets packed into very tiny parts of speech. I think a good example to illustrate this is the case of the two pronouns _"y"_ and _"en"_ . They are just one single syllable each, one vowel sound, which usually just stealthily enters a sentence by replacing some other vowel (e.g. _"j'y crois pas"_ , _"il n'en reste plus"_ ). Yet, despite being so innocuous and easy to miss, both play a huge role in their respective sentences, and depending on context they can each have a wide variety of meanings. The key is of course to listen and to read a ton, to the point that the ear/brain is used to detecting such minute variations in vowels, as well as the structure of the language. But had I decided to learn something like German instead for my 30th birthday, I'll bet I'd have gotten a lot further, since I wouldn't be struggling so much already at the simple point of properly parsing _the sounds_ of the language.

[@Thelinguist]

You are right. I could've gone into more detail. But ultimately people have to discover the language themselves with lots of listening and reading and of course regularly reading some kind of grammatical explanations, without the intention, necessarily, of remembering much, but of becoming more alert to things that happen in the language which we will gradually get used to.

[@jimmeven1120]

I started learning French at school in the 1960s and now and again I come back to it, but my aural comprehension never improves at all. I don't think it's lack of exposure because I can understand Radio and TV well enough in German and Dutch, although I've only spent five days in the Netherlands (over 30 years ago) and don't know any Dutch people. The problem is that "soup of vowels" as you describe it. The consonants are a sort of solid outline around the words so you can pick them out clearly. Spoken French makes me think of a boneless chicken--most of the consonants (the skeleton) have been filleted out and all you've got left is the squelchy, floppy bits.

[@adamlouis-klein3532]

I have the same problem even though I've worked on French for a very long time. Native speakers of French tell me I speak it almost like a native and I can express myself on any subject, but I feel sometimes as though I will never get to 100% comprehension, and I don't just mean bc of the occasional rare vocab word or phrase, but even just to be able every single time to pick out those very rapid and monotone fusion of words in spoken French. Somewhat frustrating- and I was comforted when I started learning Portuguese and Spanish that this really sin't the case for all languages.

[@MDobri-sy1ce]

I want to take French again in the next 2-3 years when, I get more confident with Swedish.

[@sharonoddlyenough]

Since I've been learning Swedish, it's been fun seeing the French words that are used there. In my opinion, if you have both English and Swedish, French will be a bit easier. 🍀 Lycka till!

[@teacherdy7767]

@@sharonoddlyenough in my case ,l had Spanish , English before ltalian and French and now with German ist better.

[@numero9]

German as well! Mycket intressant!

[@teacherdy7767]

@@numero9 German and English are similar and share vocabulary.

[@muhyadindahir3188]

how long do you learning swedish?

[@369tayaholic5]

i found french listening comprehension the biggest challenge, with their liaison, and many slangs! They also speak so fast, faster than my mother tongue.

[@AlineMayne1]

J'ai écrit un vers: Un ver vert allait vers le bar pour boire un verre d'un verre en vaire (et non en verre).

[@abarette_]

pretty sure "vaire" does not exist. the end of the sentence also can't make any sense. "A green worm was going to the bar to drink a glass of a glass made of [?] (and not made of glass)"

[@user-pc4i8ege55]

As a Russian speaker I found that the knowledge of English greatly simplified learning of French. Not only because of shared vocabulary, but also because of many grammatical similarities. On the other hand, existence of genders in Russian only made things worse, since genders in Russian and French mismatch more often than not.

[@ricois3]

French is my native language and I'm learning Russian at the moment. I was very surprised by how many words from french there are in Russian. Makes it easier for vocabulary. The R sound in French also makes it easier to pronounce the Х sound in Russian, even if they're not the same.

[@user-pc4i8ege55]

@@ricois3 besides separate words, there are many expressions and idioms borrowed from French: comme deux gouttes d'eau, le jeu en vaut la chandelle, regarder les dents à cheval donné, ballon d'essai, and many others.

[@eule8587]

И все же это неимешало русским дворянам говорить на французском, даже войну и мир писали на французском

[@ceren5199]

Came from İclal's video!! Such an inspiration!!

[@AdrictotdtTwitch]

French to me was one of the hardest language to learn, french is complicated as hell and I'm not talking about learning just to say hi, it took me almost 7 years to start feeling comfortable and my native language is Spanish so yeah, I think french is a really special language but you need to have a lot of patience and recilience.

[@abarette_]

Spanish from French is awesomely easy, but French from Spanish must be a nightmare. "you can't say that because uhhhh it doesn't feel just right lol" is half of French rules

[@DustinSchermaul]

Yes I would also agree to Mark that the most difficult it is to understand spoken french. Like for example if I'm watching a series I still often need subtitles to be able to follow along. With italian I was already able way earlier to catchup spoken things, because it's more melodic and clearly pronounced. Thanks again for another good video :).

[@eliezerkraiman48]

I often have to check the gender with the Spanish word in order to get it right ( Spanish and French cognates often share the same gender so if you speak Spanish or Portuguese or Italian you can often use the gender of the word in that language to remember the gender in French)

[@Jr-ft9ii]

And for those that don't match, the fun is enough to remember them 😂

[@Littleton3513]

@@Jr-ft9ii The shock of gender difference is enough to remember them 😂

[@AdrictotdtTwitch]

Yeah like i'm a native Spanish speaker and every time I used words like "la voiture" "le lait "le lit" etc etc I find it really funny to say cause in Spanish they're femenine "El carro" "la leche" "la cama"

[@abderahmanmauritani1433]

You're excellent teacher. I like your videos so much Mr. Kaufmann.

[@mulot5022]

3:13 Even more interesting than "mot"'s plural is maux ("mal"'s plural) which is pronounced the same as mot(s) and Meaux (a city): the context will give you the clue to guess which we refer to!

[@chienbanane3168]

Ways to spell "o" in French : o os oh oo oos ot ots oc ocs ho hos ô ôt ôts hô au aux aud auds aut auts ault hau haut haux eau eaux heau

[@jeanfrancoisbe2]

@@chienbanane3168 désolé pour les homophones.... Il faut voir le contexte de la phrase...

[@chienbanane3168]

just learned that the word "aulx" is also pronounced "o"

[@abarette_]

@@chienbanane3168 Ways to pronounce a lone 'a' in English : /æ/, /ɑː/, /eɪ/, /ɒ/, /ɔː/, /ə/ (with no ruling whatsoever) Ways to pronounce a lone 'a' in French : /a/, /ɑ̃/ (with the latter being only when followed by 'n' or 'm')

[@MDobri-sy1ce]

I my opinion at least to me, French is difficult because a lot of words are not said how they are spelled. Unlike, their Spanish counterpart where many words are said exactly, as they are spelled. A fellow Canadian.

[@huguesdepayens807]

Spanish is not spelled exactly how it sounds. You can have two words that look the same but said completely differently.

[@josecontreras7153]

@@huguesdepayens807 Which ones?

[@TheSpecialJ11]

French is mostly pronounced as it's spelled, you just have to give your brain time to adjust to when something is to be pronounced or not. Only a handful of words break these rules, such as ouest and est. It is a far more consistent language than English, even if it's far less consistent than Spanish.

[@deis9850]

Hi, I'm french, I assure you, once you listen a lot of the language, you will not be mistaking the pronounciation. French have less sound (36) compared to english (42) or german (45). And the stressing is mostly always on the last syllabe of the sentence ;p, not like english and german, which make it easier. That's why french is also easier on that part to learn. I'm learning german and english. I hope I was helpful.

[@huguesdepayens807]

@@josecontreras7153 Cuidar (to look after). La Ciudad (City). One has a hard c and the other a soft c.

[@jimmeven1120]

2:46 This reminded me of a little rhyme we learned at school: Quand un gendarme rit Dans la gendarmerie, Tout les gendarmes rient Dans la gendarmerie.

[@abarette_]

*tous les gendarmes difference between "tous/toutes" and "tout", is that the former means all of something while the latter means everything "Je les ai tous/toutes" -> I have them all "J'ai tout" -> I have everything With the bonus rule that "tout" is used for non-quantified stuff How much bread do you have? -> "J'ai tout le pain" How many policers are there? -> "Il y a tous les policiers"

[@Besteria]

Très intéressant ! Bonjour du Québec ☺

[@evanilsonp.8183]

I'm about 1 month into learning French on my own and I find it hard when they connect the words and speak fast. As long as it doesn't happen it's ok

[@eliezerkraiman48]

talk to people from Africa they speak slowly and more clearly

[@ricois3]

@@eliezerkraiman48 Yeah, but some of them also mix in mother tongue words and sounds. Some African accents are really hard to understand, even for a native French speaker interested in accents, like myself.

[@AdrictotdtTwitch]

Recilience, it's possible, but it takes discipline and time.

[@weedonshav2362]

That is very interesting, brighty and clearly explained.

[@weedonshav2362]

I was in a group of french teenagers visiting England. We took the bus, and one of us said something nice, in french, about le " chauffeur " of the bus. The Englishman heard the sentence and was vexed. But french teenager didn't mean to be rude. Chauffeur is the french word for driver.

[@andrewzanas9387]

Yearly paid subscriber here. I've dropped using your website, Steve, not because it isn't a good website, but because it's unfathomable for me to use efficiently. I just don't have the time to spend trying to navigate around the site and learning how to engage in the overall processes or in figuring out how to do things, like import texts, books, netflix and Amazon movies instead of just learning French. There's no easy path to establishing a simple rhythm or daily procedure when I'm muddling around all the time, and much of it comes from what I've mostly learned about myself as far as learning languages goes. I've been into it for three months now, and there are things I really dislike about learning french, not only on lingQ, but on most other sites as well, but again that's entirely on me, Steve. I love listening to you talk about different languages and I do see a marked improvement in my retention, but I believe my own method works better for me. Here's what I like doing and on whatever website or with whichever tool I am using, and much of this comes from early experimentation in following your advice on doing tons of reading, listening, and repetition. Sounds like whining and complaining, I know, but please hear me out. I have found I have a huge preference for hearing the French spoken first, and second, speaking the word or phrase out loud before ever learning its primary meaning or derivations. Why is that? Because I find I recognize the word a whole lot faster than I would have from hearing a translation, and that's the difference in actually having a conversation, or not... how about, definitely not. Instant recognition. Its so important. And why is that? Because french is unique in its grammatical structure and context due to liaison and the silencing of certain syllables, depending on the next word that follows. Also, a word's meaning isn't always critical to understanding the gist of the conversation. Keeping up is. Furthermore, nothing gets me frustrated faster than hearing a translation of something given back to me that was never said the way a frenchman would have spoken it. I understand the purpose is to get us familiar with the meaning of what was said, but what it really means is relearning how to say everything differently in order for me to utter it properly in the native tongue, and it has the effect of slowing my brain down to a crawl. Just the fact that adjectives follow nouns instead of preceding them causes massive confusion for a native anglophile between listening and responding to conversational french while being fed improper translations. I suppose I will learn to adapt eventually. That pretty much sums it up.

[@BartBVanBockstaele]

I love LingQ. I have to admit that I am not interested in most things it has to offer. I am mainly interested in its ability to connect words to self-typed meanings, which make it so much less tedious and slow than the way I learned languages decades ago.

[@alwaysuseless]

I'm always surprised that native English-speakers are tripped up by adjectives coming after the noun. English puts the noun at the end, but that means you have to wait to find out what it is that is big and beautiful or interesting and useful. Psychologically, it's usually more important that she bought a car than the car's attributes.

[@TaticaMiranda]

I love to study English and French, Steve!!! Cette vidéo c'est très utile ! Je suis brésilienne ! Amo seus vídeos, assisto todos os dias! Eu aprendo tanto com você! Your videos are my compelling input! Thank you so much!

[@LincolnClay98]

It's difficult to get good enough for a French person not to switch to English when you try speaking to them in French lol

[@BartBVanBockstaele]

Giggle, I am Flemish but I do have (did have?) that problem. I was raised in the (false, but instilled by the Belgian regime that brainwashed us into believing that Flemings were un(der)developed brutes that have no language worth speaking) belief that nobody learns Dutch. As such, no matter how terrible I was at another language, I automatically switched to that language when a foreigner tried to speak Dutch to me. I fully realised how insulting my behaviour was, but I couldn't help it, out of a (misplaced, but irresistible) desire to be helpful. I think the situation in Belgium is better now, but that does not miraculously undo my upbringing, no matter how sad and revolting that upbringing was.

[@Littleton3513]

@@BartBVanBockstaele interessante 🤔

[@countryballspredicciones5184]

As soon as the video started, there is something you said that is very true, French has things that make it easy and others that make it difficult.

[@countryballspredicciones5184]

@Real Aiglon Haha 🤣.

[@Platform115]

Hi Steve how are you? I would like to have a interview with you,I’m originally from Brazil and living in Japan,I’ve learned English since 2016,now my comprehension skill is good, I learned it by my own,so glad bless you my dear friend

[@eliezerkraiman48]

A lot of Native Speakers of languages are not good a communicating with people who do not have a good understanding of the language, in contrast as a French and Spanish L2 and L3 speaker I can speak in a way that language learners can understand by speaking slowly, using simple words, gestures, and a lot of cognates in order increase their comprehension of the language.

[@alwaysuseless]

Very interesting and helpful! Merci beaucoup! You refer to the French half of the video. Perhaps I misunderstood. Where is the French half?

[@FranolRadio]

Je me posais la même question.

[@LanguagesWithJamie]

I think he’s going to upload a separate video entirely in French based on the same topic

[@numero9]

semaine prochaine

[@alwaysuseless]

@@LanguagesWithJamie Ah, that makes sense. Thanks.

[@annettemcnabb3033]

I was wondering the same

[@RealEmptyProject]

waiting for this episode long time

[@Caine61]

Is French Difficult? Me, only 2 months into learning French: *O U I*

[@jeanfrancoisbe2]

i can help you...

[@gutemberguefelix7108]

After two years trying to master english (i'm still far from it) now i'm taking a breathe with french. As portuguese native speaker i think half of french is already in my head.

[@AdrictotdtTwitch]

Good luck :) I studied french and English at the same time, it was a mistake in my case, I could do it but it was a hard job, you gotta feel really comfortable with one language before moving to another. Good luck 😃

[@YvBernard]

Le français est difficile pour les élèves français : les homophones grammaticaux, les consonnes géminées, la conjugaison : quel souci pour eux ! Et cela ne s'arrange pas à l'âge adulte ! Pour les Français aussi le vocabulaire en anglais est facile à maîtriser. Clémenceau disait d'ailleurs que l'anglais était du français mal prononcé. Quelle mauvaise langue ! Enfin, merci Guillaume le conquérant ! Pourtant, malgré tout ce vocabulaire transparent, beaucoup de Français ont beaucoup de mal à apprendre l'anglais.

[@Liam-10]

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته. Awesome Mr. Kauffman that you give us your experience about learning those languages. And it seems I'll watch your videos with each language i learn because i am dreaming to become a polyglot like you ❤️👍

[@sandorspangli9655]

Hello Steve! You mentioned in one of the videos that you started learning French with a book about the history and art of France. Can I find out his exact title, writer? Thank you very much!

[@g718ny]

What kind of mic are you using? Its really clear

[@kenny5577]

If you think French is difficult then never try to learn russian Chinese Arabic etc lol

[@cheersfor6323]

Русский, 汉语

[@annarboriter]

French is a useful gateway language if one is not acquainted with Esperanto speakers

[@banana53358]

especially russian it is a nightmare

[@yarrowification]

I found french harder than "hard" languages like japanese and latin

[@The_endless_explorations]

I just can't understand it, the rest is not hard

[@jerstumc5033]

French is hard to understand for me, structure is really easy because i'm a spanish speaker but the R in french is very hard because i don't have any idea of how the heck they pronounce it so fast without getting stuck. French speakers speak really fast and not loud enough to be able to distinguish the sounds, i was having a better time with german and i got to understand pretty quickly but then i decided to drop it because i thought it was hard and did french and now i'm having a bad time, if they would speak more clearly and not so fast and in a low voice we all would be happy

[@AlexBaillie]

0:48 it's actually only 30%, which is still more words than those than come from Germanic origins, though English is a Germanic language, not a Latin one.

[@Thelinguist]

I believe I said "French origin, or at least of Latin based origin". The number of these is close to 60%. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_French_origin#/media/File:Origins_of_English_PieChart.svg

[@numero9]

Question for the Canadians (since Steve is one): In school, is there any proclivity towards teaching some of the Quebecois accent, idioms, and general differences it has with textbook French? Obviously if you're in Quebec, but what about someone in Ontario who is relatively likely to visit Quebec City or Montreal before Paris or Marseilles? I figure it gets less common the more distance you go, like schools in British Columbia would see this as less valuable. I fully understand the connotations of the Quebecois accent to French people!

[@johnbeeckler]

I'm in Canada and although I never went through the french education here, I see the results of it. In general (Steve would agree) French education in Canada has very poor results -- most people in English Canada have almost no ability to use French. Those that do become speakers of French will typically have been exposed to a lot of Canadian sounding french through media (CBC Radio Canada) and French Canadians and perhaps their teachers. Some confident French speakers I have heard here have a cute combination of an English accident and a Quebecois accent. (For example former prime minister Stephen Harper comes to mind) Listening to some Canadian news will give you a good idea of the standard french that is being promoted here. It ranges from Trudeau's sterile french to heavily accented.

[@Thelinguist]

I agree. It's been a long time since I had French in school but teachers weren't native speakers and made no effort to make it interesting. My grandchildren went to French immersion schools and they have teachers from all over, Quebec, French, Africa, Mauritius? you name it.

[@eliezerkraiman48]

@@johnbeeckler it's so sad because I as an American who speaks French well, can communicate with 3.6 million more Canadians than most Canadians, how can you have a Bilingual country where people cannot communicate across language barriers, a common national identity understanding of other people etc.

[@eliezerkraiman48]

The Canadian govuerment has 50 years since the passing fo the official language act to favor immigration that promotes bilingualism but they have most accepted immigrants from English speaking or other language speaking countries who would have no reason to learn French other than to get funds for their businesses

[@eliezerkraiman48]

90 % of people in Francaphone Africa whom I've talked would move to Canada, I think the Canadian government just doesn't want a real bilingual country, but they could definitely change the immigration system to create one in about 30-40 years

[@rains3526]

I’ve wanted to go/live in Paris my whole life , recently Went for my first time in early feb , currently want to surprise my fam as it’s march right now and welll probabky go back in late summer and I want to surprise them just randomly start talking French aha

[@ariohandoyo5973]

Is it okay i didn't learn france but i'm watching this video?😂 i learn english i'm still struggling with vocabulary little by little i learn new words keep going for those of you who learn france.😊

[@numero9]

Keep up the good work :)

[@ariohandoyo5973]

@@numero9 thanks for your support

[@alwaysuseless]

I gave you a thumb up. Here's a free tip for the day: The name of the country and the name of the language may be very similar, but not the same. For example, you learn French, not France. You learn Spanish, not Spain, You were correct to say you learn English (not England). I hope this is helpful. :-)

[@JJ.ermenegildofregna]

Very difficult. And I'm italian. I can make out something when I read it (more or less) but almost nothing when spoken. And the grammar is terrible, like the italian one.

[@spotted7664]

À mon avis, l’orthographe du français est certainement unique et parfois un petit peu bizarre. Néanmoins je crois qu’elle est relativement consistante, et beaucoup plus même que celle de l’anglais. Ce qui me donnait des problèmes était surtout la prononciation des phrases entières, pas forcément des mots individuels. Parler en tout marmonnant comme ça, ce n’est pas du tout naturel pour un anglophone. Quant à la grammaire, bien qu’il y a plein d’étranges particularités je n’avais aucun problème avec les genres parce que j’ai étudié l’espagnol au lycée. Bon, ça correspond pas toujours mais c’est un excellent indice quand même. Il faut simplement traduire un mot donné à l’espagnol et voilà là dans la terminaison 🙃 Mon français n’est absolument pas parfait mais je comprends la vaste majorité de ce que disent les français, même entre eux. Donc voilà mon opinion pas du tout sollicitée lol

[@andrewzanas9387]

Absolutely, sharp listening skills are very important in distinguishing whether a new word is a noun, an adjective or a verb, etc., and if recognizable by its conjugate structure, that immediately puts it into a grammatical context. Conjugations point to actions, processes and needs. Adjectives point to nouns preceding them, and more likely tangible objects or concrete objectifications of abstract ideas. it is important we do not reverse them in their translation if we want to fully understand and develop good grammar in the employment of the native french. It's almost like we are apologizing for french being the lesser of the two languages when we anglicize translations. It is not. The Swiss use french for business and in complex finance and transaction use, and the Swedes employ french in defining theories and biological functions in medicine, in writing scientific white papers and in choosing the winners of Nobel prizes.

[@mathewweeks9069]

Your awesome and awesome video

[@briban65]

My main problem is telling apart the conditional and the imperfect for example lol

[@mohamedkhrarba3691]

Le problème d'une langue ce sont les structures des expressions, le vocabulaire, lui, on peut l'apprendre facilement si on s'y met. La difficulté de l'anglais vient du fait qu'il n'y a pas de règle pour la lecture, le français quant à lui, conjugaison et grammaire sont très compliquées.

[@jeanfrancoisbe2]

la grammaire est simple, mais les conjugaisons sont vraiment compliquées...

[@Jr-ft9ii]

@@jeanfrancoisbe2 les conjugaisons forment partie de la grammaire

[@abarette_]

if you think French conjugation is hard, never try slavic languages

[@Mal-vp6qn]

Listening is extremely hard, in daily conversations, their vowels are like 50% pronounced 😂

[@belstar1128]

Its not very difficult for English speakers because of the vocabulary but the way words are spelled makes no sense and some of the grammar is confusing (kind of like English lol) i think French is the hardest romance language and its probably super difficult for people who don't speak west European languages at all.

[@백인줄어든다]

I am studying listening skill here !!

[@highchamp1]

Base level in Romance languages. Then listen a lot (and pick up new words) I am not very good yet. (and trying this method.)

[@eliezerkraiman48]

70 % of French verb conjugations are only written which makes writing harder but at the same time, I tend to make fewer conjugation errors when speaking, in Spanish or Italian you have to Conjugate every verb when speaking and there are often no subjects to guide the person you're speaking to in order to understand them. for example I mess up the Tu and el/ella form in Spanish and all of a sudden the person thinks I'm talking about someone else when I was actually talking about them, with the Subject pronouns being used in French you know who the person is referring to even if they mess up the pronociation

[@eliezerkraiman48]

Spanish pronouns vary from country to country or region to region , ( tu vs vos vs usted ) they have different conjugations in the present tense as well ( vosotros in Spain as well), vos is often ignored in school although it is very widely used ( more so than vosotros in fact) in my 400 level Spanish class , a student had no idea what vos sos meant. In contrast in French the difference is less with Canadian French ver rarely using the vous form, while France spoken in France uses the vous form more often, and in African countries vous is used even more.

[@celine9322]

I’ve studied french words for several months and still can’t follow a regular french conversation. My brain doesn’t seem to connect spoken words to the written words which it does in german and italian and to an extent spanish. I almost felt like giving up on french out of frustration but I’m not going to do it.

[@Thelinguist]

You just have to continue. It just takes time. I would work on sentence view at LingQ, where the audio his time stamped to each sentence.

[@celine9322]

@@Thelinguist interesting. Thank you for the response! 😀

[@luciengrondin5802]

Wow I'm a French native speaker with a good English understanding and yet this thing about accents never occurred to me.

[@language_road_8_ro]

About gender, in Spanish, peluche is masculine, but it is feminine in French. As a Spanish speaker, I find it really hard. I would like to be just a good listener in French.

[@rasmia09]

Myself learning French being Spanish. Spoken French between natives definitely is the hardest part, more even than Polish or Russian seriously. When natives speak between themselves, I barely understand anything, it gets very frustrating.

[@SilmarCrepaldi]

A escrita vs pronúncia do francês é tão difícil quanto o inglês. Bom mesmo é português e espanhol nesse sentido. Você lê o que está escrito. Abraços.

[@Jr-ft9ii]

Eu não acho que a pronúncia do português tem 100% lógica com a escrita 😂 vocês tem muitas regras como "te", "ti", "de", "di" as quais não são sempre pronunciadas do mesmo jeito. Eu sou argentino e acho o português do Brasil tão bonito 😍

[@SilmarCrepaldi]

@@Jr-ft9ii Correto e bem dito. No português temos "João" e dizemos "Juão". Mas nada comparado com o Inglês ou Francês, essas línguas realmente não seguem em nada as letras em alguns casos: Whole, Bowl, Goal (do Inglês) têm o mesmo som final, mas ...ole, ...owl, ...oal, na suas escritas. Abrazos y cuídate hermano.

[@bhami]

You need captions to show the spellings of your French examples. The KZbin subtitles don't help with that.

[@Англійськамова.Відеоуроки]

I think in your next video you should tell people about the war in Ukraine. I watched your videos about Lviv, I know you like our city. 😢

[@jeffersonaraujoelcristiano]

¿Y en qué momento hablas solo en francés en el video?

[@MichaelRpdx]

Spelling in English is not obvious to English natives. Especially to them.

[@BartBVanBockstaele]

Professor Higgins would agree with you. kzbin.info/www/bejne/e3K8hqippbZpeLs

[@Jr-ft9ii]

If you're a Spanish speaker it's likely to be a piece of cake. At least so was it to me.

[@banana53358]

yeah because both of them are romance languages

[@Jr-ft9ii]

@@banana53358 exactly. Translations almost word by word

[@ab-nr9nw]

3:40 I am a non english speaker. I agree that english has strange spellings, silent letters, crazy rules etc. But since we studied english from childhood, we are able to understand it. But french is more difficult than english. English is nothing. French spellings, conjugation are really hard,... Till now I get confused by the words like vont, sont, va, veux, vous etc... In english it's very easy. I have, You have, He/she has, It has, They have. But in french masculine and feminine comes. For each different words are used. Such a crazy language. My goodness. 😂Pronunciation is really hard. English we know, but still we find it difficult to understand some difficlt accents, then french native accent itself difficult. Just imagine how difficult it is😆

[@MisterMunkki]

Grammar is tricky even for french kids xD So many exceptions, and exceptions to exceptions

[@Jr-ft9ii]

Exceptions to exceptions hahaha I loved it

[@BartBVanBockstaele]

That is precisely one of the reasons grammar is useless except for people who study linguistics. If there are more exceptions than regulars, regulars are exceptions and there is no point in learning a system that applies to them. On top of that, in most (if not all) languages the "exceptions" are part of the core language because they developed naturally, organically. The regulars aare less used, because they tend to be constructed on the basis of rules that were establshed before they came into use, contrary to the "exceptions".

[@류민-i9f]

I think the difficulty in French is pronounciation rather than the spelling. Spelling I can get used to it very easly. However the pronounciation is somewhat hard for me.

[@tchernobalde8106]

Good Teacher

[@publiusovidius7386]

Even the French find French difficult. Just read native speakers' comments on youtube videos. So many spelling and grammatical errors, especially faulty adjectival or participial agreement. For non-native speakers it's the spoken colloquial language that's the hardest part. Paratactic sentence structure, argotic vocabulary, suppression of the e muet with all the attendant consonantal assimilations, plus the lack of a tonic accent which makes all the words within a phrase seem to run together, all pose serious problems. It takes someone with linguistic gifts to learn to speak a fluent accentless French. Learning French just for reading comprehension, though, is pretty easy. And that gives you access to a large part of the riches of French culture.

[@sonjamir7751]

Steve, if one understands a lot of Spanish, but has studied French in high school, which of these two languages is better to start with again, and is it too much to learn them at the same time?

[@Thelinguist]

Depends on your motivation but Spanish is easier,. Depends where you live too.

[@abderahmanmauritani1433]

Je croi le lanngue fransai ce tres complicat . All words I wrote are wrong . Hhhhhh I feel English is more easy despite people in my country speak French as a second language.

[@markbr5898]

You are wrong when you say "Je" is wrong. Apparently getting everything wrong is hard.

[@abarette_]

just learn how to write the words before learning how to pronounce them :^)

[@fredericroy]

2:30 Hello, Hostel n'est pas hôtel mais auberge de jeunesse :) Hôtel est hotel.

[@Thelinguist]

Je le sais. C'est pas que les mots veulent dire la même chose. C'est seulement qu'ils sont reconnaissables.

[@GM-bq6zo]

I find it easier to listen to the language directly with subtitles etc rather than learning out of a grammer book. Grammer books are definitely useful and you do need to know how the language works, but it's like you end up trying to remember how the grammer works rather than remembering the language. Anyone else feel like that?

[@GM-bq6zo]

Also it's difficult when you think you have learned a word but then it can be used differently as another word, or multiple words, and in different ways, annoying

[@harryflash5202]

Où est la chanson française ?

[@whattheenglish6461]

Hi there, you can find the link in the description.

[@nabilcallies1756]

Tout d'abord, le français est une langue que j'aime beaucoup mais le chose qui me fait très ennuyeux c'est la conjugaison surtout les temps composé et la structure de la questions. Ce me gave beaucoup malheureusement 😖

[@BartBVanBockstaele]

Conjugation is unimportant (except for people who study linguistics). Just look at every form of a verb as separate words. Reality is that we don't conjugate when we are speaking. We just learn to subconsciously associate certain words with certain other words.

[@jeanfrancoisbe2]

pour les questions , une fois que vous avez intégré la formule "est ce que ...???" vous avez fait 50 % du chemin ! dont' worry !

[@jeanfrancoisbe2]

pour les conjugaisons apprenez d'abord le présent , le futur et le passé composé, le reste, vous verrez plus tard...

[@BartBVanBockstaele]

@@jeanfrancoisbe2 Je me rappelle avoir appris à l'école, il y a à peu près 45 ans, qu'il nous était défendu d'utiliser le passé simple parceque nous n'étions pas des littéraires reconnus...

[@jeanfrancoisbe2]

@@BartBVanBockstaele je dis bien qu'en pratique, il faut mettre en priorité le "passé composé" ; le passé simple, je l'adore, mais il est peu employé dans la vie de tous les jours ...

[@antoniodelima2066]

hey Steve, could you make a video telling us what you think about the war between Russya and Ukraine? we know you know a lot about both peoples.

[@kimberley8902]

Can you rate your fluency in languages you speak? I’m very curious.

[@ab-nr9nw]

5:14 Leave about objects, even different countries have different gender. Oh man! how french people decide which country is masculine and which is feminine? How do they know a country is male or female?? On what basis?No logic. That makes it very difficult

[@HusseinNAhmad]

French language easy to learn but the pronunciation and the conjugation is a bit hard ; "Il faut apprendre la langue française" .

[@Eric-le3uu]

How difficult is French? Well, I can say it's probably not as difficult as learning Japanese (for native English speakers) :)

[@tracygregory8448]

Hey Steve do you speak Portuguese? If so is it harder than French?

[@llxcas_]

He does

[@maximiliansonnenfeld8651]

the main Problem is understanding spoken French 1) its ridiculously fast 2) they speak very unclear 3) speak quiter 4) they keep cutting words in spite of so many already having only 2-3 sylablles. Italian in that regard is way easier, laut, clear, every syllable spoken etc

[@christiandufourmentel3237]

Euh! "Chevale" n'est pas correct (ce qui apparaît sur l'écran) "Le petit cheval blanc" Merci !

[@kokolexx]

Oui

[@pedrorogick2331]

As I 'm neither English nor French native speaker, I think that spelling of English is way more difficult than French's. In both languages, you can't hear a word and guess how it's written. However, in French, once you recognise the patterns, it's possible to read something and pronounce it correctly.

[@ShuOgawa]

The reason for that is because English not only has French words but from so many other languages as well so it’s un phonetic af

[@Jademoonx]

I don't agree at all. Most words in English are said how it's written down and the English language is spoken WAY slower than French. Most words in French are not spoken how it's written down and a lot of words are put together... Plus, the speed of the language is ridiculously fast, and this is coming from someone who lives in a neighborhood full of French speakers 😢😢

[@destaz7719]

​@@Jademoonx Actually, they're right. Except for very few exceptions, French is spoken how it's written down. You just have a lot of complicated rules to identify. For example, The "er" sound (at the end of the word is pronounced "é" except when it's not a verb and when it has 5 or less letters) , (words like léger, acier or loyer are still pronounced "é" because "ier" "yer" and "ger" are aways pronounced with the "é" sound or at least at the end of the word in "ger" case). I don't know if that's a real rule or not but that's something I told myself during my learning process after some confusing "er" words and it worked just fine. Also, a lot of the specific pronunciations that you find can be "cancelled" with a vowel (best example: charbon - carbone). You're right tho, french speakers speak extremely fast. It is way faster than english. The speed of the language caught me off guard multiple times.

[@jdprettynails]

English: Now Japanese: Ima French: Maintenent

Pls can you correct the subtitle CHEVALE merci

[@Thelinguist]

i'm not involved in the subtitles which are done by volunteers but I will look into it and try and get it corrected. Thank you.

[@jeffersonaraujoelcristiano]

Kind of.

[@emmanuelteshome2469]

When it comes to pronunciation, French is not that difficult as people make it out to be aside from the silent letters. The nasals are very easy. When you pronounce the letter ‘n’ the tongue touches the palate. Now to pronounce the nasal say ‘on’ but keep your tongue in its resting place. It’s impossible to say the ‘n’ when the tongue is down, but when you attempt to say ‘on’ the vowel becomes nasalized. It’s very easy. Now do the same for the other nasal vowels. The ‘r’ is a uvular fricative or another variety which people classify as the “harsh r” is the uvular trill. To pronounce the r, keep your tongue in its resting place and gargle without water, and get a feel for where it’s pronounced. And keep in mind the r is a fricative, it’s supposed to be a weak letter so don’t strain your throat while pronouncing it.

[@emmanuelteshome2469]

@Real Aiglon Your reply is laughable. “No amount of fancy linguistic names and abstract instructions for mandibular gymnastic will replace hours and years of listening to a language.” I never said that. Obviously you have to listen to the language to grasp the phonetics, that’s how I learned French phonology. I listened to French through many french videos, mostly from the channel “Easy French.” I visited many websites teaching French phonology, that’s how I came to my conclusion. Next time, think before replying.

[@ranaa2004]

Is Arabic difficult?

[@ab-nr9nw]

I heard that french ppl are rude towards foreigners. Is it possible to impress a french girl? How difficult it would be for a foreigner?

[@ksawerykaminski2606]

i was in france, they are not rude, but indifferent instead, because they don't know how to talk to a foreigner. They become much more passionate if you speak some french. I have to say french girls are quite difficult because they're very independent.

[@ab-nr9nw]

@@ksawerykaminski2606 Oh i see. thank u

[@douaseddiki4989]

I am learning french since I was 8 years old and I am 17 now still don't know how to say a good phrase in french 😂😂😂

[@jeanfrancoisbe2]

mais non, le français n'est pas si difficile que ça, je peux vous aider, si vous voulez.....

[@martincartwright5461]

My weakness is conversational french.

[@ab-nr9nw]

French govt should change the spelling and rules of the language and make it simpler. Crazy pronunciation. When I heard someone saying "une orange" I really didnt understand what he was saying. Later found that he meant the orange. ohanj. Who will understand what word they are saying. OMG. Crazy... 😂😂😂

[@mercury_icarus]

I mean a bunch of people speak with no issue just keep practicing,

[@abarette_]

most french natives can't into English because half the syllabes sound muffled to them "I rarely go to the tower", to a french native, will sound something like "I wwwli gow tou ze tawww" because the closest phoneme we have to the english 'r' is /w/ and the vowels are elongated for, to a french native, seemingly no reason. Because French phonetics do not make the distinction between short and long (thank god !!) In comparison the only "muffled" phonemes in French are - the approximated /ʁ/, like in the video, which is uncommon, normally more of a fricative and will make you sound like you're drunk or old as a result - the approximated /j/ like in "fille (/fij/, girl), rien (/ʁjɛ̃/, nothing), yeux (/yə/, eyes)" - the approximants /ɥ/ and /w/ which are nearly always just "u" (/y/) and "ou" (/u/) respectively in a vowel cluster, like for "huit (/ɥit/, eight), ouest (/west/, west)" French is easy, but only sometimes!

[@annarboriter]

L'orthographie française est plus facile que celle de l'anglais. Pour moi, la plus grande difficulté était d'avoir eu une enseignante au lycée qui elle-même ne pouvait pas parler proprement la langue

[@jeanfrancoisbe2]

non, l'orthographe française n'est pas plus facile que celle de l'anglais !

[@annarboriter]

@@jeanfrancoisbe2 Vous rigolez sūrement: tough, though, through, bought, bough, lough, plough, etc L'orthographie française est compliquée mais plus regulière que le sabir d'une langue qui est l'anglais

[@Jademoonx]

​@@annarboriterEven with all those examples you made, English would still be easier to learn. The sound is easier, the grammar is easier, and comprehension of the language is incredibly easy to obtain. English is one of the most easiest languages to learn....😅

[@annarboriter]

@@Jademoonx You can tell me that you've never taught ESL without telling me

[@Jademoonx]

@@annarboriter It's quite embarrassing for young people (

[@Cris-ky1mq]

Je suis Française mais je trouve la langue anglaise bien plus complexe, la prononciation et le vocabulaire sont plus riches.

[@jeanfrancoisbe2]

l'allemand ou le russe sont complexes, mais l'anglais est * aussi* complexe que le français, mais pas plus . le russe et l'allemand, oui !

[@Jademoonx]

That's because you guys don't put any effort into learning it. All your movies and shows are dubbed in French. Like the movies and shows in Spanish speaking countries and in Russia, that's why they don't learn it, but if you look at other countries like The Netherlands, half part of Belgium, Scandinavia, India... They watch the shows and movies in English with their native subtitles and also often without and put effort into understanding and learning English. English is one of the easiest languages to learn, that's why tons of people have it as their second language and that's why it's very important as you travel...

[@thomasarmer7771]

Le petit chevaL blanc, without a final e on cheval. Plural : chevaux.

[@schiarazula]

The easiest part in the French language is spelling.

[@titanoriginel7823]

Nom c pa dure

[@benabidlotfi]

To me the French language is easy to pronounce it Because we're in Algeria We speak French and Arabic And I , I am learning English. Mon je suis francophone et je peux parler en français facilement Merci beaucoup mon prof .

[@nomad_cat1]

French is extremely easy

[@jeanfrancoisbe2]

not really !

[@Jademoonx]

🤣 NOOOOOO