The most difficult thing about French for a Spaniard

 Today we are going to discuss the difficulties that the study of French offers for Spaniards, since French and Spanish are two related languages, on the other hand, the pronunciation of one and the other differ a lot , which is made difficult by grammatical coincidences.

Indeed, although it is true that French is not difficult to learn for a Spaniard, taking into account that both are Romance languages, that share very similar grammatical structure, and that it is also learned relatively quickly, it may seem somewhat strange that we are going to write on the most difficult aspects of French and not of another language. Why?

There are several reasons

Indeed, there are several reasons of various kinds. Well, it is a language that is spoken by more than two hundred million people in more than 30 different countries. It also shares with English the officiality in the teaching of languages ​​in the five continents, to which we must add that it is one of the most used on the  Internet  while it is also one of the most demanded by companies.

But very especially, because French contains elements or aspects that Spaniards find it a bit difficult to learn, which are pronunciation and spelling. We are going to dedicate our article to these issues in order to provide solutions.

It is not that we are going to teach you French, what we do with great pleasure is to clear the way so that students can circulate through it more freely and make their studies a pleasant and comfortable walk.

The pronunciation

We must insist that both English and French, due to their peculiar characteristics in pronunciation, offer certain resistance to the Spanish student, because it is very difficult for us to approach French pronunciation at times. The main question is that French has 37 phonemes, that is, seven more phonemes than Spanish, and this is a question that is also complicated because some phonemes are nasal (that the air has to pass through the nasal cavity) and it is not more difficult when speaking.

The greatest difficulty arises as a consequence of the fact that in Spanish we lack these phonemes and we have to make an effort to learn them properly , and it also influences that in French there are many silent letters. We have no choice but to learn them and practice a lot about it, but with a little patience and interest the problem is solved.

What would be the correct solution?

Obviously, it is first of all to listen to it a lot until our mind makes it endearing, this will help a lot when pronouncing it. Today there are many applications on the Internet to listen to these sounds and practice them.

In Spain it is not difficult to practice with tourists, and even in many places there are language exchange bars that can facilitate contact with French natives.

Spelling

Contrary to Spanish, in the French language, words are not written as they are pronounced, this coupled with the fact that many words are written almost the same as in Spanish, which confuses the Spanish speaker all too often. This question is one of the cumbersome for the study of French by the Spanish.

The solution is very simple , write, write and write in French. But also, the hundreds of French films subtitled in French make it easy for us, which not only teach us the spelling, but also help us to correct the defects that we acquire in our pronunciation.

Grammatical distinctions

Grammatical structures are often specified in writing, as opposed to spoken French. In the spoken phrase, it is deduced from the context, on the other hand, you have to be much more precise when writing . If the books are a bit overwhelming, don’t worry, the best formula will then be to watch movies in French, this being perhaps the most accurate solution, since it allows you to compare what they say with how it is written.

Pay attention to morphology

The Spanish language is lavish in formulas to form the plural and to distinguish the masculine and feminine genders , this perhaps does not help us much with French and that is why we tend to make mistakes regarding genders and plurals.

Naturally, the solution is to know well the grammar rules to put them into practice. Rules that teach you at any French school or academy, or by consulting the French grammar in one of the hundreds of edited texts. Movies and books are the most effective auxiliary tools for the study of a language such as French, which contains different sounds and writing from Spanish.

As you may have seen, we have explained in the simplest way the most generalized difficulties in the study of French for Spaniards, and we have also provided solutions to face these difficulties. Now it is about using time and of course, a little effort. With these ingredients we are convinced that you can get out of these problems. These and other tips can be obtained by reading the numerous articles of this one on our blog.