Spanish is Easier than French... Not!
The truth behind the myth
By Laura K. Lawless
In some respects, Spanish is easier than French
Spanish is what I like to call a phonetic language, meaning that the rules of orthography are very close to the rules of pronunciation.
Each Spanish vowel has a single pronunciation and although consonants may have two or more, there are very specific rules regarding
their usage, depending on where the letter is in the word and what letters are around it. There are some trick letters, like the silent H
and the identically-pronounced B and V, but all in all Spanish pronunciation and spelling are pretty straightforward. In comparison,
French has many silent letters and multiple rules with plenty of exceptions, as well as liaisons and enchaînement which add additional
difficulties to pronunciation and aural comprehension.
There are precise rules for the accentuation of Spanish words and accents to let you know when those rules are overridden, whereas in
French accentuation goes by the sentence rather than the word.
The fact is that once you've memorized the Spanish rules of pronunciation and accentuation, you can pronounce brand-new words with
no hesitation. This is rarely the case in French (or English, for that matter).
The most common French past tense, the passé composé, is more difficult than Spanish's pretérito.* The pretérito is a single word,
while the passé composé has two parts (auxiliary verb + past participle). The passé composé is just one of several French compound
verbs** and the questions of auxiliary verb (avoir or être) and word order with these verbs are some of French's great difficulties.
*The true French equivalent of the pretérito, the passé simple, is a literary tense which French students are usually expected to
recognize but not to use.
**Spanish compound verbs are much simpler: there is only one auxiliary verb and the two parts of the verb stay together, so word order
is not a problem.
French's two-part negation ne... pas is more complicated in terms of usage and word order than Spanish's no.
In some respects, French is easier than Spanish
The Spanish subject pronoun is usually dropped, thus it is essential to have all verb conjugations memorized in order to recognize (as
the listener) and express (as the speaker) which subject is performing the action. The French subject pronoun is always stated, which
means that verb conjugations - while still important, of course - are not as vital to comprehension: your own or your listener's. In
addition, French has just two words for you (singular/familiar and plural/formal), while Spanish has four (singular familiar, plural familiar,
singular formal, and plural formal). Actually, there are 5 - there's a different singular/familiar used in parts of Latin America with its own
conjugations.
French has fewer verb tenses/moods than Spanish.
French has a total of 15 verb tenses/moods, four of which are literary and rarely used, thus only 11 are used in daily French. Spanish
has 17, one of which is literary (pretérito anterior) and two judicial/administrative (futuro de subjuntivo and futuro anterior de subjuntivo),
which leaves 14 for regular use. Lots of conjugations!
The final straw, for me, is the subjunctive. While the subjunctive mood is the bane of students of both languages, it is more difficult and
much more common in Spanish.

The French subjunctive is used almost solely after que, whereas the Spanish subjunctive is used regularly after many different
conjunctions: que, cuando, como, etc.

There are two different sets of conjugations for the Spanish imperfect subjunctive and pluperfect subjunctive. You can choose
just one set of conjugations to learn, but you must be able to recognize both.

Si clauses (If... then... clauses) are very similar in French and English but are more difficult in Spanish. Note the two
subjunctive tenses that are used in the Spanish si clauses. In French these are literary tenses.
French and Spanish share some tricky aspects
There are sounds in both languages which can be very difficult for English speakers: French has the infamous R apical (pronounced in
the throat), nasal vowels, and the subtle (to untrained ears) differences between tu/tous and parlai/parlais. In Spanish, the rolled R, the
J (similar to the French R), and the B/V are the trickiest sounds.
Nouns in both languages have a gender and require gender and number agreement for adjectives, articles, and certain types of
pronouns.
The use of prepositions in both languages can be difficult, as there is often little correlation between them and their English
counterparts.
Confusing pairs abound in both:



French - c'est vs il est, encore vs toujours
Spanish - ser vs estar, por vs para
Both have the tricky two past-tense division (Fr - passé composé vs imparfait; Sp - pretérito vs imperfecto), two verbs that
mean "to know," and the bon-bien, mauvais-mal (Fr) / bueno-bien, malo-mal (Sp) distinctions.
Both French and Spanish have reflexive verbs, numerous false cognates with English that can trip up non-native speakers of either
language, and potentially confusing word order due to the positions of adjectives and object pronouns.
Neither French nor Spanish is necessarily easier than the other
Spanish is arguably somewhat easier for the first year or so - beginners may struggle less with pronunciation than their French-studying
colleagues, and one of the most basic Spanish verb tenses is easier than French. However, beginners in Spanish have to deal with
dropped subject pronouns and four words for you, while French only has two. Later on, Spanish grammar becomes more complicated,
and some aspects are certainly more difficult than French. All in all, neither language is definitively more or less difficult than the other.
Also keep in mind that each language you learn tends to be progressively easier than the previous one, so if you learn, for example,
French first and then Spanish, Spanish will seem easier. But don't let that fool you!
Lawless, Laura K. "Spanish Is Easier than French... Not!" About.com French Language. About.com, n.d. Web.
28 Jan. 2014