# Forum Other Languages Romance languages French  Easier to learn:  French or Russian?

## Milo Bloom

Allo!    ::   
  J'habite a Montreal, et je suis pas mal bilingue entre anglais et francais.  (je m'excuse pour les accents!)  Je commence a apprendre la russe.  Lequel est la plus facile a apprendre? 
  I live in Montreal, and I'm pretty much bilingual (English & French).  I'm just starting to learn Russian.  I'm just wondering which is easier to learn? 
A prochaine chicane! 
Мило 
P.S. For Admin person... how come French accents get encoded?  i.e. "Allo" should have a 'hat' on the "o", but it comes out like "All&ocirc;".

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## waxwing

salut.. 
I have voted for French *with the obvious proviso that I mean for native English speakers*. The same would, fairly obviously, apply to speakers of the other members of the Romance group of languages (Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Romanian .. +?).
I'd be interested to see what speakers of German think?

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## Saavedra

I'm going to go with French, although I may be biased since I speak French okay and I'm a rank beginner at Russian... but French has a lot more words that sound like English, so it's easier to guess at

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## bad manners

> but French has a lot more words that sound like English, so it's easier to guess at

 It is the other way around, actually.

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## Oddo

I disagree totally with bad manners. English is more than half Latin and  French by origin, meaning many of the words are similar to English words (although not usually the most commonly used words e.g. "cheval" means horse in French and "cavalry" means the horses in the army in English). However, Russian similar words are often modern words such as telephone, airport and businessman etc.

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## bad manners

> I disagree totally with bad manners. English is more than half Latin and  French by origin, meaning many of the words are similar to English words (although not usually the most commonly used words e.g. "cheval" means horse in French and "cavalry" means the horses in the army in English). However, Russian similar words are often modern words such as telephone, airport and businessman etc.

 You're actually agreeing with me. "The other way around" meant it was English words that sounded like French (not French like English), because they were taken from French and Latin.  ::

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## Oddo

Ah - are you a native english speaker, because french words still sound like english words even if it is the english words that are derived from the french!

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## bad manners

> Ah - are you a native english speaker, because french words still sound like english words even if it is the english words that are derived from the french!

 Yup. "Engagement", in French, sounds distinctively English.  ::

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## alexnoe

> I'd be interested to see what speakers of German think?

 I am one  ::  
I recommend russian to everyone who tells me that French is soooo terribly hard to learn, to realize what 'hard' really means! Especially, on french.about.com they complain about the terrible french agreement system  ::  ... and french has only 2 genders and no cases! 
Of course, french has a conjugation which can drive you made. Compare:
[i]je crois que le fran

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## Pravit

Hej, hallo! Ich spreche nur ein bisschen Deutsch, aber nat

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## alexnoe

[quote]Wenn ich Fehler mache, bitte erz

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## Pravit

GAHHHH!!! I knew the "sich freuen" thing! One of those temporary lapses of idiocy, my apologies. Perhaps we should continue this conversation in the German forums...

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I would agree that French is the more difficult language.  Though, before i started formal french instruction, my father taught it to me in the way that i would expect other familys with a strong connection to their origins would... Since i did not grow up in a russian family, but have recently gained some russian-speaking family and have always had native speakers for friends... I do have a bit of an advantage when i am learning the new language.  Being that i started to learn languages so young (as my family is also italian), they come easier to me.  I'd go so far as to say that japanese is easier than russian, as well, and that is not exactly an "easy" language either.  I think what makes a language easy or hard depends on your native tongue, and how often you hear the other language.  I don't know if i have just made any sort of intelligent contribution to this conversation, or if i just felt like typing, but either way... I'm in a good mood.   ::

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sorry, that last post was me... can't figure out this thing... if it doesn't show up, my name is SpeakRussiantome

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## translationsnmru

> sorry, that last post was me... can't figure out this thing... if it doesn't show up, my name is SpeakRussiantome

 Try logging in  ::

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## amazon princess

Oui, je pense qu'il depend. Je parle espagnole aussi *je suis mexicaine* est le francais et assez facile pour moi...plus facile que le russe.  Et si on parle anglais aussi, le francais est tout comme meme plus facil non?!  Je trouve que le russe est possiblement le langue le plus dificile du monde a mon avis!   ::   Mais je l'aime!

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## soulhaz

Je pense que francais est le plus facile. En fait, j'estime que l'allemand et (Russian, je ne sais pas le mot  ::  ) sont un peu similaire, a cause de tout les (cases,) etcetera. 
vous etes d'accord?

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## soulhaz

le premiere mot est cas, je pense. 
aussi, c'est russe. 
Felicitations, moi!  ::

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I believe French is so much easier to learn than Russian. I love languages but have only studied a little. I just finished my 4th year of French, my first year of Spanish and I started learning Russian last summer. Perhaps I believe French is the easiest because it is the language I am presently most familiar with (save English).  
What makes Russian so difficult for me is trying to speak without an American accent   ::   and trying to understand cases and all the other grammer things I am just starting to learn about. The conjugation of verbs doesn't bother me but...conjugating other things....woo! Way above my head right now....  ::

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## Mordan

Being a french native speaker, my opinion does not really matters. Nevertheless I feel Russian is more difficult overall. 
Mainly due to 
cases and all the irregularities.
imperfecive/perfective
moving stress

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## brett

Je pense que c'est in petit illusion que Russe est comme difficile que repute.Debutants seront toujuors etre intimidated par le lexicon cyrillic.(Excuse mon francais, it's a bit niggly here and there).Je trouve que les langues avec le plus nombre des lettres sont plus facile a pronounce.Je crois que anglais a besoin de fixing itself up, en regard a 'ecrivais a parle'.Les anglais aristocratic intellectuals toujour parlent que ni leur (alor, mon) est le pinnacle d'intellingence.Mais, c'est le plus inconsistant, donc le plus out-of-date/obsolite lague du monde (as far as credibility is concerned.Obviously ce n'est pas obsolite, actuallement).English has old spellings with new pronunciations.So, illiteracy in the English speaking world can be blamed not just on the individual, but on the language itself.Eg. 'though', 'thought', 'bough', 'rough'.No other language in the world would have a 4 letter diphthong yet still leave you up in the air as to how to pronounce it.Where on earth did the 'f' sound in 'rough' come from? Hundreds of years ago, in gaelic, yes maybe they pronounced it how it's spelt.But, English is so stubborn and therefore the least impressive language I've ever come across.I'm just glad I'm a native speaker.
Je vote "about the same" a ce question.Mais, ma russe est juste a commence.Mais, vous francais coulant will probably dire le meme de mon francais. :P .Ainsi, ma croire n'est pas bien informe en regard a russe.
Le francais a beaucoup de abreviated forms et combinations, donc il y'a deux stage de apprendre.Le formal dans l'ecole.Et alors, 'le rue' francais, ou'est-cest que les parlent en code, presque, quelle n'apprend pas en ecole.
Le pronuciation en francais, mais plus facile a parler que le russe, est plus difficile to recognize quand tu entend.Parce que, tout de lettre combinations ils endendent un 'on'' sound.L'espangol, maintenant c'est facile a recognize how to spell wht you hear.J'aime les langues phonetiques le plus bien.Suomi (Finnish), par example.
Alor, c'est moi!

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## Pravit

However, it always helps to have learned both languages before you make a judgement on it. About English spelling, I agree with you, but there is a bit of a system to it. It's the same system which allows native English speakers to know (in most cases) how to correctly pronounce a word they've never seen before. I think modernizing the spelling would be almost as hard as getting the Chinese to give up using characters.

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## brett

En regard au chinois, je sais qu'ils tiennent sur a la characters, oui.Bien sur, un langue ne dois jamais partir leur roots et culture.Mais l'equivalent de chose je dit de l'anglais, il'est leur introduction de pinyin.Un autre example de les langue etant up-to-date mais sans loisir le culture, il'est les langues Scandinavie.Icelandic est ancien, encore apres un mille ans.Mais c'est toujour on the ball at keeping up avec des mots mouvelle.Les introduisent (introduce) les mots, mais adapt them to their grammar and spelling.Ils sont un organization avec la communite a decidire quelles mots a includuire, et quelque mots sont trop etrange.Ils permettent la communite participate a the dicison making process.Aussi, Svenka/Swedish (suede?).C'est tres up to date, comparativement.Par example, ils ont maintenant juste un forme par chaque tense.(Je pense que tu es la personne qui se parle Svenska, ou est-ce il Dogboy ou un autre.Ils ont unite(unified) a pattern where almost all past tense, future and present and infinitive can be predicted.It makes for smooth transition in learning.Je ne suis pas a linguistic militant, but je pense c'est natural for languages to adapt higher degrees of accuracy and pattern as the world gets smarter and more complex.The smartest languages are not the ones with the highest difficulty level.They're the ones which can make simple, the growing range of culture which creeps into the language.The most capable languages are the ones that aren't just comprehensible to intelligent people, but also to the less capable.Bien sur, il y'a quelque de pattern en anglais.Mais, je pense que il peux faire meiller.I don't believe in being sacred about language, as if its perfect.I think just as we improve our ability to speak the language, the language can also improve its ability to be spoken well.I suppose its a balance really.Tradition vs practicality.And for me, communication ease (for also the less intelligent people who can't pick patterns as easily) should always be purpose number one.But I must say one positive about English.Its great for poetry.There are so many words with the same meaning, and you can interchange grammar excitingly.Though in saying that, I'm not good anough at any other language to be able to 'play around with' their words poetically.I don't expect English to drop everything and change.No.But just a little more effort and less stubborness would be nice.

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## Antono

Such questions always depend on the student: If his/her mother tongue is Slavic or if (s)he had contact with Slavic languages, then Russian will be easier...and if his/her mother tongue is Romanic or if (s)he had contact with Romanic languages...Get what I mean?  ::

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## Pravit

Brett, please, please, that horrible mongrel of a French/English post is hurting my eyes. All French or all English, please.

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## brett

Ha, ha! Oui, je concede! J'en travaillerais, Pravit.Mais bien sur, quelque de temps vous ne me comprendrez pas.Mais oui!

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## Antono

Tu peux partager tes textes en paragraphs.  ::

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## Pravit

On dit que la langue francaise est la plus belle langue du monde. Je n'approuve pas ca, mais il est certain qu'elle n'est pas la plus belle si on la melange avec l'anglais comme ca. Le francais n'est pas un cheval et l'anglais n'est pas un ane. Mais ce que tu as ecrit se resemble a un mulet.   ::   
(and please do pardon any missing accents graves, accents acutes, circumflexes, etc.)

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