Is French a hard language to learn?

Question

is french hard to learn if you only know english? How long does it take to speak fluently?

Answer 1

yes to me

Answer 2

It depends. Pour moi, c'est facile.

lol. It's easy for me so far and I'm in my 3rd year learning it.

Some people are good at math, others are horrible. Some are good at science, others are not. You may be good at languages, or you may not be.

The answer really lies in your strongpoints and weakpoints.

I've heard that French is a difficult language to learn but I have not had much trouble learning it thus far.  

Answer 3

it's quite difficult

Answer 4

This is a very perspective question. There is no real answer to it. You shouldn't be asking yourself is French a hard language to learn, but do you want to learn it? Are you really passionate for this language to learn it. Without the will any language is extremely difficult to learn.  

Answer 5

if you speak fluent english it shouldn't take long to fluently speak french as lots of words are similar but in different accent.

Answer 6

It will most likely take between 5 and 10 years to become fluent in French. I have been taking classes for 6 years. If you only know English, you may have some difficulty seeing the "connections" between English and French, but as long as you have a good memory and practice regularly, French will not be excessively difficult (unlike Latin, which is very very hard).

Answer 7

I took Spanish in junior high school and French in high school and college.  Of the two, I found French to be easier to learn.  Other people swear up and down that French is one of the hardest languages to learn.  It all depends on you, and whether or not you have an innate skill at languages or whether you're willing to work hard to learn it.

Let me correct that - for reading and writing, French was easier to learn.  For learning to speak it with the correct accent - THAT was hard.  I never could speak it well; copying accents is not one of my skills.

If you're taking any foreign language through your public school system, don't expect to be truly fluent even after 4 years.  For one thing, learning to comprehend another language when spoken at a normal rate of speech by native speakers, that's not easy for many people.  You need a LOT of practice at listening.  You also need a lot of practice at speaking.  That accent thing doesn't come naturally to all of us.   And unfortunately, a lot of schools don't have the equipment to set up an adequate language lab, where you listen to recorded conversations, respond, listen to recordings of yourself.  Even in the schools that do have this set-up (even at the college level), it's pretty easy to fake your way through the language lab portion of class.

When it comes to reading and writing, you should have an excellent grasp of the language and enough of a vocabulary to read texts geared toward students by then end of your 2nd or 3rd high school year.  You don't learn idioms, you don't always learn a lot about local usages and common phrases.  So reading texts written by native speakers could still be a problem as they're going to use the phrases and idioms and other language conventions that are normal to them but that you haven't seen in a classroom.

Now, having said that - French is a beautiful language, and I loved studying it.  My French teacher got extra books for me and another girl in my class because we picked it up so quickly, and the teacher let us work on our own to work ahead of everyone else.  A good teacher is going to have additional materials - books, videos, music, etc. - to let their students practice what they've learned and learn what isn't in textbooks.  With a good teacher and a demonstrated willingness to work extra hard, you can become fluent.  Doesn't happen quickly, but it will happen.

Good luck to you.  I'm considering taking Spanish again, but oh how I would rather be taking more French!

Answer 8

It all depends on you.

Some things you can do are check out books that are in french from a library, watch kids french shows, listen to french music, and take classes. Find a friend that knows french and practice with him/her.

If you work hard enough you'll be fluent. :)