Spanish vs French: Difficulty, Grammar and More (7 Things You Should Know) (2023)

There are many reasons you might want to compare Spanish to French.

Maybe you need to decide which one to study, maybe you want to learn both, or maybe you're just curious!

In this article, we go over the main points of comparison between the two languages.

And I know because not only did I struggle with Spanish in high school, I'm now a polyglot who speaks both!

Use the navigation bar below to find the answer to your specific question, or read the full article for our full Spanish vs French comparison.

Note: I am affiliated with some of the resources mentioned in this article, so I may receive a small commission (at no cost to you) if you decide to purchase something. However, these affiliations have no information about the content of this article or what I recommend/do not recommend.

1. Do more people speak French or Spanish?

Like English, French and Spanish are official and business languages ​​in many countries.

You can click on the map to learn more about where exactly the former colonial powers landed. But part of the reason they've been taught so prominently in schools for so long is because of how useful they used to be in business, diplomacy, and travel.

While English is now considered the top priorityworld language, the number of countries that speak Spanish or French as an official language is significantly larger than English.

Let's compare the two languages ​​in their usefulness and look at the numbers.

• 76.8 million people worldwide speak French as their first language(2014) [Those]
• There are an estimated 274 million French speakersincluding people learning it as their country's official language (like in Haiti, where it's not their first language, butesthe language of school and government) and foreign language students in non-French speaking countries [Those]
• 30 countries have French as an official language,alone or with additional languages ​​[Those]
• The total number of French speakers is expected to reach 650 million by 2050.according to a demographic projection conducted by theLaval Universityit's himDemographic network of the Agencia Universitaria de la Francophonie
• 483 million people speak Spanish as their first languagein Spanish-speaking countries, either as a mother tongue or as an educational/business language (2019) [Those]
• 75 million additional people speak Spanishas a second language or with limited ability [Those]
• 20 countries have Spanish as an official language,alone or with additional languages ​​[Those]

But it's even more interesting!

• The largest Spanish-speaking population is in Mexicowith 126 million Spanish speakers [Those]
• The second largest population is in the United States.with 58 million Spanish speakers [Those]
• But French was also one of the most important colonial languages ​​of the United States,with descendants of French pioneers still living in Louisiana, parts of the Midwest and parts of New England (and still speaking French as a first language)! [Those]

So while Spanish has significantly more speakers overall, French is a language that is better studied and spoken in more countries.

2. How similar are Spanish and French?

The French and Spanish share much more than their colonial past.

Just as France and Spain ruled most of the world during the historical period of conquest, they have something else in common: their homelands were originally conquered by the Romans.

The languages ​​originally spoken in Spain and France have long since disappeared, with the exception of Basque. (That's a story for another time.)

Latin eventually overtook the local indigenous languages ​​of much of Europe. But as the Roman Empire began to break and split, so did the language.

The graph on the right is an oversimplification of the history of the Latin languages ​​and excludes many of the 40 Latin languages ​​spoken today. (Not to mention many of the inactive languages ​​that are no longer spoken, such as Dalmatian and the African Romance languages.)

But when you see the closeness in French and Spanish family trees, you can get a good idea of ​​their similarities (and differences).

Lexical similarities between French and Spanish

"Lexical similarities" means how many words are identical (or nearly identical) between two languages. For Spanish and French, the lexical similarity is about 75%. In comparison, Spanish and English share a lexical similarity of only 30-50%, and French and English only 40-50%. That's because Spanish and French are not only neighboring, but also belong to the same Romance language family.

[Those 1] [Those 2] [Those 3]

All Romance languages, even if they are far apart in the family tree, have some things in common.

But in Spanish and French these similarities can be hidden. This is mainly because it sounds very different from other European languages ​​due to the distinctive French accent, or because there are many different dialects in Spanish.

But let's look at a few words to get a taste. (And I'll leave you an emoji so you can guess the word in English).

• *Spanish,French
• 🍛 to eat;to eat
• 🌎 the world;the world
• 🏛️ Politics;Politics
• 🧀 the cheese;the cheese
• 🍷 the wine;the wine
• 📖 the book;the book
• 🐶 the dog;the dog
• 🏫 the school;School
• 🌲 the tree;The tree
• 🍳 das Hey;das hey

So you can see which words might have similar Latin roots... and which might not.

Unfortunately, French and Spanish are not mutually intelligible due to the different accents (and grammar).

(That is, if you speak one, you may not necessarily understand the other.) However, if you can read and write one, you may understand some of the other when written down, where the similarities are most apparent.

Still, it means that when you learn one language, you often get thousands of free words in the other. (One of the many reasons why most polyglots tend to speak so many Romance languages. Sometimes it can feel like buying a three gets three free!)

Grammar of the Romance Language

In my experience, the quickest way to understand grammar in other languages ​​is to understand the grammar of your own language.

So let's take a look at the two main dialects of English (Standard American and Standard British) and their grammatical differences.

After exploring English, we will see how what we have learned can be applied to French and Spanish grammar.

There are some simple questions and some answers in both dialects that sound "normal" to the native speaker's ear.

• Why did Jenny feel bad?
• 🇬🇧: She ate too much.
• 🇺🇸: He ate too much.
• I can't find my keys.
• 🇬🇧: Have you seen them?
• 🇪🇸: Have you seen them?
• Where were you?
• 🇪🇸: No hospital.
• 🇧🇷 : No hospital.
• Come with us?
• 🇪🇸: I could do it.
• 🇺🇸: I could.

[Those]

No matter what dialect you speak, you can clearly see the differences, but you won't have any trouble understanding the other person's dialect.

But your way of saying it wouldn't be like thatOfwould say the sentence

So why am I dabbling in English grammar?

This is because dialects tend to diverge from one another over time, and over the last 300 years our English grammar has certainly drifted quite a bit apart.

But more than 2000 years?

The grammar is very differentCompletely new languages ​​are born.

And that's what happened with Spanish and French.

So let's compare French and Spanish grammar using some of the vocabulary above.

• 🇬🇧🇺🇸 The wineesparts list.
• 🇪🇸The wineesgeb.
• 🇫🇷The wineThat's itgeb.

So far, so good! European languages ​​have a lot in common.

Now let's make these sentences a little more complex.

• 🇩🇪🇺🇸 ORotWeinesparts list, ButNeeda glass Water.
• 🇪🇸 The winetintoesgeb, Butneeda glass Water.
• 🇪🇸 WeinRougeThat's itgeb, Advance paymentneedD'a glassWater.

You can see them starting to drift into their own 'romantic speech' form of English when you see the descriptor (red) swap places with the object (wine).

Despite how different the French way of saying "I need" is, they still look relatively similar.

So let's go one level further.

• 🇩🇪🇺🇸 Also Ter Wein? /NO, completeNO Wein,I am really sorry.
• 🇪🇸 ¿Tem Wein? /NO, NOtonight Wein,forgiveness.
• 🇺🇸 before you have of wine? /NO, Illinoisnorte'alreadyNO of wine,I am really sorry.

With French, like with English, we have few opportunities to ask questions. In English, we can tag a statement (“you have wine”) with “do” to make it a question.

Likewise, in French they have meant "est-ce que" (pronounced /es-cow/, literally "that's it").

But in Spanish you only have the statement but you bend the voice to make it louder. (The written language has an inverted question mark to avoid confusion.)

Then we have the construction "there is" or "there is not" which, as you can see here, is a bit more complicated in French. That's a topic for another post, but saying "no" in French is more complicated than in English or Spanish.

In short, French and Spanish share much of their basic grammar.

But since the fall of the Roman Empire, both have clearly become languages ​​in their own right.

3. Is French or Spanish easier?

There are many important factors to consider when it comes to ease of speech:

• The relation of the target language to your mother tongue
• Peculiarities in that language (such as pronunciation or irregular grammar)
• your motivation to learn

Let's briefly cover this in 3 sections.

However, if you are wondering which one is easier for you.OfTo learn, I suggest taking my test:Should I learn French or Spanish? (Questionnaire 2020).This will give you a much deeper explanation.

The relationship between English and Spanish or French.

We have already checked the lexical similarities of English, Spanish and French. In short, English shares slightly more words with French than with Spanish.

This is because English was not only influenced by Latin with the Roman invasion of the British Isles in 50-500 [Those], but again by the Normans (aka the French) in the 1000s. [Those]

This means that English had two historical points of contact with Latin: first with Latin itself, then with medieval French.

Therefore, the English-Spanish vocabulary and grammatical connection comes from that first achievement, which dates back much longer.

And the Anglo-French connection was much younger: around 1,000 years ago.

Therefore, the Spanish-English connection is much less direct and much longer. So words likeMyrrhe(pretend) may seemSpiegel(the thing you're looking at) andpork meatcould appearPork meat,but the connection is not always obvious.

With the French, however, the connection is more obvious as the contact was more recent.

some people drinkfinebut others preferbeersBefore you leave home, you mustchargerthey areTelephoneand run to himbathroomquickly wipe off a little makeup with aTo brush.

When it comes to Spanish or French, English speakers therefore have a clear advantage over, for example, Russian speakers.

But French can give English speakers a slight vocabulary advantage over Spanish.

But let's take a look at one of the most peculiar characteristics of French: its pronunciation.

Spanish vs French pronunciation

French pronunciation is quite...unique.

You may have seen such memes online that joke about French homophones (words that sound identical).

French can be like that sometimes. And in class you'll even learn all about them!

So if you compare French to Spanish in terms of accent, the French accent is far from being the accent of any other Romance language.

You may have heard that under certain circumstances, Spanish speakers and Italians can understand each other. The same goes for Portuguese and Spanish or Spanish and Catalan.

But nobody says that about French.

Maybe they canfileOf course in French. But understand when someone speaks?

This is because Spanish (like many of the Romance languages) has 5 different vowels: a, e, i, o, u.

You might think it's also because of the amount of English, right? But say the words "cut" and "put" out loud.

These guys are different.

Try hat and hate.

These are two different ones.

That's because English can only have 5-6 vowel letters, but these letters roughly represent19-21travel sounds.

Likewise, French only has 5-6 vowel letters, however13-15Vowels, including nasal vowels (which we don't have in English). [Those]

And again: Spanish has only5.

(When Y is used, it says the same as i.)

Catalan has7-8. Italian has7. European Portuguese has9.

So the Spanish accent is much simpler than the French.

How long does it take to learn French vs Spanish?

I've written about this topic before, but according to the US government, it takes about the same amount of time to learn any Latin language: French, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Italian... you name it.

However, if you want to know exactly how long it would takeyou personallyTo learn French or Spanish, I have included two great calculators on my website for you.

• How long does it take to learn Spanish? [CALCULATOR]
• How long does it take to learn French? [CALCULATOR]

The articles above will take around 15 minutes, but until then, you have a time frame that is tailored to you personally.

4. Which one has more resources for language learning?

One thing that many language learners fail to realize (including me many years ago) is that the amount of resources in a language can have a huge impact on your ability to learn the language.

The good news is that both Spanish and French are spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Not only have governments invested heavily in creating good resources, but also individual teachers and publishers trying to capitalize on the languages' popularity.

I have a huge list of language learning resources broken down by language and level. But for now here are some of my favorites that I've usedboth languages(No matter what you're considering, this list might come in handy.)

• Individualized courses:Michel Thomas audio courses, workbooks that lead to perfection
• To form:Anki, Mango Languages ​​​​​​or my favoritehabs
• Funny listening exercises: Channel Youtube Simple Languages
• Funny reading exercises:one of the many picture books for language learners available at your favorite bookstore (too many to list)

But for huge lists compiled by students and language teachers, check out my lists of level and language specific language resources.

5. Should I learn French or Spanish?

If you are a US student, you may need to learn a language in order to earn a language credit.

Or if you're an adult looking for a new hobby, you might think that learning a language (any language) would be a great hobby that would look great on your resume.

No matter why you want to choose between French and Spanish, there are some important things to consider that this article cannot cover.

That's because they're personalOfjyour priorities

This list is:

1. Are you interested in French or Spanish?
2. What do you usually do for fun?
3. Where do you live?
4. What do you do (or want) professionally?
5. Do you speak well in your family?
6. do you want to travel

The reason this is all so incredibly personal is becauseLanguage learning is personal. Becoming fluent in a language can take months of full-time work or years of casual work. Spending all your time with a language becomes incredibly frustrating when you don't understand it.Whyyou learn it

If you want to answer these questions yourself, go toShould I learn French or Spanish? (Questionnaire 2020)

6. Is it possible to learn French and Spanish at the same time?

The short answer is yes!

Butyou need tolearn French and Spanish at the same time?

Depends on.

I studied both languages ​​together for years and for me it was the perfect solution to my lack of attention and curiosity.

Some advantages of learning French and Spanish at the same time are:

• Choosing which language to focus on on any given day will save you from boredom
• They have a lot in common, often if you learn a word in one you can guess it in the other.
• Advance paymentMusic,Netflix,YouTuberand language learning resources to enjoy!

But some problems youwillpowerface are:

• Time division between 2 languages ​​= slower language learning progress
• This will confuse them for a while, and this can be extremely frustrating.

If you want to learn more about learning two languages ​​at once and see my personal tips from my experience, check out my postLearn French and Spanish at the same time.

Want to learn more about Spanish vs French?

As you saw in this article, I speak a lot of French and Spanish. I also have an incredible passion for language learning!

Leave any other questions you have about French vs Spanish in the comments. I'll keep an eye out here and possibly add another section to the page if I think it's valuable to others.

Hope this article was helpful and like I said:let me know if you want to see anything more on this topic!