French vs German

Hello everyone,

So I was studying and practicing some french vocabulary the other day, my friend saw me, laughed and said "I'd be studying German if I was you". He said this because he thinks the usefulness of French is often over stated, and that although French was spoken in more countries, German had more native speakers. For me, I think it all comes down to the reason for learning a particular language. If the culture appeals to you, learn it. German looks pretty difficult to me,is it possible to learn them together? In your opinion,do you think French is overrated?

I don't think that French is overrated :), I believe that you can learn them both at the same time if you have the time. They don't have the same roots so there shouldn't be a problem, I'm trying to learn German and Italian at the same time and I haven't had issues confusing them.

My big brother used to study German. He could speak the basics but stopped learning because his reason for learning it went away. According to him, his teachers said learning French would be easier when you learned German because the phonetics were similar on many levels. I don't know about the sentence construction though.

Jess.PWinkler wrote:

They don't have the same roots so there shouldn't be a problem.

Won't that make it even harder to study together?

Phillip.Laplana wrote:

My big brother used to study German. He could speak the basics but stopped learning because his reason for learning it went away. According to him, his teachers said learning French would be easier when you learned German because the phonetics were similar on many levels. I don't know about the sentence construction though.

Really? I didn't know that, they sound completely different to me though.

Oghenekevwe wrote:

I think it all comes down to the reason for learning a particular language.

I completely agree. If you want to be an auto engineer and live in Germany, then you should learn German. If you want to talk to French speakers of neighboring countries, learn French. etc

Is French overrated? It's the 2nd most studied second language in the world (after English), and there are many reasons for that, so I wouldn't go around calling it overrated :)

Phillip.Laplana wrote:

My big brother used to study German. He could speak the basics but stopped learning because his reason for learning it went away. According to him, his teachers said learning French would be easier when you learned German because the phonetics were similar on many levels. I don't know about the sentence construction though.

I didn't know that. I thought the similar ones were French, Spanish and Italian (e.g. bien). Also, French sounds more nasal while German is more...guttural.

Charlyn wrote:

Hi Oghenekevwe! I think it depends on the level of your interest. If you find that French is more appealing, then probably it's good if you focus on that first for your convenience.

agree. if someone really wants to learn different languages, he/she must know what to prioritize and why. :blush:

Charlyn wrote:

Hi Oghenekevwe! I think it depends on the level of your interest. If you find that French is more appealing, then probably it's good if you focus on that first for your convenience.

Of course,I agree with you Charylin.

ikaymoreno wrote:

Phillip.Laplana wrote:

My big brother used to study German. He could speak the basics but stopped learning because his reason for learning it went away. According to him, his teachers said learning French would be easier when you learned German because the phonetics were similar on many levels. I don't know about the sentence construction though.

I didn't know that. I thought the similar ones were French, Spanish and Italian (e.g. bien). Also, French sounds more nasal while German is more...guttural.

My native language is Spanish. I started to learn some Italian and I was thinking to add French but when I started, the pronunciation is way too difficult for me compared to Italian, now based on the fact that Ibam very short of time at the moment I have decide to drop French at the moment and just focus in one language for now.

And I don't think Fench overrated at all, it is such a beautiful language.

Well, I think we can all agree that French is a beautiful language and no one can dispute how widely spoken and popular it is.

Oghenekevwe wrote:

Well, I think we can all agree that French is a beautiful language and no one can dispute how widely spoken and popular it is.

Hear, hear. It is a splendid-sounding language spoken by many!

It depends on which language you plan on using more and in which field of work you are in. If you are in field where it's more likely to hear french...then go for french. I think both are similar in sense of usefulness

dragonsky wrote:

It depends on which language you plan on using more and in which field of work you are in. If you are in field where it's more likely to hear french...then go for french. I think both are similar in sense of usefulness

You're correct, thanks for your input!

Apart from pragmatic reasons of learning the language, one should also think about which language is more appealing to their soul :) I know many people who don't like German for it's grammar and 'harsch' pronunciation, and vice versa - people who can't stand French for it's orthography and phonetics. I believe it's much easier to learn the language if you actually like it :) 

Vladyslava wrote:

Apart from pragmatic reasons of learning the language, one should also think about which language is more appealing to their soul :) I know many people who don't like German for it's grammar and 'harsch' pronunciation, and vice versa - people who can't stand French for it's orthography and phonetics. I believe it's much easier to learn the language if you actually like it :)

Yes! I imagine it would be quite difficult to endure the frustrations of learning a new language if you didn't actually like it. Better if you were in love with it. :)

Oghenekevwe wrote:

So I was studying and practicing some french vocabulary the other day, my friend saw me, laughed and said "I'd be studying German if I was you". He said this because he thinks the usefulness of French is often over stated, and that although French was spoken in more countries, German had more native speakers. For me, I think it all comes down to the reason for learning a particular language. If the culture appeals to you, learn it. German looks pretty difficult to me,is it possible to learn them together? In your opinion,do you think French is overrated?

Learning both of them together could be a bit challenging sometimes. But it can be done. There are many who already did something similar (i.e. learning French and Dutch at the same time or whatever). Needless to say that not every approach works equally well.

And as for my point of view on French being more important than German or vice-versa, I don't feel as if anyone would have to necessarily learn any of them. As a general statement. If one is living in a country where one of them is spoken, of course there are some advantages in knowing it. Other than that, I do not consider the first langue as a substitute for the second (also not the other way around). But they both could complement each other.

Background: native of German, and B2 to C2 understanding of especially written French (it depends on the context and subject).