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Original poster

Is Spanish easier than French?

32 replies

bananacake1 · 27/04/2017 10:00

Is Spanish easier to learn than French? And does that mean it is easier to get a 8/ 9 in GCSE Spanish than GCSE French?

Are people really better at one Romance language than the other with the same amount of teaching in both?

DS has to choose between these options today. He says that he prefers French, but according to his results, he's better at Spanish.(NB he said he preferred French before he got the results - knowing him, the only thing that he really prefers is minimal work!).

OP posts:
PatriciaHolm · 27/04/2017 10:17

DH speaks both to an extent, and definitely says Spanish is easier at this level - far more "say what you see" rather than "oh no, don't say that letter..."

alteredimages · 27/04/2017 10:15

bananacake1 what do you know about the teachers for each subject? Aside from student motivation, I suspect that the most important variable in your son's success will be the quality of the teaching and whether the teacher fits well with your son's style of learning.

Original poster
bananacake1 · 27/04/2017 10:13

Last year:
92,000 took Spanish GCSE and 27% got A/ A*
145,000 took French GCSE and 23% got A/ A*

www.bstubbs.co.uk/gcse.htm

There's not much to choose between them, is there?

Would a GCSE in either actually be useful in the future? I have not made much use of the French I took at school in the last 35 years since I left, but they say that the Spanish speaking world is exploding.

OP posts:
WhatHaveIFound · 27/04/2017 10:10

Personally i'm not worried about which one is easier to get an 8/9 in. I think they should do the one they like and which they feel would be more useful for travel in the future.

DD opted to do Spanish GCSE even though she had better marks in French. I get the feeling DS may go the same way as he has just picked Spanish instead of German to study alongside French in Y8.

alteredimages · 27/04/2017 10:08

I have no idea about exams and whether French or Spanish GCSEs are easier, but I have learned both languages and I would say that it was easier for me to pick up Spanish pronunciation and spelling rules because they are easy and phonetic. I attained a good level of conversational Spanish more quickly than I did in French.

There are a lot of irregular verbs in both languages, but I think Spanish irregular verbs are a bit easier for me.

There are fewer "exceptions" to grammar rules generally in Spanish. French is a bugger for this.

You don't have to worry about "liaisons" and other weird pronunciation rules with Spanish.

However, subjunctives in Spanish take practice. It's all plain sailing until then. French, to be fair, has the same problem, but because the grammar is quite complicated from the beginning, I didn't have the same WTF moment when I reached that point.

If the GCSE syllabus for Spanish doesn't include subjunctives, I would be tempted to study Spanish. If your DS won't enjoy it then he won't practice and probably won't do as well as in a harder subject he enjoys though.

Obsidian77 · 27/04/2017 10:07

If he prefers French I would go with that, unless it's because he likes the teacher or his mates are in the same class.

Seeline · 27/04/2017 10:05

No scientific back up, but DS started both in Y7, and definitely found Spanish easier, however as the learning progressed he began to find the French easier (Y8/9) and in the end decided on French for GCSE. He said the initial vocab etc was easier in Spanish, but after a bit of progression the grammar for Spanish was much harder than French.