Is french basically spanish?

Contents

No, French is not basically Spanish. They are two separate languages with distinct differences in grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.

If you want a detailed answer, read below

French and Spanish are two distinct languages that although share some similarities, they are quite different in many aspects. As stated before, they have different grammar rules, vocabulary, and pronunciation, which distinguish them from one another.

According to FluentU, “French and Spanish share approximately 1,000 cognates,” which means that some words have similar meanings and spellings, like “libertad” in Spanish and “liberté” in French, which both translate to “freedom” in English. However, the two languages also have an abundance of words that do not have a corresponding cognate in the other language.

Moreover, the verb conjugation rules in French and Spanish are different. While Spanish verbs may follow a similar pattern, in French, each verb must be conjugated according to its group (-er, -ir, or -re) and tense. This means that learners of French must memorize different conjugation rules for each verb and tense.

Pronunciation is also a key factor that sets the two languages apart. For instance, while Spanish has five vowel sounds, French has fifteen. Additionally, some French letters are silent, often at the end of words, which can make it tricky for non-native speakers to get the pronunciation right.

To further understand the differences between the two languages, renowned linguist Steven Pinker once said:

“Languages are not arbitrary. They differ in predictable ways.”

Here’s a table summarizing some of the differences between French and Spanish:

Category	French	Spanish
Alphabet	26 letters, no ñ	27 letters, includes ñ
Cognates	Approx. 1,000	Approx. 5,000
Verb Conjugation	Irregular, dependent on verb group and tense	Regular, dependent on verb ending and person
Pronunciation	15 vowel sounds, many silent letters	5 vowel sounds, fewer silent letters

IT\'S AMAZING: Quick response to "Can I become a doctor in Spain?"

In conclusion, French is not basically Spanish. While these two Romance languages share some similarities, they are distinct from one another, with differences in grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.

Watch a video on the subject

The video compares and contrasts the Spanish and French languages. Both languages have Latin roots and 75% of their vocabulary is similar, consisting of cognates. However, there are also “false friends” that look and sound similar but have different meanings. Pronunciation, syntax, and grammar differ significantly between the two languages, with French having a more complex pronunciation and a different conjugation of verbs like “to be.” While knowing one language can be helpful when learning the other, there are still many differences to be aware of. Despite the differences, the languages share some similarities due to their Latin roots.

There are alternative points of view

Well, French and Spanish are both Romance languages, or languages descended from Vulgar Latin, or the colloquial Latin spoken among the lower classes of the Roman Empire. Spanish and French evolved from local variants of Latin over hundreds of years, eventually becoming the distinct languages we know them as today.

French and Spanish are relatively similar on the scale where you might be comparing, say, Japanese to Turkish. They’re both Romance languages, which come from Latin, and they share a lot of cognates (words that sound similar and usually have a common ancestor).

Furthermore, people are interested

Is Spanish and French are similar?

Because of their common vulgar Latin roots, these two languages share a lot of the same roots for their words. About 85% of the Spanish and French lexicons share similarities, at least in writing. However, speaking and listening comprehension are two separate challenges.

Is French apart of Spanish?

Answer: •
Both French and Spanish belong to the Indo-European language family. They also belong to the same sub-category called Italic languages. They are also a part of the Romance languages.

What language is almost exactly like Spanish?

The response is: Portuguese. In the north-western part of Spain, Galicia is the mother-land of the Portuguese mother tongue. It’s widely considered the closest language to Spanish – the lexical similarity is approximated at 89%.

Is French or Italian closer to Spanish?

Ethnologue came up with lexical similarity coefficients for each of the Romance languages, or quantifiable percentages that tell you how similar they are. According to this metric, French and Italian are 89 percent similar, which makes them as similar as Spanish and Portuguese.

Are French and Spanish similar?

Response to this: Spanish and French are 75 percent similar according to this rubric, but that’s on the low side when you consider that Spanish and Romanian are 71 percent similar, compared to an 89 percent similarity between Spanish and Portuguese, and 89 percent for French and Italian. What are some of the key differences between French and Spanish?

Are French and Spanish easy languages to learn?

In reply to that: Even though French and Spanish are among the easiest languages to learn for an English speaker as a first foreign language, they’re definitely not easy languages to learn. There are no easy languages! (Well, maybe “pig latin”…)

What is the difference between French and Spanish romance?

Answer to this: Let’s call it Spanish – 1, French – 0 in terms of overall simplicity. A key difference in pronunciation between the French and Spanish Romance languages is how you pronounce certain vocabulary and particular letters. When you learn French, you might notice the tricky nasal vowels and, by contrast, that we don’t pronounce silent letters.

Why do Spanish and French sound different?

Response to this: But in Spanish and French, those similarities may be hidden. This is mostly because the distinct French accent makes it sound so different from other European languages, or because there are so many distinct Spanish dialects. But let’s look at a few words to get a sampling. (And I’ll leave you an emoji so you can guess the English word.)

What is the difference between French and Spanish?

The answer is: There’s a bit of difference between what you have to learn for each language — and where (like, in which country). For example, Spanish has a formal “you”, usted, which is conjugated the same as he/she. French has no direct equivalent. On the other hand, French has a formal “you” which is identical to the “you plural”, vous.

Are French and Spanish easy languages to learn?

As a response to this: Even though French and Spanish are among the easiest languages to learn for an English speaker as a first foreign language, they’re definitely not easy languages to learn. There are no easy languages! (Well, maybe “pig latin”…)

What is the lexical similarity between Spanish and French?

When the Spanish and French languages are compared in this way, they are said to have lexical similarity of 75 percent. One example to demonstrate the similarity in words between the two languages is the respective words for “country”. In Spanish, this is “pais” and in French this is “pays”.

Is French more complicated than Spanish?

Like Spanish, French and English share thousands of cognates – some identical and others very closely related. Grammatically speaking, French is more or less has the same difficulty level as Spanish and other romance languages. It is not a universal myth that French is more complicated than Spanish. Like any other language,