Introduction:

The French language belongs to the group of romance languages like Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, etc. French is the second most studied foreign language in the world, after English, and it is an official, co-official, or de facto national of 32 countries. There are around two 20 million French speakers worldwide. It is the European union‘s fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue. The number of French speakers is expected to reach 700 million by 2050, mostly in Africa. French has a great number of Homophones. Homophones I was sharing the same pronunciation but with different spellings and meanings.

Learning a foreign language is an incredible way to boost your brainpower, confidence, and employment opportunities. Why learn a language that seems more useful, when in a matter of weeks you could be having your first conversation in a language that will open you up to over 75 million speakers in over 50 countries? French is not hard to learn, especially when compared to English! That’s right. Learning French isn’t going to be as difficult as you think. In fact, it’s a language that is much easier to achieve fluency in than you would have ever expected. Let’s know-how:

• You’re Not Starting From Scratch 

English and French share a common alphabet and a large portion of vocabulary. In fact, English has more in common lexically with French than any other Romance language. The Romance languages belong to the Indo-European family, as does English. So if you’re fluent in English, you’ll already have a head start in French vocabulary. You’ll be familiar with the spelling, pronunciation, and meanings of words to begin with. 

• French Is Simpler to Pronounce than English 

French is a language that English speakers come into contact with on a regular basis. English is not consistent when it comes to pronunciation. If you’re like me and you grew up speaking this language, rules like this will come naturally to you. You learnt them over time, through trial and error. However, this can be extremely confusing for new learners. All languages have many rules. The problem is, English has about as many exceptions, as there are rules themselves! French pronunciation can seem difficult at first. Like English, there are a lot of silent letters. Nouns can be pronounced differently depending on whether they are masculine or feminine.

• Gendered Words aren’t as Confusing as They Seem 

While gendered nouns are prevalent in many European languages, they can be a source of continual frustration for English native speakers. English nouns do have gender – but the gender is tied directly to the biological sex of the noun, with inanimate objects remaining neutral. As a result, gender rules can seem confusing and pointless to English speakers, who are left scratching their heads as to how on earth it was decided that the sun (le Soleil) is masculine while a car is feminine.

If you’re struggling to understand spoken French, there’s no harm in politely asking whomever you’re talking to if they can slow down. We’re sure they’d be more than happy to oblige. We find listening to be one of the more challenging aspects of learning a language, but fortunately, there are many free resources for French available online. French is not a hard language to learn – indeed there are many aspects of it that make it a much easier and dare we say logical language than English. So don’t get despondent and don’t give up. You’ll be eating your body weight in croissants in Paris before you know it!