Introduction:

French, descending straight out of the Roman Empire, is a beautiful language often known as the language of Romance. Being the official language of as many as 29 countries is enough to explain its popularity worldwide. There are approximately 274 million speakers worldwide. And it is also one of the six languages that are spoken in the United Nations. Learning French is equally fun. It is amongst the easiest languages to learn across the globe. If you are someone who is learning it, this blog is exactly for you. French has been influencing English for centuries, hence making it very similar to French. Nearly two-thirds of English vocabulary has a French origin. If you are someone who is learning it, this blog is exactly for you.

• To focus on?

As a native English speaker who is learning French, you might have already noticed that French seems very similar to English. The reason behind that is, English as a language has borrowed two-thirds of its vocabulary from French. There are so many words having a French origin, it makes learning both languages very easy. 

Grammar, Vocabulary, and Pronunciation are the key aspects that you would need to focus on in order to improve your French, as these are things that are similar as well as different in both languages and also the causes of confusion amongst both the learners. 

Both the languages share their alphabets, hence making it very, very similar to English. Apart from this, they also share some grammatical rules. Although there are differences, that you can easily make out as a native English speaker. Try to understand the differences so that you don’t get confused in the two languages. 

There are also differences in accent and pronunciation. It might seem tricky for you to get a hang of the pronunciation and accent since English only uses accents in the case of foreign words. This can be improved and understood by listening to French natives, movies, songs, etc. that will help you understand the pronunciation easily. You can try speaking to yourself in French and record it so that you can listen to it later and compare and understand where you are going wrong and what you are saying correctly. 

Another thing that makes French a bit more tricky than English is the presence of cognates in both languages. As mentioned earlier, English has borrowed almost two-thirds of its vocabulary from French. But not all words mean the same in both languages. There are true cognates, which means the words that look similar and also mean the same in both languages. And there are also false cognates, which means words that look similar but do not carry the same meaning in both languages. This is what makes it tricky to understand and remember. The best way to do it is to maintain a journal from the start and keep adding words to it with their meaning in French as well as English. This will stop you from being confused about the vocabulary. 

• Conclusion

Overall, both languages are very similar. So being a native English speaker, you definitely have an upper hand at learning French. You will not find it as complex as a learner of another native language would. But there certainly are some differences in English and French, and as a native English speaker you only have to pay more attention to that, the rest will be easily processed and remembered by your brain as it is similar to your first tongue. 

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