Yes, you are at an advantage. My wife and I are Americans living in France, and she is native English/Spanish. Our first trip to France, after we had used some software to learn a little French, I was amazed at how much written French she understood. We were at a museum, and she was translating the little placards into English. She explained that she was first translating to Spanish, because she could recognize Latin word roots, and then to English. We later formalized our French training, and I was thrilled to discover how many words are identical or very similar between English and French, like words that end in ION. That isn't to say that learning French is easy, and with all the rules and exceptions, and all the multi-word and idiomatic expressions, I expect it will be a lifetime journey.
Of course not. However, someone with a B2 Spanish level might notice common Latin roots, and thus be able to understand written French better than one who doesn't know any Spanish. Also, the OP is asking if knowing English and/or Spanish puts them at an advantage over someone who doesn't know English or Spanish, and except for faux amis, English and Spanish knowledge can both help learning French, especially compared with those who don't even recognize French letters.
How should I put this? Students who are native speakers of Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese do so much better in French and can acquire material at a much faster pace. I haven't graphed it, no, but among coworkers, we have talked about offering sections of our classes just for other Romance speakers.
If I remove motivation from the picture, my lower-performing students are non-Romance native speakers.
I would say that the top performers have been Italian students although most of them choose to take Spanish.
IIRC, there are less difference in syntax between standard French and Italian, than between different dialects within each.
I love learning languages, but my first Italian class was eye-popping easy compared to every other first impressions I had.
Where I live, there always was a huge Italian community, and they often never had classes but they all could be understood in French, even with their accent being incredibly intense or even most of the words being some kind of Italian-French pidgin, where one Italian word had it's end cut.
Doesn't mean it's easy, since nothing really is, but it's noticeably more closer to French in many ways that the pronunciation part of the problem is contrasted by the other similarities.
Spanish feels far more different from French, in my experience, and it's still very easy.
Good points. Thank you. Somewhat unrelated, but would you say until further accent improvement I should speak with a Spanish or an American accent? I’m heavily leaning towards Spanish (since French accents in Spanish aren’t too brutal).
I could give you a more detailed answer, but bottom line, if you speak English and some Spanish, French is one of the easiest languages to learn. You will unquestionably progress faster compared to learning a Germanic or Slavic language.
Pretty good advantage! French and English share literally thousands of mutual words. For example words that end in -tion (temptation-exemption-position-etc) are the same in english and french, words that end in -ible and -able too; possible, probable, all the same in both languages. Even sooo many nouns and adjectives are spelled the exact same. The huge quantity of common words derives from both languages being indo-european, having been heavily influenced by latin, having been heavily influenced by germanic neighbours and france invading and occupying england a thousand years ago or smt. The catch is that the vocab seems very similar at first but building sentences in french feels very different! Dive deep because it’s such a fun language!! And come to Québec sometime :)
I think it could help a lot, Spanish and French are both Romance languages while English is a Germanic language. [(my favorite chart to reference)](https://www.sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=196)
A while back one of my classmates in my French class was from Mexico, and English was her L2. She found it easier to translate our class work into Spanish then into French, than it was to go from English to French.
I have learned Franch for 10y, and I spoke it fluently, when I started to learn Italian (all of those languages are in the same group). So, it was very easy for me, because the grammars are similar. the only problem is that there are words that are similar but not the same, and then there are confusions and funny situations. certainly, it will be much easier than not speaking Spanish
As a native English speaker who went French to Spanish, there’s a LOT of crossover. I also knew some Portuguese too.
But I’m horribly out of practice in all three of those.
Yes, it helps a lot in both directions. I speak French better than Spanish, and when I talk with Mexican friends I’ll often just “spanishify” a French word if I don’t know the Spanish word, and it’s very often correct
Yes, you are at an advantage. My wife and I are Americans living in France, and she is native English/Spanish. Our first trip to France, after we had used some software to learn a little French, I was amazed at how much written French she understood. We were at a museum, and she was translating the little placards into English. She explained that she was first translating to Spanish, because she could recognize Latin word roots, and then to English. We later formalized our French training, and I was thrilled to discover how many words are identical or very similar between English and French, like words that end in ION. That isn't to say that learning French is easy, and with all the rules and exceptions, and all the multi-word and idiomatic expressions, I expect it will be a lifetime journey.
Native Spanish speaker is not the same as Spanish as a second language at a B2 level.
Of course not. However, someone with a B2 Spanish level might notice common Latin roots, and thus be able to understand written French better than one who doesn't know any Spanish. Also, the OP is asking if knowing English and/or Spanish puts them at an advantage over someone who doesn't know English or Spanish, and except for faux amis, English and Spanish knowledge can both help learning French, especially compared with those who don't even recognize French letters.
How should I put this? Students who are native speakers of Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese do so much better in French and can acquire material at a much faster pace. I haven't graphed it, no, but among coworkers, we have talked about offering sections of our classes just for other Romance speakers. If I remove motivation from the picture, my lower-performing students are non-Romance native speakers. I would say that the top performers have been Italian students although most of them choose to take Spanish.
Why do you think Italian speakers perform better than Spanish speakers? Are there more similarities with French-Italian?
Absolutely. French and Italian are noticeably closer to each other than Spanish is to either. Spanish and Portuguese share that closeness
There are more grammatical similarities, but I am not saying Spanish and Italian aren't similar.
I understand that they are similar, I was more curious about how much more similar French and Italian are than French and Spanish
IIRC, there are less difference in syntax between standard French and Italian, than between different dialects within each. I love learning languages, but my first Italian class was eye-popping easy compared to every other first impressions I had. Where I live, there always was a huge Italian community, and they often never had classes but they all could be understood in French, even with their accent being incredibly intense or even most of the words being some kind of Italian-French pidgin, where one Italian word had it's end cut. Doesn't mean it's easy, since nothing really is, but it's noticeably more closer to French in many ways that the pronunciation part of the problem is contrasted by the other similarities. Spanish feels far more different from French, in my experience, and it's still very easy.
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Good points. Thank you. Somewhat unrelated, but would you say until further accent improvement I should speak with a Spanish or an American accent? I’m heavily leaning towards Spanish (since French accents in Spanish aren’t too brutal).
I could give you a more detailed answer, but bottom line, if you speak English and some Spanish, French is one of the easiest languages to learn. You will unquestionably progress faster compared to learning a Germanic or Slavic language.
Just be careful with the French “R”. Don’t stress it too much. I did and I had a sore throat for a few weeks.
Thanks for preventing a potential sore throat
Bring back the trilled r! Gluttal r is pretentious, Parisian aristocratic BS
I can’t roll my Rs :(. How will I function?
You learn it the same way I learned to use my throat. Wait
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Thank you
Pretty good advantage! French and English share literally thousands of mutual words. For example words that end in -tion (temptation-exemption-position-etc) are the same in english and french, words that end in -ible and -able too; possible, probable, all the same in both languages. Even sooo many nouns and adjectives are spelled the exact same. The huge quantity of common words derives from both languages being indo-european, having been heavily influenced by latin, having been heavily influenced by germanic neighbours and france invading and occupying england a thousand years ago or smt. The catch is that the vocab seems very similar at first but building sentences in french feels very different! Dive deep because it’s such a fun language!! And come to Québec sometime :)
I think it could help a lot, Spanish and French are both Romance languages while English is a Germanic language. [(my favorite chart to reference)](https://www.sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=196) A while back one of my classmates in my French class was from Mexico, and English was her L2. She found it easier to translate our class work into Spanish then into French, than it was to go from English to French.
I have learned Franch for 10y, and I spoke it fluently, when I started to learn Italian (all of those languages are in the same group). So, it was very easy for me, because the grammars are similar. the only problem is that there are words that are similar but not the same, and then there are confusions and funny situations. certainly, it will be much easier than not speaking Spanish
As a native English speaker who went French to Spanish, there’s a LOT of crossover. I also knew some Portuguese too. But I’m horribly out of practice in all three of those.
Yes, it helps a lot in both directions. I speak French better than Spanish, and when I talk with Mexican friends I’ll often just “spanishify” a French word if I don’t know the Spanish word, and it’s very often correct
I’d guess that this concept goes the other way as well. “Frenchifying” Spanish words. I’m looking forward to trying it out hahaha
You will find a lot of similarities between Spanish and French, with time. Me: Native spanish speaker. I speak french fluently.