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French or Spanish

I need to choose between French and Spanish, due to a lot of advice telling me not to do two romance languages simultaneously.
The advantage with French is that I have upto GCSE in it, so I have some grounding, but with Spanish I have nothing. Although from the stuff I have done already I can tell I can pick up Spanish easier than I ever did French.
The thing I'm questioning is how useful Spanish/French will be in the end.

Reply 1

kellywood_5

17

There shouldn't be a problem with doing 2 romance languages simultaneously- I'll hopefully be doing French and Spanish at uni next year- but most universities will only let you take one language from scractch, so if you don't have an A-level in either, you probably will have to choose between them. Very few universities offer beginners' courses in French, whereas almost all of them offer ab-initio Spanish, so you'll have a lot more choice if you go for Spanish. You also said you think you'll find it easier, and Spanish will almost definitely be more useful than French because it's so much more widely-spoken. That's why, in your circumstances, I'd go for Spanish, but at the end of the day you have to choose whichever language you enjoy more, otherwise you won't be as willing to put the work in and you won't do as well.

Reply 2

leannemarie

11

Go for Spanish, for all the reasons Kelly's said. Ideally go for both. I'm doing 3 romance languages at the moment and I'll be doing French, Spanish & German at uni next year or French, Spanish & Chinese so more than 2 languages is possible.

Reply 3

Gael

8

if you're looking for a career in the UN/EU or as a diplomat etc do french, that and english are the only european languages official to both the EU and UN

Do french

FRENCH alllll the way!
(And back again)

I say spanish.

I will say Spanish.
Anyway, we can use Spanish when we go to most countries in South America also Spain.

Reply 8

ceepee

First, you need to ask yourself why you want to learn a language. Is it for the literary side, the practical, or both? And then on the practical side, you need to consider where in the world you'd like to work and in what capacity.

With the literary side (up to 150 years ago), the Spanish tradition is far closer to the English: Shakespeare/Lope de Vega/Marlowe/Tirso de Molina. French, meanwhile, holds (sweeping generalisation) a more classically-based canon.

Speaking practically, Spanish has many many more speakers globally and a far greater economic power; if you have no interest in Latin America though, then this doesn't really count. It can be argued that French has more power politically because it's official in the EU and UN, but tbh any diplomat is really going to have more than one modern language under their belt anyway.

May I ask who dissuaded you from taking two romance languages? If anything, I've found that in taking French with Spanish simultaneously, the two languages complement each other, and for all their niggly differences, grasping the grammatical side of one means most of the work in the other has already been done. Even if the Spanish do go a bit more trigger happy with their subjunctives, the language just falls into place so easily with a decent bit of French under your belt.

Hope I made sense in this. My bath's getting cold so I'm outta here...

Reply 9

Dr. Blazed

16

Kard

I need to choose between French and Spanish, due to a lot of advice telling me not to do two romance languages simultaneously.

Ignore the ridiculous advice. Do what you want.

Reply 10

paddy

14

ceepee

Speaking practically, Spanish has many many more speakers globally and a far greater economic power; if you have no interest in Latin America though, then this doesn't really count. It can be argued that French has more power politically because it's official in the EU and UN, but tbh any diplomat is really going to have more than one modern language under their belt anyway.

Well none of you seem to realise it, but Spanish is DEFINITELY an official language of the UN (Spanish, French, English, Arabic, Russian and Chinese are the 6 official languages of the United Nations), and I'm 99% sure its an official language of the EU as Spain is one of the biggest economies in the EU, plus I vaguely remember reading that on their website.
Spanish is easier, both spelling and grammer wise, than French, and Spanish speakers are inceasing rapidly. As far as diplomacy goes, French is still powerful in Europe and to be a diplomat working from Brussels you will find that French comes in handy, however studying them both would be best as Diplomats generally do have at least 3 languages (including their native language). :biggrin:

Paddy

Reply 11

ceepee

paddy357

Well none of you seem to realise it, but Spanish is DEFINITELY an official language of the UN (Spanish, French, English, Arabic, Russian and Chinese are the 6 official languages of the United Nations), and I'm 99% sure its an official language of the EU as Spain is one of the biggest economies in the EU, plus I vaguely remember reading that on their website.
Spanish is easier, both spelling and grammer wise, than French, and Spanish speakers are inceasing rapidly. As far as diplomacy goes, French is still powerful in Europe and to be a diplomat working from Brussels you will find that French comes in handy, however studying them both would be best as Diplomats generally do have at least 3 languages (including their native language). :biggrin:

Paddy

Yep, apologies... it is official in both (I always thought the EU was a little more restrained with its official langs - turns out there are 20!). Nonetheless, this little fact might be of interest if you're still split between the two:
EU Online Portal - "The Two Most Useful Languages To Know"

I've never quite got my head around how French has managed to remain so prominent in the EU. Not to say that the culture is weak or anything - indeed, their culture might be what is keeping it in such a high position - but globally it's just not such big news. Either way, hats off to the Academie Francaise who are obviously doing great work brainwashing the European masses. :biggrin:

EDIT: This is where I got that wacky Spanish-ain't-official and the-EU-only-has-4-official-languages-for-meetings ideas from:

Away from these formal meetings, a more flexible language régime is used. The primary working languages of the institutions are English, French and to some extent German, but other languages are used as befits the situation and the language skills of the people involved. The 1995 and 2004 expansions of the Union to countries where French is less used have strengthened the position of English and German as working languages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Union

So I guess Eng, French and German are the biggies diplomatically still. Quelle surprise, kiddies!

Reply 12

Social_Nic

Personally, I would say Spanish if I had to choose - however there is absolutely no reason why you cannot study both together - as said previously they compliment each other quite nicely! And both are extremely useful - one of the worst criticisms of the Brits is that we go abroad and do not try to speak the language.....in this case study both

Reply 13

Luvbug

9

Spanish hands down because a) it is easier (or that could just be in the light of studying French but whatever!) b) more widely spoken

You can study both together, if your at GCSE though you must continue on with the French to pick up Spanish later, you cannot start both from scratch. Otherwise go for learning both! Then you can decide which you like the best.

Reply 14

garethDT

13

I'm struggling to choose what languages to take but my German teacher has advised me that I should take French or German or both at Uni as they need more teaching and are harder to learn at a high level whereas most linguists can pick up Spanish very quickly just from living there for a short while.

Reply 15

Duck and Cover

15

I plan on doing French and German at Uni, or depending on where I go, I mite do Italian too. As for the simultaneous romance languages, I think it just depends how ur mind works lol! I'm learning German French Italian and Spanish and I never get confused between them, which I thought I DEF would do between Italian and Spanish...only problem is I keep saying si instead of oui :eek:

but thats the only confusion!!

Reply 16

Enfalas

Duck and Cover

only problem is I keep saying si instead of oui :eek:

but thats the only confusion!!

I'm doing French, German and Spanish for AS and I used to do that... lol. I still don't know what I want to do at uni... Defo go for Spanish tho. I'm learning a bit of Chinese too but that's totally different...

Reply 17

Duck and Cover

15

Enfalas

I'm doing French, German and Spanish for AS and I used to do that... lol. I still don't know what I want to do at uni... Defo go for Spanish tho. I'm learning a bit of Chinese too but that's totally different...

Well my cousin is gonna do German and Chinese because apparently Chinese is going to be a really important language in the future, so that might be something to look in to! Im not as brave as her tho :rolleyes:

Reply 18

SlyPie

12

Kard

The thing I'm questioning is how useful Spanish/French will be in the end.

Well who (rough estimate) speaks French exactly?

French New Guinea
France
Quebec.
The French population is decreasing due to a very low birth rate.

Who (rough estimate) speaks Spanish?
All of South America excepting Brazil. (Portuguese is similar to Spanish though.)
Mexico and Central America.
Much of the United States.
Spain.
Increasing birth rates on top of that.

Enough said.

Reply 19

Enfalas

Duck and Cover

Well my cousin is gonna do German and Chinese because apparently Chinese is going to be a really important language in the future, so that might be something to look in to! Im not as brave as her tho :rolleyes:

What uni's is she applying to? Cos not many allow a European lang and Chinese...

French or Spanish

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