French or German?

Hi all. I am in Year 8 and in the process of choosing my GCSEs. I'm taking Spanish as well. So far, we've been doing French and Spanish in Year 7&8 however we have not yet tried German and I have no experience of it. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on what employers would look for and possibly how the languages compare in terms of difficulty. All comments appreciated.

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Reply 1

Sgt_Haytham

Depends on the employer really.

I'd say German is a lot more difficult than French, but since you're studying Spanish, you should continue with French.

Reply 2

sunnydespair

I've heard German is easier than French for British people to learn ?

Reply 3

slothonist

Apparently German is easier than French

Reply 4

elen90

French bears more similarity to the English language than German, but has some of the most complex (and illogical) grammar as far as European languages go.

Which one do you enjoy more? You don't want to be stuck doing a language that you have no passion for, over the next two years.

EDIT: Just remembered you have no experience of German. If you enjoy Spanish now you'll enjoy French so the latter is probably the safer bet. But you may surprise yourself if you try out something different!

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 5

Student403

Original post by elen90

In what way?

Reply 6

elen90

Original post by Student403

In what way?

Generally the fact that a heck of a lot of French words are either identical to or resemble English words. For instance, the majority of English words ending in -ation are the same in French.

Reply 7

FrancisHannah

Original post by Hectxrp

I have GCSEs in French and German.

German is the harder language. The words are easier to pronounce for English speakers however the sentence structures and word endings are much more complex than any of the romance languages.

French is more difficult than Spanish simply because of its pronunciation. However French is one of the easiest languages to learn for English speakers, and French has more similarities with English than German does with English.

Reply 8

FriendlyPenguin

Original post by elen90

French bears more similarity to the English language than German

That would surprise me - most of our 'core' (informal) words are descended from the same ancestors as the German equivalents

Reply 9

Asolare

German is usually considered more difficult than French - I am told that it is down to the grammar (which I would not disagree with at all) but yeah I think at GCSE that wouldn't matter so much.

If you are already taking a romance language, then French will probably be slightly easier alongside that, but if you have a curiosity to do a Germanic language then why not give it a shot? You can always get a head start by just trying to look up some online German lessons etc. in the interim and see if you can get a feel for it.

I believe French is spoken by more people, but German is still spoken by around 120 million iirc.

Reply 10

Marmellata...

I took both at GCSE-level and continued onto A-level, still don't regret it :biggrin:

(At my school we don't have the option of Spanish)

I would say, that starting German from scratch will be more challenging in your case, just because you already have some knowledge of French/Spanish, and you should build on what you already know! Unless you really want to learn German, in which case, go ahead because it's a really great language and I like it equally to French.

Some people do say that people who are into maths/science/have a logical mind tend to do better in German if they always look for patterns and have a logical, puzzle-solving mind...
I'm quite a creative person though and I have managed as well with German as I have with French, so it does depend on the individual :tongue:

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 11

Student403

Original post by elen90

Generally the fact that a heck of a lot of French words are either identical to or resemble English words. For instance, the majority of English words ending in -ation are the same in French.

Fair enough :smile:

Although I suppose the dialects (and of course accent :biggrin:

) are vastly different. I'm not too sure about other languages as I've only really liked German as an MFL subject, but I think the grammar is quite methodical and so easy for English speakers to learn - also many idioms have English counterparts.

Reply 12

Asolare

Original post by elen90

French bears more similarity to the English language than German, but has some of the most complex (and illogical) grammar as far as European languages go.

I would be more inclined to disagree with your first point. An awful lot of words in German can easily be guessed by an English speaker with no knowledge of German as they are very similar or identical to the English equivalent.

But English, then again, certainly has a very bold history of taking words from as many languages as possible.

Reply 13

harmony_x

I would go for German.
Much more interesting to learn as a GCSE. :smile:

Reply 14

Student403

Original post by Inexorably

Grammar can certainly be, pardon my French ( :ahee:

), a bitch in German. But there aren't too many exceptions and it's more a case of learning the many structures which don't actually change much.

There's also the lovely aspect of being able to create your own compound words out of the known pre/suffixes, most of which will make sense combined.

Reply 15

...imrah

I took German and i can't say i regret my choose. It's such a fun language to learn and appeals a lot more than french imo

Reply 16

username2088165

I did GCSE German, and from my experience, I would say that German is more similar to English than French is, and therefore it is potentially easier to learn for an English speaker.

Perhaps you could try having a look at some GCSE German (on BBC Bitesize for example) to see what you think of it :smile:

Reply 17

flippantri

Original post by elen90

Generally the fact that a heck of a lot of French words are either identical to or resemble English words. For instance, the majority of English words ending in -ation are the same in French.

Considering English has Germanic roots...

Reply 18

SiaSiaSia

I have a degree in French and German.

I'd say go with French as it will compliment your Spanish. Also French is one of the only languages it's rare to find ab-initio if you decide to study at university, whereas there's myriad options for studying beginners' German.

Nonetheless while German is, I'd say, more difficult, I would also biasedly say you're better off doing it. You're much more likely to get into a good uni if you continued to a-Level (German is so unpopular at Unis I know people who did degrees at good units with C). It's also harder to learn by yourself, whereas French I feel like there's more opportunity to pick up anywhere? Your choice!