French is the first or second language of millions of people in the world. That’s why people tend to learn French for many reasons such as – studying abroad, better job opportunities, traveling, and business.
Unfortunately, French learners around the world face some common difficulties. They fall into the trap of false friends and tricky grammar a few often.
Besides, weak listening ability and pronunciation are big challenges in learning the language.
Lack of practicing opportunity is also a common complexity for French learners. Anyway, every challenge discloses new opportunities.
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Let’s check out some common difficulties of learning French.
1. False Friends:
If you are an English speaker, false friends can make learning French more difficult. We are not talking about your unreliable friends!
False friends – are English words borrowed from French. But, they have been distorted and used in English for years.
Though the source of these words is French, now they have completely different meanings.
For an English speaker, nothing can be more uncomfortable than false friends while trying to learn French. It is painful that a word you are already familiar with has an entirely different definition.
Here are a few examples of French false friends and their meanings in both languages:
| French words | Meaning | English words | Meaning |
| Ancien | a veteran | Ancient | antique |
| Bouton | pimple | Button | knob |
| Journée | daytime | Journey | tour |
These French and English words have nearly the same spelling and pronunciation. Aren’t they puzzling for an English speaker?
2. Pronunciation problems:
The majority of French learners will say that pronunciation is the biggest challenge they often face.
If you are a beginner, French pronunciation will seem very cumbersome to you. Particularly, Asian language speakers will find French pronunciation tougher and weirder.
French is one of the non-phonetic Romance languages. So, you cannot pronounce French words according to their spelling all the time.
A big reason behind struggling with French pronunciation is that the language has many sounds that we rarely use. French also has many unpronounced letters which can confuse learners.
3. Tricky Grammar:
Like most European languages, French follows the SVO sentence structure. If you already speak a language with the same grammatical format, learning French can be easier for you. However, French grammar is still very complicated. The use of gender in grammar and multiple sentence structures make French grammar tricky for learners. In addition, French grammar contains many exceptions and a lot of conjugation.
As a result, most learners take a longer time to learn and master French grammar because of its perplexing components.
4. Weak listening comprehension abilities:
We have already discussed that French pronunciation is convoluted for maximum learners. So, they practice for hours to improve their French listening skills. It is undoubtedly a lengthy and strenuous process.
However, learning French can be a nightmare if a learner struggles with weak listening comprehension abilities.
A learner with this issue will suffer a lot during oral lessons and writing assignments. So, should someone with the issue give up learning French? We say – never. They just need some additional assistance to learn the language.
5. Lack of opportunity of using French
Using your target language repeatedly is key to learning the language faster. It means you have to speak French every now and then to get used to this language.
If you have French speaking friends and neighbors, your progress will be quicker. In contrast, you will fall into trouble in achieving your desired fluency in the case of living in a country where no one speaks French.
This is a common difficulty of hundreds of French learners. To overcome this issue, you can join language exchange platforms to keep your practice consistent.
Final thoughts
Finally, we have come to know a few reasons that make learning French difficult. Among all these reasons, lack of opportunity to use French in your daily life is the biggest challenge, according to most learners. You need supportive surroundings to learn a language effectively. Unfortunately, many learners give up too early when they find no inspiration from their neighbors. No matter how difficult the challenges are, you have to find ways to overcome them. Nowadays, you can learn French online. AmazingTalker is a reliable language learning platform that offers native tutors, such as Japanese tutor, to learn particular languages. Along with learning French, you can also admit to an online English course and learn the language through the immersion method. Besides, you can join a language community to keep your practice.