What Is The Hardest Part Of Learning French?

Like most languages, French can be difficult and there are some common areas that a lot of people have trouble with.

However, there is no one part that is harder than another. What you find the most difficult will depend on you and your previous personal experiences. Nearly every aspect of the language could be difficult but it will really depend on your individual interaction with the language.

You shouldn’t worry about what everyone else thinks is difficult and just focus on your own learning.    

(If you are wanting to learn French you can check out my unofficial French Course and get a grasp of the basic structure of the language)

Is Grammar The Hardest Part Of Learning French?

Grammar always gets a bad name mainly as it is quite a dry, boring topic. However, it is pretty important. It really is the basic rules of how the language works and this is also true for French.

French Sentence Structure

French sentences are largely like English so we are often fooled into thinking it’s the exact same, but there are just enough little differences to trip you up. You will find plenty of rules that seem slightly off compared to what you are used to in English, such as things like the placement of adverbs in the French sentences. 

French Genders

For an English speaker this can be very difficult to grasp and even harder to remember. It is not natural for us to assign genders to inanimate objects and when it seems like there is no real logic behind it, it can be very tricky to try and recall the right gender for the object we are talking about.

French Conjugation

While we have conjugation in English, we do not have it to the same level. It just seems like the French conjugations are never ending and when you start to add the irregular verbs on top it becomes very over whelming very fast. 

French Tenses

Conjugation and tenses are closely related and while a number of tenses are similar, there are also a lot of them that do not really translate exactly.

This can make it very difficult to work out how to exactly say things, since you are not really saying them in the same way when you say them in French. You almost have to communicate an idea or concept, rather than an exact translation, which is of course kind of a strange thing to get used to.

The French Subjunctive

The French also have the Subjunctive, which isn’t really a tense, it’s more a mood. This is really one of those things that doesn’t translate perfectly between the languages, so it can be a little confusing to express yourself using this.  

French Plurals

The way French denote something is a plural is usually echoed throughout the whole sentence. In English we just usually stick an –S on the end of the word and we are all good. They do this in French, but then everything else needs to match up too.

In English we can say “the green dog” and to make it plural, it becomes “the green dogs”

In French this would be “Le chien vert” and it changes to “Les chiens verts”. Every word has changed! This is made a little more confusing by the changes being less subtle in spoken French but very clear in written French.

For those wondering, this is my least favourite thing about French. It’s not the thing I find most difficult, but I always forget to change one word so the sentence is ever so slightly wrong and it really annoys me.

The Vous or Tu Dilemma

As English speakers the concept of a more formal way of saying something makes sense, but not in the way the French do it. Trying to understand that both versions mean the same thing and when to use one over the other can be a little awkward at first. It just is not natural to us.

Is Reading The Hardest Part Of Learning French?

While we are lucky enough to share the same alphabet, this doesn’t make reading as simple as it should be.

French is full of silent letters just waiting to trick you. We also have a number of cognates which seem like they are helpful, but can often be a nuisance. 9 times out of 10 I will read a cognate as the English version and while this is fine, as they usually mean the same thing, it’s not exactly good for my French pronunciation when I’m reading out loud. 

We also need to watch out for the false friends, which look like English words, but mean something else in French.

Is Writing The Hardest Part Of Learning French?

Writing can cause the same issues as reading, but it’s harder as we need to produce the words from memory.  We need to remember where the silent letters go and remember how the cognates are slightly spelt in a slightly different way to English.

We also need to remember all the extra –S when we are making sentences plural. Mostly writing in French is not much different than English, but there are still plenty of little things that can trip us up.

Is Speaking The Hardest Part Of Learning French?

The biggest difficulty with speaking is usually the pronunciation of words. Again, those cognates may seem like they are helping us out with our understanding, but when we go to say them, the English version can easily pop out.

You also need to almost try and speak with a French accent, while this can help your progress you can feel kind of silly doing this. If you are already a little worried about speaking to strangers this along with the fear of mistakes can really mess with our confidence and can make our minds go blank when we need to speak.

Trying to speak also requires quite fast thinking. If you are quite new to French it can be difficult to think quickly enough to get the right words into your brain in the correct order, let alone start speaking them out loud as well.  

Is Listening The Hardest Part Of Learning French?

Listening is also difficult as there only seems to be two styles of French. The slow and simple stuff you get on learning apps and then the full force native action that is at 1000 miles an hour.

The pace at which people speak at is made more difficult with different accent and the use of slang words, or just the shorting of words.

If they start using words we don’t know this also makes things quite hard, especially due to the fact that if we try and stop to think, the speaker has usually said a whole load of other things and we can become very lost, very quickly.

Is Vocabulary he Hardest Part Of Learning French?

There is a never ending stream of new words to learn. While at some point we will get comfortable with the size of our vocabulary, for a very long time it can seem like we are drowning in new words. 

Is Remembering The Hardest Part Of Learning French?

While understanding how a language works is important, a large part of how much progress you make is down to how much you can remember. You need to remember how things work and how they piece together. This is especially difficult in the early days as everything is new and you need to remember every little detail to make sense of anything.

This is probably my biggest difficulty with French. I feel like it takes me 10 times longer to make progress as I have to repeat so many things over and over until I get them to stick.

(You can read more about – How To Memorise French So That You Are Better At The Language)

Overcoming The Fear Can Be The Hardest Part Of Learning French

Some people are scared of starting. I think I did this for a long time. It was always “tomorrow”. You will never learn a language tomorrow, so start today. There is nothing to worry about. If you suck, that’s fine. You will still be better than when you didn’t try.

Other people are happy to start, but they fear making mistakes or fear communicating with natives as they are worried they will look bad. This is just something you have to accept. You are new to this and still learning. No one expects you to be perfect. So it’s okay to make mistakes. No one will think less of you.

Don’t let these two fears hold you back!

(You can read more about – Is Learning French Worth It?)

Finding Resources /Opportunities Can Be The Hardest Part Of Learning French

Personally I have found it quite hard to find resources to suit my needs. I think there is plenty of very basic beginner stuff available. There are plenty of things to read and watch at this level but once you get a little beyond this the resources seem to just jump to a really difficult level, which I would argue is just fully native. I think the intermediate market is a little lacking.

Maybe I am just not looking hard enough and I know I can probably watch kids shows, but at the same time, it’s kind of boring watching Peppa Pig as a fully grown adult man in his late 30s.  

Another issue can be finding opportunities to speak French. While in France most people have just started speaking English to me. Which, is fair enough, my French wasn’t exactly great the last time I was in France.  Language exchanges are really good, but I do find that a lot of my conversions are very English dominant. This is down to me being to kind and allowing that happen, so I can’t really complain. If you are a bit more selfish you can find the opportunities to speak French. 

Conclusion

As you can probably see, it is basically possible for every aspect of French to be difficult, but it will depend on your own personal experience what you struggle with the most. You may have no problem with the things I find difficult, but really struggle in other areas. Every ones experience is different, but the good thing is that it can all be overcome with enough practice and hard work.

French can be tough, but it is worth it! keep practicing and you will get there.

(You can read more about How Often Should You Study A Language?)