I'm planning on devoting time to learning a second language for many purposes, including more opportunities for my future job, social life and more. The languages that I'm interested in consist of French and German. However, I feel like I just want to learn 1 of them, at least for now. There are no mandatory second languages where I live but they are both taught as optional languages.
It depends on what purpose is more important for you and where you are planning on staying. German will definitely come in handy if you are leaning towards philosophy, engineering and various businesses in Europe or if you plan on staying in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein or most of Switzerland. Otherwise, learning German is pointless, especially if you leave the Europe boundary. Like, if you are really desperate about practicing German outside Europe, good luck with finding German speakers because there are rarely people who can communicate in that language.
French, on the other hand, can get you further with more job opportunities as a lot of native French speakers either struggle or are hesitant about speaking English. In addition, French culture is more fascinating for a lot of people. There are a lot of things you can become involved in if you know French. Plus, it will come in handy, especially in France, Canada, Belgium, the Western part of Switzerland, Luxembourg, Monaco and the majority of West Africa. It will also help you big time when you visit Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia since a lot of people there learn and speak French as a second language.
My personal opinion is that French will be more helpful to you than German, simply because French is spoken in more countries than German.
However, in terms of ease of learning, German is easier than French even though German has many grammatical difficulties, it does not have the idiosyncrasies that French has.
French language has a common root with Latin and is very similar to Spanish and Portuguese. If you are fluent in French, you can also understand the basics of Spanish and to a lesser extend, to Portuguese.
In order to know all the finesses of the French language, you will have to practice a lot, best with natives of either France, Belgium or Western Switzerland.
I live in Canada. As someone who knows both German and French, besides English, I would have to say French is definitely more useful. While German pronunciation is definitely easier, French grammar is much more predictable and quite a few vocabularies are similar to English with only the endings of words differentiated.
French is much more common worldwide and spoken in France, Canada, Belgium and most of West Africa. Plus, it's a UN language, which proves the significance of French, alongside English, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic and Spanish.
German, on the other hand, is only spoken in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. You won't be able to find many German speakers otherwise. There are small communities that speak German but good luck on running into any of them as a lot of them tend to speak English more often.
What country do you live in?
I'm in the USA. I speak German. There are many German areas and areas of German descent that have German sections of town and German heritage. Frankenmuth Michigan, Cincinnati, Ohio, Germantown, Louisville... etc.
In Canada they speak French in the province of Quebec.
Are you planning to travel?
You could visit France and some parts of Africa speak French,
You could visit Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, they speak German.
It depends on where you live, where you want to live, where you want to travel to as to which would be more useful.
Opinion
5Opinion
With regard to high-level jobs and job hunting in Europe, German is more useful. The French people in our projects speak either German or English.
If you like to travel a lot, especially in former French colonies, then learning French would be more useful to.
It really depends on how and where you expect to use the language. I found French easier to learn than German- the only thing that was more difficult was the pronunciation.
Neither one are useful in my opinion outside of France or Germany. I'd rather learn (more) Spanish than either of those.
French is bullshit.
language if the pigs of Europe.
German
French
Germán.
You can also add your opinion below!
