If you ask yourself: should I learn French or Spanish as an extra language, then consider first the overall studying time you have available.
If your time is limited and you want to make fast progress, then study Spanish. Why?
- because you will master the only few Spanish sounds much faster than the French sounds
- because you will be able to read Spanish much faster than French (the French written language didn’t evolve for 400 years but the spoken language did, so you can imagine "what you see is no more what you hear!")
- because the gender of most Spanish words is more or less logical if you see the word. In French this logic is completely hidden.
If your time is kind of unlimited, then both French and Spanish have there advantages: the French language is widely spoken in Europe and Africa, where the Spanish language is spoken in the whole south of the Americas.
If you both want to study French and Spanish: tackle the Spanish language first. The 2 languages are sister languages and you will have an advantage when it comes to knowing the gender of the French words when you already know the gender of the Spanish word.


May 2nd, 2008 at 3:48 am
I love French so much. I am in my second year of high school French.