Quote:
Originally Posted by Jessierugg
 So I have been learning French in high school for five years, and I am just starting to understand it pretty well, and I am beginning to be able to think in it. This is my first year in college (univeristy) and because Spanish is spoken by many people where I live, I have started studying Spanish, as well as continuing my French. I really like both of the languages and enjoy studying them, but I have a little problem. Now when I try to speak or think in French, Spanish words keep popping into my head from time to time. Of course I realize quickly that it is a Spanish word, and think of the French equivalent, but I am afraid that as I get better at Spanish this will happen more often. It is difficult because the two languages are kind of similar. I think if I were learning two completely different languages this would not be as much of a problem. I am afraid that I am going to lose my French! Does this get better with time, being able to "think" in two different foreign languages without mixing them up? If anyone has learned two foreign languages that are somewhat similar to each other I would love your opinions or advice! ~Jessica |
This is a classical problem... That happens to me more often than I may want... In Spanish there are only 4 consonant that can be doubled:
CC -
LL -
NN and
RR, and you can see in French you have many of them doubled:
BB -
CC -
FF -
LL -
MM -
NN -
PP -
RR -
SS ... and for me that's a matter of constant mistakes. In Italian you have more double consonants, but since the pronunciation changes, it helps you to tell the difference:
Nono - Nonno, Sete - Sette, etc. The same happens with written accents. In Spanish you can have only one accent in a word, but in French you can have many of them, even different types of accents:
Théâtre, élève, général, etc...
You can speak a language very well without writing it perfectly, but when you need to redact a text, to write a letter, a report, you need to cope with these issues...
Sometimes the similarities between two languages can be an advantage, because you actually don't start from zero; but you have the risk to perpetuate the mistakes... See the case between Spanish and Portuguese, and the famous
"Portuñol (Portunhol)".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portu%C3%B1ol
My advice is to spend some time seeing the differences, understanding them, and reading a lot!!!! Because the differences can be about gender, as well:
Milk >
Leche (f) = Lait (m)
Butter >
Mantequilla (f) = Beurre (m)
Salt >
Sal (f) = Sel (m)
Bed >
Cama (f) = Lit (m)
Pain >
Dolor (m) = Douleur (f)
Value >
Valor (m) = Valeur (f)
Heat >
Calor (m) = Chaleur (f); etc.
¡¡¡Ánimo!!!