French vs German vs Spanish? Difficulty & Usefulness?

Yes Sam, but we're talking about about second language speaker. There are 80 million second language of speaker of French all over the world compared to Spanish with just 25 million all over the world and most of them in USA.

<<Well, I read that the language more spoken in Africa is Arabic. Ah the next more spoken languages are Hausa, Swahili and English. French is only the forth (Britannica, Enc.). I read in a PDF repport that is spoken only by 65 million in all Africa (Francophonie). >>

It's true that there are more native speakers of Arabic, Hausa, and Swahili not English than French. But I'm referring to 240 million NEAR NATIVE speakers of it which 4 times larger than the entire population of France itself. Newsweek and Time magazines published that during the Rwanda genoicide. The elites in Francophone Africa funtions and thinks in French not in vernacular languages.

English plays a less important role then French in Africa but worldwide English more important.

The economic power is not only measure by GNP. Spain is not an industialized country. You cannot dictate what's the criteria of G8 when it comes to accepting new members.

"The economic power is not only measure by GNP. Spain is not an industialized country. You cannot dictate what's the criteria of G8 when it comes to accepting new members".

Are you joking? The economic power is measure by GNP or GDP. Spain is an industrialized country. For instance, SPAIN IS THE 5TH COUNTRY IN THE CAR INDUSTRY. Only after USA, Japan, Germany and France. More than in UK or Italy.

I don't know what is NEAR NATIVE. I think that it is not serious. Or you are native or not.

In USA there are oficially 42 million of Latinos. Only in USA there are 6 million of students (Instituto Cervantes report). You need to add Puerto Rico (4 million more). There are other 10 million of illegal Latinos in USA.

In France, there are 2,5 students of Spanish, in Brazil 1 million, in Germany 0.5, etc. There are more than 25...

Gallophile,

I apologize profusely for my interjection, but I think you will find that Spain IS an industrialized country. It would depend on what criteria you would define industrialized, for if you infer ^modern^ then Spain is most certainly a modern country.

Do NOT confuse Latin America with Spain !

PS Which is your native country? La France ?

Thank you kindly,

j-p.a

<<Are you joking? The economic power is measure by GNP or GDP. Spain is an industrialized country. For instance, SPAIN IS THE 5TH COUNTRY IN THE CAR INDUSTRY. Only after USA, Japan, Germany and France. More than in UK or Italy.>>

My goodness you have really gone far with your invented misinformation.

The leading world car manufacturers are

1. Japan
2. USA
3. Germany
4. Italy
5. UK

Maybe you are correct but Spain doesn't manufacture cars but assemble because it does not have an automobile company of its own.

USA(General Motors, Ford, Chrysler)
Japan(Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Suzuki, and others)
Germany(Mercedes Benz, Opel, BMW, Volkswagen, Audi)
France(Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, MVS)
Italy(FIAT, Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini, Lancia etc.)
UK(Rolls Royce, Leyland, Jaguar, Leyland, Rover, MG, etc.
Russia(Zil, Zaz, Moskovitch, Volga)
While Spain NOTHING.

There's a lot more:

Sweden(Volvo and Saab)
South Korea(Hyundai, Daewoo, Kia)
Romania(Dacia)
Czech Republic(Skoda and Tatra)
While Spain(Pegaso? Defunct; Seat? It's Catalonian not a truly Hispanic car company)

j-p.a,

i'm sorry if I speak this way. Just tell this fanatics to stop attacking French and other languages just to elevat Spanish on a very high status at the expense of French and other languages. Like Sam who keeps on posting that French is just spoken in France and Monaco alone and the toatl number is 85 million when France's population is just above 60 million and Monaco's is just 25,000. He even attempted to believe the people here that French is not the native language of a number of people in Canada, Switzerland, and Belgium because at the back of his mind Spanish is spoken in those countries in place of French.

He wanted to make those countries as Spanish speaking because they are progressive.

He does not base on what is fact but on the product of his imagination. Or maybe he intentionally alter the information for his French bashing in this forum.

Notre petit gallophile tells us: "While Spain(Pegaso? Defunct; Seat? It's Catalonian not a truly Hispanic car company)2

Hispanic comes from Hispania, the name the Romans gave to the Iberian peninsula, including Catalonia, of couse, which is still a part of Spain. Do you mean to say Barcelona is not in Spain? It's one of the world's most important publishing cities in Spanish and, of course, the most important in Catalan.

Anything will do and it's really not worth arguing with you. French is obviously a very important language (more so in the past than in the present) but you still haven't proven that it is more widely spoken, as a native o nativised language than Spanish.

What about all those African and Pacific tribes who were taught to say "Nos ancêtres les gaulois"? What a laugh.

Come on, everybody acknowledges the importance of France in the world but to consider 21st century Spain "un pays arriéré" makes you pretty ridiculous not only to the eyes of Spaniards but of the civilised world.

We still don't know where you're from, not that it matters, but it certainly must be a long way from Europe where both Frenchmen and Spaniards have learnt to respect each other at the same level.

Guest Mon Feb 26, 2007 1:38 pm GMT,

Nobody in the civilized world acknowledges the importance of Spanish.

I spell it "civilised", being a Spaniard and having learnt English in GB. I also learnt French in France. Regarding the importance of Spanish it's what it is. The United Nations have six official languages: in alphabetical order, Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. No German, no Italian, no Japanese... These are all "regional" languages from a strictly world point of view.

The fact is the three most widespread European-born world languages are English, Spanish, French and Russian, strictly in that order in the early 21st century. Russian can be considered both a European and an Asian language due to expansion from Russia to Siberia.

Chinese is widely spoken due to the Chinese population (and Chinese colonies also abound in Asia and elsewhere) and Arabic is not only the language of many countries but the language of Islam since the Qu'ran only official version is in Arabic, and is therefore used from Indonesia to Morocco.

The United Nations knew very well what it was doing.

That is how things go in the world whether we like them or not.

http://www.un.org/Dialogue/

"Nobody in the civilized world acknowledges the importance of Spanish".

Well, more or less the same with French at this moment. In several countries French is a subject, like Latin or classical Greek: a waste of time.

A lot of experts say that French will desappear partially in Africa this century. If this is the situation, French will be less important than Esthonian.

It is a language spoken as mother tongue by only 90 million of people, more or less the same as penjabi, viet, or other regional languages.

Well, Lafayette, in the United States (including Puerto Rico) there are more than 50 million of people speaking Spanish in several degrees, and more or less the same in the European Union.

100 million of people in the European Union and USA that, in my opinion, are civilized, as well as, all other Hispanics.

The only good thing about French is the Système International.

<<Well, more or less the same with French at this moment. In several countries French is a subject, like Latin or classical Greek: a waste of time.>>

<<It's a lot more waste of time learning Spanish which has no contributions on science, medicine, technology, philosophy, arts, and literature.>>

There you go again just because Spanish is dead in Africa and the Philippines. Nigeria is about to become a Francophone country. The same as what you said that Russian, French, German, and Italian are not languages in science just because Spanish is totally absent in science.

<<Well, more or less the same with French at this moment. In several countries French is a subject, like Latin or classical Greek: a waste of time.>>

It's a lot more waste of time learning Spanish which has no contributions on science, medicine, technology, philosophy, arts, and literature.

There you go again just because Spanish is dead in Africa and the Philippines. Nigeria is about to become a Francophone country. The same as what you said that Russian, French, German, and Italian are not languages in science just because Spanish is totally absent in science

<<Well, more or less the same with French at this moment. In several countries French is a subject, like Latin or classical Greek: a waste of time.

A lot of experts say that French will desappear partially in Africa this century. If this is the situation, French will be less important than Esthonian>>

There you go again with your pure imagination Sam. No experts predicted that that will happen. English is dissapppearing in Africa now because in countries facing the Indian Ocean, Swahili is replacing English.

You have poor analysis when you say that Estonian would be more important than French if French disappears in Africa. Actually, Hitri Motu, Hottentot, bambara, etc. will become more important than Spanish by the time Spanish in Hispanic America evolves into separate languages like Afrikaans.

Here are sites madeby English speaking people that shows how strong French in Africa is:

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/features/education/2006/sept/12/education-12-09-2006-003.htm

http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/features/fashion/fas222102006.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/294596.stm

And here is a site that has something to do with decreolization http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/french_connection/. Just read, see, and listen carefully what is said by French speakers from many parts of the world. I'm sure gonna be envious again.

<<Notre petit gallophile tells us: "While Spain(Pegaso? Defunct; Seat? It's Catalonian not a truly Hispanic car company)2 >>

Guest Mon Feb 26, 2007 1:38 pm GMT

TA GUELE! Stop calling me petit, BIRD BRAIN. Just learn to accept that the Hispanic world is technologically backward.

<< English, Spanish, French and Russian, strictly in that order in the early 21st century.>>

Correction it's English, French, Russian, Arabic, then Spanish in that order. There are only two global languages English and French while panish is not and it's only useful in Spain and Hispanic America only. It's not even a world lingua franca. Well as for French Romanians and Portuguese/Brazilians communicate to each other in French.

It seems that you're taking away everything from French in your mind. I wouldn't be surprised that if one of you posts a message saying that the Minitel, Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, TGV, Mirage jets and so on are Hispanic accomplishments.

YOU'RE NOT JUST FANATICS BUT UNREALISTIC TOO!