Difference Between English and French

English vs French
 

There are a number of differences between English and French such as grammar, pronunciation, spelling, etc. English and French are two languages that are very closely related to each other due to the fact that they both belong to one and the same family called the Indo-European family. This is one of the most important language families in the world as it contains a number of languages. English belongs to the Germanic group in the Indo-European family. On the other hand, French belongs to the Latin group or the Italic group of the Indo-European family. The sub-group in which French appears in this Italic group of languages is also known as the Romance Languages. This is the main difference between the two languages.

More about English

It is interesting to note that both English and French have borrowed the cerebrals from Sanskrit of the Aryan group of languages. English is not governed by a number of rules regarding pronunciation. On the other hand, some of the letters in English become silent occasionally as in the case of ‘p’ in ‘pneumonia’ and ‘p’ in ‘psalms.’ The ‘k’ in the word ‘knife’ is silent too.

Moreover, English language has an influence of different languages such as French, Italian, Latin, Arabic, etc. Some of the examples of French words borrowed by English include rendezvous, plateau, envelope, enclave and the like. Words such as lasagna, cappuccino are borrowings from Italian. Alcohol is an Arabian borrowing.

If we think about grammar of English language, we know when we are conjugating verbs, all the pronouns have similar verbs except for the third person singular. For example, I/we/you/they eat while she/he/it eats. In English, you do not have gender for all nouns other than the personal pronouns.

More about French

French is the national language of France. It is one of the Romance languages. When it comes to pronunciation, French is governed by a number of rules of pronunciation. This is especially true, when it comes to the combination of vowels. If e, a and u combine in French, then the combination should be pronounced as ‘o’ as in the word ‘beaucoup.’ The same is true in the case of the word ‘plateau,’ as well. Hence, many French words have been borrowed by English in the course of time. The pronunciation of ‘vous’ in the word ‘rendezvous’ is simply ‘vu’ and the ‘z’ is totally silent. It should not be pronounced. Usually, the last letter of any word is not pronounced in French. However, if a word ends with a consonant and the new word begins with a vowel usually there is liaison. That is the two words are pronounced together without having a pause in between.

It is important to know that French has a great influence of the Latin language. In French language, there is different conjugation for verbs in every pronoun. So, French is more complicated. In French, every noun and most pronouns have a gender. You have to agree the verb according to the gender and number of the noun or pronoun that comes as the subject.

What is the difference between English and French?

• Language Family:

Both English and French belong to the Indo-European language family. Under that,

• English belongs to the Germanic group.

• French belongs to the Italic group of languages.

• Pronunciation:

• English has fewer rules regarding pronunciation.

• French has more rules regarding pronunciation, especially, about combination of vowels.

• Silent letters:

• In English, some letter becomes silent in certain words such psalms, knife, etc.

• In French, the last letter of a word is not pronounced. This is a general rule.

This is another important difference between the two languages.

• Accents:

• English language uses accents only in the foreign borrowings.

• French language uses a number of accents.

• Gender:

• In English, only personal pronouns have gender.

• In French, all nouns and most pronouns have gender.

• Negation:

• Negation of English is done using the single word ‘not.’

• In French, the equivalent to English not is two words which are ‘ne pas.’

As you can see, the English and French languages have many differences between them. Remember only the letters are similar. Everything else in these two languages is different from one another.

Images Courtesy:

1. New Zealand newspapers by Ulanwp (CC BY-SA 3.0)
2. Le Petit Journal via Wikicommons (Public Domain)