[austinl]

I've honestly found German to be easier than French, specifically in terms of listening comprehension. It can take a while to get used to word order in German, but I've found it much easier to pick out discrete words compared to French.

Maybe it's because elision is so common in French? e.g. "j’aime l’hiver". I find it hard to decouple those things quickly enough in my head. Most words in German, on the other hand, are spelled exactly as they are pronounced.

Curious if folks have had other experiences with these two languages.

[vundercind]

I’ve found French accents and speaking styles to play a large role in how well I can understand spoken French. African and Levantine French speakers are often easier for me to understand than, say, Parisians.

I do find Spanish to have been much easier to develop an ear for than French (I’ve put in far less effort, but can differentiate words about as well) and also for whatever reason I found gaining a sense for noun gender to be extremely easy for Spanish but nearly impossible for French. I can guess and be right the vast majority of the time in Spanish, while in French it often feels like I’m doing worse than 50/50. It doesn’t help that it can be challenging to practice it in isolation, due to how articles work in French. Only way to drill gender effectively is in context, hard to quickly build, say, an Anki deck for it.

[jakevoytko]

This was my experience too. I haven't taken German in 20 years but I can still understand some things tourists say. I studied French 5 years ago with the help of my wife (fluent in French, professional translator) and even doing hours of listening practice daily for months I never got the hang of more than extremely simple phrases. So much is a near-homophone to my American ears.

Oddly, French people understood my French much easier than Germans understood my German. My guess was that I nailed the French grammar but struggled more with the German grammar.

[ghaff]

One of the funny things with French is what a sometimes traveling companion sometimes says to me with some exasperation: "They don't pronounce half their letters!" :-) Also makes me realize that, bad as my French is, I knew the language a lot more than they did.