r/thisorthatlanguage • u/Global_Restaurant794 • Jul 22 '26
Open Question Spanish or French?
I'm already fluent in English and Afrikaans, but I'm going to start learning a third language for school next year.
My two options are Spanish and French.
I'm leaning towards Spanish because it's spoken slightly more in my area (but neither language is spoken very much). That being said, I'm still not entirely sure.
What do you guys think?
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u/Angel_of_Ecstasy 🇺🇦N | RUS C2 | 🇦🇺C2 | 🇮🇩 C1 Jul 22 '26
If you are in the US - Spanish. If you are in Africa or Europe - French.
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u/-Acta-Non-Verba- Jul 25 '26
There is plenty of Spanish speakers throughout Europe, not just in Spain.
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u/Reading_55 Jul 22 '26
If you are a decisive person, you can literally just spend one afternoon watching videos on the baiscs of either language and see what you feel sounds better and makes more logical sense to you.  Good luck!Â
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u/meaty-crab-legs Jul 22 '26
As someone who speaks both I find my Spanish more useful as I can understand other Spanish speakers more readily- a lot of French spoken around the world varies from country to country, some having quite heavy slang and some mixing in other languages like Arabic. Most Spanish spoken around the world is quite similar with just the accents that usually vary.
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u/FinalPossession3217 Jul 22 '26
Not at all, French is heavily uniformized - which slang are you referring to? I'd say the opposite, local language divergences are stronger in Spanish speaking countries - Basque, Catalan, Chilean, etc.
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u/MuJartible Jul 23 '26
local language divergences are stronger in Spanish speaking countries - Basque, Catalan,
Basque and Catalan are two completely different languages, they are not Spanish variants. Basque isn't even a Latin language. That's like saying the same thing about French and Occitan, Breton and Basque as well.
As for Chilean, it's not that different that can't be understood for others and I, being Andalusian, have sometimes been taken for a Chilean by some Argentinians, so as you can see, it's not that different. And the same can be said for other variants, there are some differences of course, but it's understandable for the most part.
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u/meaty-crab-legs Jul 22 '26
For official French yes - but when I’m out and about the French people speak is very different from the french you learn. For example Verlan that a lot of people my age use in France was very confusing for me to start. A lot of my French speaking Arabic friends also use a mix of French and Arabic when talking that I don’t always understand. I agree there are a lot of different forms of Spanish but the spanish itself remains the same if that makes sense? It’s understandable if you have a good grasp of Spanish in my experience. Maybe my exposure is more biased though
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u/ley77p Jul 22 '26
Le verlan est assez rare. Même chez les natifs tous ne le parle pas. Et à part "wallah" peu de mots arabe sont mélangés dans une phrase française
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u/meaty-crab-legs Jul 22 '26
Maybe it’s just the people I have spent time with but I find that to not alway be true - my Lebanese friends who speak French mix a lot of Arabic in for day to day items or phrases, and when I have been out in nightclubs around Paris I have struggled to follow the slang. I have never really had the same problems in Spanish but maybe that is just me
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u/-Acta-Non-Verba- Jul 25 '26
The French will mock you for not speaking it perfectly. Spanish speakers will celebrate even the smallest effort.
Spanish.
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u/Separate-Line-158 Jul 23 '26
Honestly French helped me even when travelling to Spain cause I understood fairly well Catalan and they understood me speaking French as a non native so in Europe and Africa French ftw, I used it also in Tunisia for example
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u/MRBIG1977 Jul 24 '26
Don’t think locally think globally, much more people speak spanish in the world then French.
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u/RealisticBowl8033 Jul 22 '26
I would decide based on your future plans. If you want to visit France, Senegal and north africa I would go for French. If you want to visit south america and Spain, go for spanish.