French has fewer verb tenses/moods than Spanish. French has a total of 15 verb tenses/moods, four of which are literary and rarely used, thus only 11 are used in daily French. Spanish has 17, one of which is literary (pretérito anterior) and two judicial/administrative (futuro de subjuntivo and futuro anterior de subjuntivo), which leaves 14 for regular use. Lots of conjugations!
The final straw, for me, is the subjunctive. While the subjunctive mood is the bane of students of both languages, it is more difficult and much more common in Spanish.
- The French subjunctive is used almost solely after que, whereas the Spanish subjunctive is used regularly after many different conjunctions: que, cuando, como, etc.
- There are two different sets of conjugations for the Spanish imperfect subjunctive and pluperfect subjunctive. You can choose just one set of conjugations to learn, but you must be able to recognize both.
- Si clauses (If... then... clauses) are very similar in French and English but are more difficult in Spanish. Note the two subjunctive tenses that are used in the Spanish si clauses. In French the imperfect subjunctive and pluperfect subjunctive are literary and extremely rare, but in Spanish, they are commonplace.
| Comparison of Si Clauses | ||||
| Unlikely Situation | Impossible Situation | |||
| English | If simple past | + conditional | If pluperfect | + past conditional |
| If I had more time I would go | If I'd had more time I would have gone | |||
| French | Si imperfect | + conditional | Si pluperfect | + past conditional |
| Si j'avais plus de temps j'y irais | Si j'avais eu plus de temps j'y serais allé | |||
| Spanish | Si imperfect subj. | + conditional | Si pluperfect subj. | + past cond. or pluperfect subj. |
| Si tuviera más tiempo iría | Si hubiera tenido más tiempo habría ido or hubiera ido | |||
| Keep reading: 1. Introduction 2. Spanish is easier... 3. French is easier... 4. Neither is easier... 5. The bottom line | ||||
