In 2025, the results at UCS were generally outstanding. French for some reason was the best performing language with 60% of all grades being a 9 (The top grade possible.) Nonetheless, with Spanish, German, Italian and Mandarin combined, 80% of all grades were an 8 or a 9.

It is a commonly held opinion that Spanish is an easier language than French because of the easier pronunciation but this is not always found to be the case. I can indeed remember my Spanish teacher being annoyed with people for doing better in their French tests than in their Spanish tests because she also believed French is harder.

It seems Spanish can be found harder because it has fewer cognates with English than French  does (because English words that come from Latin do so often through French) which can make recognition harder and therefore there is more new vocabulary to learn. The Spanish commands have far more rules than the French ones.  To my mind though, there are fewer irregular Spanish verbs compared to French. While it is true there are far more Spanish stem changing verbs, once you know which verbs change stem and how the pattern is almost always the same.