Hello! I am not a native English speaker, but I speak French and Russian is my native language. I can say my opinion about your question. I think French will be easier for you, as you are native English speaker, because: - the same alphabet. - similar in orthography. for ex - table-table )) So, you know the meaning of the words. - no cases)) - similar in grammar (articles, sequence of tenses, no cases etc) The Russian language has in essence diffirent grammar system and alphabet. I would recommend you to learn both))) I love French very much! Russian is my native one...So...))) Whatever your choice - I wish you good luck!

At least, french you can read it......

http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty For English speakers, the US Foreign Service Institute ranks French as a category 1 language, requiring 23-24 weeks of instruction; whereas Russian is a category 4 language, requiring 44 weeks of instruction. The only category 5 languages are Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

I don't speak russian, but one of my student told me verbs and grammar are much more easy in russian. As for common words and pronounciation between French and English, it's great but you'll find it a curse too. There are "false friends" (words that look alike but mean different things, like "but" - you know what it mean in English but in French it only mean "goal"). As for pronunciation, I still struggle to say "J" and "G" (when reading them as letter - say like in a postcode) in English because they are alost the opposit in French and get confused. Same with "I" and "E" and you'll have to re-learn altogether how to pronounce "A" and discover the 3 sounds for "e, é, è". Not beyond the wit of man, of course, but so you know thant been alike brings confusion too.

If you have anything to say comparing or contrasting the two I'm interested, especially if your native language is English.