Can English speakers understand spoken French?

No.

No, i speak english and cant understand french. Written words that look like english make me go "aahhh ok thats the same thing, ok thats kinda cool" but spoken it sounds different and i dont pick up on it in a normal fluid convo

Generally not, but it'd be interesting to explore how long of an intentionally-constructed text could be considered mutually intelligible. Here's an example for Germanic languages:

https://linguifex.com/wiki/Literature%3AThe_cold_winter_is_near

The cold winter is near is an example text for Germanic languages written by YouTuber King Ming Lam. It aims to use as much partially or completely mutually intelligible vocabulary between North and West Germanic languages to construct a text that can be understood, if vaguely, by any speaker of a mainstream Germanic language, such as English or German.

Here's the English text:

The cold winter is near, a snowstorm will come. Come in my warm house, my friend. Welcome! Come here, sing and dance, eat and drink. That is my plan. We have water, beer, and milk fresh from the cow. Oh, and warm soup!

To me, Norwegian is the closest to intelligible as a native English speaker:

Den kalde vinteren er nær, en snøstorm vil komme. Kom inn i mitt varme hus, min venn. Velkommen! Kom her, syng og dans, et og drikk. Dette er min plan. Vi har vann, øl og melk fersk fra kua. Åh, og varm suppe!

I've also seen that Frisian is supposed to be most understandable to an English speaker, or at least most historically related. Here's some samples of that:

- English: The boy stroked the girl about the chin and kissed her on the cheeks.

- Saterland Frisian: Die Wänt strookede dät Wucht uum ju Keeuwe un oapede hier ap do Sooken.

- North Frisian (Mooring dialect): Di dreng aide dåt foomen am dåt kan än mäket har aw da siike.

- North Frisian (Söl'ring dialect): Di Dreeng strekt dit faamen om't Ken en taatjet höör üp di Sjaken

- West Frisian: De jonge streake it famke om it kin en tute har op 'e wangen.

- Gronings: t Jong fleerde t wicht om kinne tou en smokte heur op wange.

- East Frisian Low Saxon: De Fent straktde dat Wicht um't Kinn to un tuutjede hör up de Wangen.

- German: Der Junge streichelte das Mädchen ums Kinn und küsste sie auf die Wangen.

- Dutch: De jongen streelde het meisje langs haar kin en kuste haar op de wangen.

- Afrikaans: Die seun streel die meisie oor haar ken en soen haar op die wange.

- Danish: Drengen strøg pigen på hagen og kyssede hende på kinderne.

- Icelandic: Drengurinn strauk stúlkunni um hökuna og kyssti hana á kinnarnar.

- Norwegian (Bokmål): Gutten strøk jenta på haken og kysset henne på kinnene.

- Norwegian (Nynorsk): Guten strauk jenta på haka og kyssa henne på kinna.

- Swedish: Pojken strök flickan över hakan och kysste henne på kinderna.

I can’t

Yes, but everyday speech does not solely use Germanic words. Usually, Germanic words are mostly used in the realm of the familiar or personal, while words of Latin origin are mostly used outside that realm. This is why I think people will be able to understand the context.

Native Swedish speaker that speaks all mainland Scandinavian languages, also English, and because my roots I can understand Finnish but barely speak it. I read German and Spanish in school in ancient times but I can't say I can speak or follow anything slightly complex now.

In the sense you are thinking, I can "understand" Icelandic and Dutch if spoken by someone that wants me to understand them despite not having learned the language.

Understand French? Nope. Not a chance.

Excuse me ursäkta anteeksi entschuldigung pardon? Le Hotel is to over there? Great, thanks, Merci! (To the Parisian cursing up in arms that not the entire world speaks the only language he knows)

I can read French but struggle with spoken French. Hell I can't even understand some people speaking English and it's my mother tongue.

I tried translating the sentence to French with a machine translator and it came up with this:

L'hiver rigoureux approche, une tempête de neige va s'abattre. Viens te réfugier dans ma maison bien chauffée, mon ami. Bienvenue ! Viens ici, chante et danse, mange et bois. Voilà ce que j'ai prévu. Nous avons de l'eau, de la bière et du lait tout frais de la vache. Oh, et de la soupe bien chaude !

I would understand "bière" and "soupe" out of all that, I think. There's cognates in there like mansion/maison, but they're spelled/pronounced differently enough that I don't think they'd help.

But that paragraph is an exception. For example, take this title from Le Monde:

J. D. Vance avance que l’Iran a accepté le retour d’inspecteurs de l’AIEA sur son sol

An English speaker can perhaps understand the gist of it. That Iran accepted the return of inspectors of IAEI.

Even if a few of the words are the same, the pronunciation is hugely different. More so than German or Spanish, which also share words with English.

I kinda wish I had taken french or german instead of spanish in school.

Why couldn't they? Provided they learn to speak _and to listen to spoken French_. It won't be easy to begin with but like with anything new, the more you do it the better you get.

As far being of different origins, things aren't that simple:

English share a lot of vocabulary with French. Even though of German origin, it also has been influenced a lot by Latin, like French obviously.
France invaded England a few centuries ago (William the Conqueror was the French Guillaume le Conquérant) and it lasted long enough to have a real impact on the English language.
* To make things even more complicated, the French language itself, the one spoken by the French people is historically linked to the 'Francs' population (French is 'Français', in French) that, to grossly summarize, invaded Gauls following the final collapse of the Roman Empire, migrating from what is now Germany (very roughly speaking). So is it kinda... German too? but it would take a few more centuries before what we now consider as French language would resemble anything like French. At the very least, I would say it would at least need to wait for Charlemagne (approx 300 years after Clovis) and maybe even for le cardinal de Richelieu (XVII century/ under the rein of Louis XIII) when he founded the Académie Française (still active today) as a way to promote a single & common language through the entire kingdom of France... which up until then (and for a few more centuries, up well into the XXth the French government had to work hard to reduce the usage of regional languages) was filled with countless _argots_ and _patois_, or dialects as you would say in English.

I wish I'd taken Spanish. I grew up in California and live in New Mexico. Why did I take French, what the hell was I thinking?

Well, I know what I was thinking, 'everyone takes Spanish, I'll be different.' I'm an idiot.

TIL I can read Norwegian!