Do Spanish speakers really understand Italian & Portugue
1. Do native Spanish speakers really understand Italian and Portuguese language?
If you do, can you understand what she is talking about?
http://media.putfile.com/Italian-Greeting
What is she saying?
2. Which language is the easiest to understand for native Spanish speakers? Italian, European Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan(Valencian) or Galician?
I can't get the file. Nice site putfile.com
The girl says she's "mucho contenta" (very happy) because she's going to be married soon and looks forward for the "matrimonio" (wedding).
Easy .
1. Portuguese/Brazilian Portuguese Yes
2. Galician Yes
3. Catalan Not
4. Italian Not
1. Brazilian Portuguese. Yes
2. European Portuguese. Yes. When I was in Portugal, the first day I understood only 50%. When my ears got used to the nasal sounds, I understood all.
3. Valencian. Yes
4. Galician. Yes
5. Catalan. Yes
6. Italian. Some. When I was in Italy, I understood almost all, using sometimes an English word.
Catalan is the easiest for Spanish speakers to understand.
From ethnologue.com
Lexical similarity 89% with Portuguese, 85% with Catalan, 82% with Italian, 76% with Sardinian, 75% with French, 74% with Rheto-Romance, 71% with Rumanian.
From Wikipedia
Spanish and Italian share a very similar phonological system. At present, the lexical similarity with Italian is estimated at 82%.[8] As a result, Spanish and Italian are mutually intelligible to various degrees. The lexical similarity with Portuguese is greater, 89%, but the vagaries of Portuguese pronunciation make it less easily understood by Hispanophones than Italian. Mutual intelligibility between Spanish and French or Romanian is even lower (lexical similarity being respectively 75% and 71%[8]): comprehension of Spanish by French speakers who have not studied the language is as low as an estimated 45% - the same as of English. The common features of the writing systems of the Romance languages allow for a greater amount of interlingual reading comprehension than oral communication would.
For instance:
NATO for Germanic languages . OTAN for romance ones.
EU " . UE "
etc,etc.
Italians use NATO and EU.
but in italian isn't it Unione Europea = UE.
Organizzazione del Trattato Nord-Atlantico should be OTNA but it's better to call it OTAN rather than NATO.
<< Do spanish speakers really understand Italian and Portuguese>>
No. Its often claimed to be true, but its demonstrably false; particularly with regard to italian which is dramatically different from spanish.
The only one Spanish speakers can legitimately claim to understand is Catalan, which is at least 90% intelligible.