Is it true that Italian is the easiest Romance language?

3   Mon Sep 07, 2009 1:01 am GMT
Somebody told me it's much easier than French and even Spanish. Is that true?
Guest   Mon Sep 07, 2009 1:10 am GMT
No, Italian has closed e and o and double consonants.
ø   Mon Sep 07, 2009 1:52 am GMT
Both Italian and Spanish are a lot simpler than French, no doubt.

As a whole both languages are on a par. Except that Italian pronunciation has some more transparency (Spanish sounds mushier), it's easier to figure out how spoken words are spelled.
Mr. Tornillo   Mon Sep 07, 2009 2:49 am GMT
<<Is it true that Italian is the easiest Romance language?>>


Nope, Spanish is by far the easiest.
***   Mon Sep 07, 2009 3:10 am GMT
It's really better for beautiful Italian to sound more transparently, than uneducated Spanish, more harshly.
Tolu   Mon Sep 07, 2009 3:14 am GMT
Grammatically French is the easiest one.
jio   Mon Sep 07, 2009 5:53 am GMT
Italian is probably the most difficult of the three languages grammatically. Even the pronunciation is harder than the Spanish one, it has more phonemes and the difference between double and simple consonants. It also has more consonants the FRench.
Southern Chinese   Mon Sep 07, 2009 6:24 am GMT
No doubt Spanish is more widely spoken than Italian, but who cares much? It's very impossible for you to talk with each Hispanic person (400 million), so the quantity of Spanish speakers doesn't make a difference to those learners. Similarly, it's also impossible to talk with each Italian (70 million) and its descendant in other countries, so no matter how many native / second speakers there are, the most important factor is to think about which of the two is more important and useful for your daily life, or for you personal interest. If you want to study in Italy, then Italian is a must and Spanish is of little help for you, if you plan to work in Argentina, then of course you should learn Spanish, and if in Brazil, Portuguese is your best choice, isn't it a very simple issue?
Southern Chinese   Mon Sep 07, 2009 6:41 am GMT
When you have to / need to learn a foreign language, you just lean it as a target / mission, no matter whether it's hard to learn or not.

When you don't have to / need to learn this language, you just ignore it as an alternative option, no matter whether it's easy to learn or not. (Of course, you may as well learn it, if you're very interested in it).
PARISIEN   Mon Sep 07, 2009 6:52 am GMT
<< It also has more consonants the FRench. >>
— Bullshit...

<< Grammatically French is the easiest one. >>
— French pronounciation and spelling are almost as intricate as English, but spoken (colloquial) French is indeed gramatically nearly as simple as English.

Since verb endings are not pronounced, the non-pro drop system makes regular verbs eerily simple to use. The person 'vous' is the only odd one:
- je chante
- tu chante[s]
- il chante
- on chante
* vous chantez *
- ils chante[nt]

And unlike Italian or Spanish, the subjunctive mood is ignored with those verbs as it doesn't differ from the indicative.
reality   Mon Sep 07, 2009 9:38 am GMT
<< It also has more consonants the FRench. >>
— Bullshit

Parisien you are used to talking nonsense in This forum:
French doesn't have gl, tz, dz, g, ch sounds, the only French consonant that does not exist in Italian is j!
and il lacks lots of Spanish consonants too. That's a fact. Contemporary French has 12 vowels unlike Italian (7) Spanish (5)
op   Mon Sep 07, 2009 10:05 am GMT
It's really better for beautiful Italian to sound more transparently, than uneducated Spanish, more

In my view, educated Mexican Spanish is by far clearer than Italian and in addition it has fewer phonemes. Anyway, the "clearness" of the Italian language is often quite hard to reproduce, especially for English and French speaking people. For instance the difference between simple and double consonants, the intonation is quite complicated.
lop   Mon Sep 07, 2009 10:11 am GMT
Italian isn't easier than Spanish! Italian pronouciation is harder, that's for sure: you should learn to distinguish simple and double consonants, it's the most complicated feature in italian pronounciation. Unfortunately most foreigners don't even notice that!! Italian has 7 vowels Spanish just 5. As for grammar, in my view Italian is a bit more complicated than Spanish Take a look at the articles, the italian system of articles is richer than the Spanish one, and after that all articles combine with prepositions in different forms: dello, nello, dal dai col coi, sul etc. Spanish just has two simple forms. al/del. On the whole the use of prepositions is trickier than Spanish. Besides, Italian takes use of two different verbs two form all compound tenses: Essere and Avere and the italian use is even harder than the French one. Last but not least Italian has various pronominal particles like ci, ce, vi ve,ne their use is mainly idiomatic and it's quite hard to master it. Probably the difference between Spanish Ser/estar is a bit more complicated than the Italian essere/stare, but in this regard French is the easist because the verb estar/stare does not even exist in Spanish.
PARISIEN   Mon Sep 07, 2009 10:20 am GMT
<< French doesn't have gl >>

— C'est sûr.

<< tz, dz, g, ch sounds >>

— Comment crois-tu que sont prononcés "gâte-sauces", "fin de série", "arrêt de jeu", "pâtes chaudes" ?...

Et nous avons l'usage de "u" comme semi-consonne, en quasi-exclusivité mondiale (rares sont les non-francophones qui arrivent à prononcer "fruit" correctement).

<< Contemporary French has 12 vowels >>

— Tu oublies 3 nasales.
neuter nouns   Mon Sep 07, 2009 12:54 pm GMT
Most neuter nouns had plural forms ending in -A or -IA; some of these were reanalysed as feminine singulars, such as gaudium ("joy"), plural gaudia; the plural form lies at the root of the French feminine singular (la) joie, as well as of Catalan and Occitan (la) joia (Italian la gioia is a borrowing from French); the same for lignum ("wood stick"), plural ligna, that originated the Catalan feminine singular noun (la) llenya, and Spanish (la) leña. Some Romance languages still have a special form derived from the ancient neuter plural which is treated grammatically as feminine: e.g. BRACCHIUM : BRACCHIA "arm(s)" > Italian (il) braccio : (le) braccia, Romanian braț(ul) : brațe(le). Cf. also Merovingian Latin ipsa animalia aliquas mortas fuerant.

Alternations such as l'uovo fresco ("the fresh egg") / le uova fresche ("the fresh eggs") in Italian are usually analysed as masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural, with an irregular plural in -a (heteroclisis). However, it is also consistent with their historical development to say that uovo is simply a regular neuter noun (< ovum, plural ova) and that the characteristic ending for words agreeing with these nouns is -o in the singular and -e in the plural. Thus, neuter nouns can arguably be said to persist in Italian, and also Romanian.

Typical Italian endings

un buon amico (ko)
dei buoni amici (tschi) palatalization in the plural form)

un bell'uomo
dei begli uomini

un uovo fresco (singular)
delle uovA fresche (plural)

dito lungo (singular)
ditA lunghe (plural)