Does Spanish sound like other Romance languages?

Roberto   Mon Jan 18, 2010 8:24 pm GMT
Being a native Spanish speaker, it is absolutely impossible for me to separate sound from meaning, so I can't judge the language objectively. It's something that has always interested me, though.

Does Spanish sound like its fellow Romance languages? Though there is significant variation, all of the other Romance languages tongues, all have the same "feel" to me, just as Germanic languages (minus English) do. English seems to have lost some of the characteristic Germanic sounds, though, such as /x/.

Also, if you had to choose, which Romance language does Spanish sound the closest to?
Leasnam   Mon Jan 18, 2010 9:02 pm GMT
Spanish does indeed sound like Italian (or actually, the other way around), but it is distinct.

I would say that the difference between Spanish and Italian is akin to accent. It's *how* the words are pronounced. Even if the word between the two languages is selfsame, I can tell the Spanish speaker from the Italian easily. ok, enough said.

Spanish doesn't sound like Portuguese, and it doesn't sound like French (but of course, French is a Germanic language...:P). But I take offense at your "minus English" comment! >:|

The sound of English is the definition of what a Germanic language sounds like. Here is a list of Germanic leids which do not have the /x/ sound:

English
Norwegian (ny and bok)
Swedish
Danish
Faroese
Icelandic

Here are the ones that do:
German
Dutch
Afrikaans
Scots
Low Saxon

an even split wouldn't you say?
Leasnam   Mon Jan 18, 2010 9:04 pm GMT
<<Here are the ones that do:
German
Dutch
Afrikaans
Scots
Low Saxon
>>

oh wait...I forgot Spanish

Here are the ones that do:

German
Dutch
Afrikaans
Scots
Low Saxon
Spanish


(just keeding)
Paul   Tue Jan 19, 2010 5:02 am GMT
Yes.

Most romance languages, with the exception of maybe french and portuguese (which have a more complex and distinct phonetic inventory), sound alike.
spanish accent   Tue Jan 19, 2010 6:10 am GMT
"Does Spanish sound like other Romance languages?"

Spanish sounds like galician.
And outside romantic languages, sounds like greek.

Spanish doenst sounds like italian.
Convidado   Tue Jan 19, 2010 8:05 am GMT
Like said above, Spanish sounds like Greek and not like Italian.
Guest.   Tue Jan 19, 2010 9:27 am GMT
Greek isn't a Romance language.
Guest star   Tue Jan 19, 2010 11:05 am GMT
Also for me spanish sounds like greek. The fact that greek isn't a romance language is irrelevant. We are talking about sound and not about grammar/vocabulary. I can't grasp all that resemblance with italian in sound: for me italian is more fluid and melodic maybe for the lack of jota sound, less emphatized r and s or simply for the different intonation.
blanc   Tue Jan 19, 2010 11:19 am GMT
I don't think that Spanish sounds like Italian. Ot that I actually don't find it sounds more like Italian than with Catalan or Portuguese.

Many sounds in Spanish doesn't exist in Italian and reversely; and the accentuation (rythm and melidy of the speeach) is completly different.

but maybe you hear it like that. some people notice more things that others, or tend to not hear some differences and other yes.
Franco   Tue Jan 19, 2010 1:57 pm GMT
For an Italian Italian does not sound like Spanish. For a British and people in many other nations it does. It's hard to perceive for an English speaker that Italian has open and closed e/o and Spanish hasn't, specially when Spanish e and o are a not either open or closed. Or that Spanish has not double consonants. They only perceive that both languages have a lot of vowels, most of words end with o or a, trilled r , ch sound and such, which is enough for finding them both similarly sounding. I've experienced many times that people in England took my Spanish for Italian, I guess that this would be impossible to happen if I spoke French as it is phonologically more different. Another interesting thing is that all Romance speakers have similar accent when speaking English.
poiu   Tue Jan 19, 2010 2:46 pm GMT
Ur friend should have cleaned his ears.
One dude that take spanish as italian can take english as chinese, for example.
Italian have an very different intonation, is more melodic and light-years more soft than spanish.

"Another interesting thing is that all Romance speakers have similar accent when speaking English."

In which it is based?
U wanna make an bunch of romance languages, we can say that one german speaking one language is equal to an english for example?
The romances languages have differents phonologies and im far from thinking that one french speaking english is the same of, for example, one spanish speaking.I do not know where you got it.
Dan   Tue Jan 19, 2010 3:35 pm GMT
Franco said:

"Another interesting thing is that all Romance speakers have similar accent when speaking English."


That may be somewhat true for Spanish and Italian. However, French, Romanian and Portuguese have all distinct accents in English.
PARISIEN   Tue Jan 19, 2010 9:41 pm GMT
At the time I only had a poor knowledge of both Spanish and Italian I used to confuse them a lot, I was unable to tell one from the other.

Later, while studying both languages at the same time (which BTW was a big mistake in the beginning) and widely travelling in both Spain and Italy, I got aware of a fundamental difference:
- Italian sounds are produced between teeth and lips,
- Castilian sounds are produced between the tip of the tongue and the upper teeth. Hence the subdued 's' and the confusion between 'b' and 'v', and the whole Spanish phonologics generally speaking. (Have you noticed that Spanish is a language that nearly doesn't involve lips? Contrary to Italians, Spaniards barely move their lips whilst speaking).

A tiny difference with humongously big consequences.
JGreco   Wed Jan 20, 2010 4:43 am GMT
Sometimes generalizations have inaccurate consequences when speaking of Spanish. There can be a drastic difference between Spanish accents in different regions. The Spanish accent in the Americas can have a completely different pronunciation and intonation compared to mainland Spain (especially around Castilla). There are sounds that don't exist in the Americas while the Americas have pronunciations that don't exist in the Castilla-Leon accent (Madrileno) that actually may exists in other languages such as Catalan (jo in Catalan sounds similar to the yo pronunciation in many accents in the Americas), and many regions in Br.Portuguese also have some more similar accents to American Spanish. So keep the generalizations on the minimal.
Jonas   Wed Jan 20, 2010 10:42 am GMT
Spanish sounds like greek.only 5 vowels.so poor:-(