Which language is more important, French or Spanish?

Tiffany   Wed Dec 14, 2005 8:51 pm GMT
Certo!
Sander   Wed Dec 14, 2005 8:56 pm GMT
=> Sorry Sander but you reacted exactly like a United Statian.<=

Oh, but that's not going to get you out. You apologise just because I'm not an American? That's ridiculous.And how would you know the average American reaction? Please quit the childish nonsense Aldo.
Aldo   Wed Dec 14, 2005 11:01 pm GMT
It seems you are a bit slow, first it was not an apology I was being sarcastic second you are from Holland and don't ask me to call you European (this is sarcasm too!) then what the Heck are you doing in a thread titled "Which language is more important, French or Spanish?" ?
Why don't you look for, or even better, why don't you start a new thread titled "Which language is more important, Dutch or "American"?" ? If you have not noted this was sarcastic too!!!
quest   Fri Dec 16, 2005 7:11 pm GMT
french is very important because it can open many doors to jobs such as a teacher, translation, interpreting, and the travel industy.
Sander   Fri Dec 16, 2005 10:08 pm GMT
Aldo,

You're right how could I mistake 'sorry ... but' as an apology?! I am SO stupid. (Now that's sarcasm).

I don't live in Holland, since this is a province and not a country.And because I live in the Netherlands, I'm also an European.

What am I doing in this thread? Correcting people like you.Question is: What are you doing here? 1 message should suffice in a thread like this one.

=>Why don't you look for, or even better, why don't you start a new thread titled "Which language is more important, Dutch or "American"?" ? <=

Why?
Sander   Sat Dec 17, 2005 9:42 am GMT
Why would I wan't to do that? 'American' is not a language but a variation, and I already know my language is important, to me at least.
french man   Sun Dec 18, 2005 2:16 pm GMT
salut monsieurs; est ce que je peut s'avoir l'importance de la langue de puis la vie humain avec la langue anglais svp? la langue humain et leur importance je veut une reponce en anglais svp.
Guest   Sun Dec 18, 2005 10:13 pm GMT
Latin languages are very easy to learn by Latin language speakers
Only a person that isn’t a Latin speaker believes that the Latin language are the same. They are not; thought a cult Latin speaker can easily read any Latin language. In the past few days I attested that when I’ve read Occitan and another language of France (I would NOT consider it a dialect!!!) that I don’t even remember its name. I’ve never eared that language and I didn’t know its existence. Thought I could understand most of it. Why… because we all have the same origin. And because of Etymology, the written languages are similar cause they are based on Latin. We in Portugal write and speak differently. We write “ouro” (gold). Doubt we say (in my region) “ourum” (in English would sound like awooroong) though “awoouroo” is also valid, and in Spanish is “oro” (sounds like awraw) In the writen language, Ouro is very similar to Oro. But is spoken very differently. We really only use the O in the end, just because we had make it always. I thing is also almost impossible that two speakers from different Lantin languages don’t understand something of those languages. If they say that is it probably a nationalist/regional pride or lack of interest in understanding. Between Portuguese and Spanish. This is what happens:

A Spanish speaker can easily read Portuguese
A Portuguese speaker can easily read Spanish
A Spanish speaker normally gets confused with the sounds of Portuguese and doesn’t understand half of the conversation. If he is smart and interested he could understand most of it, but will have difficulty to do the Portuguese sounds and use proper portuguese grammar.
A Portuguese speaker understands Spanish. Some call it “simplified Portuguese”, or Portuguese as “complex Spanish”. Or say that Spaniards are lying when they say that don’t understand them.
Because Latin languages are so connected some stronger languages declare the others are dialects of it. And start a real dialectization of that language. Others that are the same language are declared different, by the same reason. For me a dialect is a slit different pronunciation, some different words and some small different grammatical differences. At least is what we use in Portugal, Brazil, São Tomé, Angola and others (locally speaking, we only declare Brazilian and São tomense as a variety, and this varieties and the other are composed with dialects).

Portuguese dialects are fully understandable locally and by other Portuguese-speaking country, with some rare exceptions - some say that dont understand any dialect of the other because of Pride Portugal-Brazil Angola-Mozambique (false unintelligible dialects), dought when speakers of the other dialects are put in the environment of the other, they dont say that. Others like Açoriano (Azorian) are really difficult to understand for other dialects, but it is because of the strong and different accent and not words or grammar. Portuguese dialects normally form a continuum of very small differences from the neighbour dialect, and to very different dialect. In Portugal Transmontano-Açoriano In Brazil: Nordestino-Gaúcho. The link dialects between Portugal and Brazil (form a continuum by the north of Brazil (Nortenho or Alto-Minhoto or Beirão to Nordestino) by the south of Brazil (Estremenho - Carioca) = Lisbon - Rio de JaneiroPedro 20:42, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Couldn't Spanish and Portuguese be considered a language continuum?
I think language continuum implies a smooth transition from one language to the next. This might be true in some parts of Portugal, but from what I've read and heard (I've only ever been to Brazil, and it is my second language so I can't say for sure), the northern dialects tend to show a smoother trasition to Spanish, but if you went from Lisbon to Madrid, you would find a pretty sharp line weaving in and out of the border. Pedro makes a good point that within Portuguese there are communication difficulties springing from the dialectual differences. Middle class people from Rio sometimes have a hard time understanding working class bahianos, which isn't that far off geographically. I understand that the same situation exists in the spanish speaking world. It makes me wonder about people who lump Italian, Spanish and Portuguese into one big language without considering the complexities involved. Kyle543 18:52, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
Greg   Mon Dec 19, 2005 12:27 am GMT
Sander redet immer Scheißdreck.

Das geht dich einen Scheißdreck an. Geh' und krabbel in das stinkende Loch zurück, aus dem Du kommst.
greg   Mon Dec 19, 2005 7:59 am GMT
Le message précédent n'est pas de moi.
Joe   Mon Dec 19, 2005 8:18 pm GMT
>>Some call it “simplified Portuguese”, or Portuguese as “complex Spanish”.<<

On the contrary, spanish-speakers refer to portuguese as "poor man's spanish" or mangled spanish. Depends on what side of the fence you are looking at it I guess.

>>I understand that the same situation exists in the spanish speaking world.<<

Not among educated spanish-speakers. Apart from colloquialisms they're understand each other reasonably well. As you've said, portuguese is a different story altogether. Maybe you should only comment on this when you've actually learnt who to speak spanish.

>>Spaniards are lying when they say that don’t understand them. <<

Not lying instead they're being brutally honest. To the average spanish-speaker it sounds like they're speaking through their noses, like they're suffering from sinus or something. Portuguese it's a very nasal language in stark contrast to spanish which makes it hard to grasp for spanish-speakers.
JGreco   Tue Dec 20, 2005 12:25 am GMT
There are some varieties of portuguese that spanish people can understand. The accent around Sao Paulo is very easy for a spanish person to undestand because of the Italian influences on that accent. Other accents that are easier are also the accents you see in the Northern regions of portugal, the region around Santa Catarina in Brasil, and also Cape Verdean portuguese. I have Bolivian and Costa Rican friends when they heard Cesaria Evora sing that could almost completely understand what she was saying.

A note to mention also is Galician (Gallego) which is almost completely intelligible with spanish.
*CarloS*   Tue Dec 20, 2005 6:48 am GMT
.... Interesante... No quiero discutir con las personas que dejaron esos mensajes sobre si los lusófonos entienden a los hispanófonos y viceversa, pero, ¿LOS LUSÓFONOS PUEDEN ENTENDER EN ESTE MOMENTO LO QUE ESTOY ESCRIBIENDO?
Español   Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:43 am GMT
" note to mention also is Galician (Gallego) which is almost completely intelligible with spanish"

Rotundamente falso. En los telediarios cuando alguien habla en gallego ni siquiera le ponen subtitulos.
Español   Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:46 am GMT
Ooops, JGreco, error mio. Me habia parecido que habias escrito unintelligible