Latin for Romance Speakers

Guest   Fri Feb 06, 2009 7:11 pm GMT
<<Have you ever thought that you are stupid? >>

No, but we've all wondered that about you.
idioteces   Fri Feb 06, 2009 8:37 pm GMT
German has not many of these like the Romance languages, the concept is the same in both German and Latin. Also German has long and short vowels like Latin. This is important because two words in Latin may be different depending on a short or long vowel. Romance languages only have short vowels


This is incorrect

German does not have the concept of perfect and imperfect unlike latin and romance languages

Geman has short and long vowels like latin but it hasn't got geminate consonants like Latin and Italian for instance.
han   Fri Feb 06, 2009 10:39 pm GMT
I'm sorry, but those who believe Latin is "easier" for any supposed language speaker, being it German or English, than it its for Romance speakers can only be mistaken.
For Romance speakers, we're studying the roots of our language, for everyone else it's just a different language. This is not just saying so.


<<" "VS" is not used in any Romance language with the same sense given by English to this Latin preposition (versus). Versus and Romance derived words like Italian verso mean towards , not against. " >>

I don't know about Italian or stuff, but in Portuguese "versus" literally means "opposing", which can either be a comparison or a fight or whatever, depending on the context, and like in English.
It never means "towards".
Guest   Fri Feb 06, 2009 10:56 pm GMT
<<I'm sorry, but those who believe Latin is "easier" for any supposed language speaker, being it German or English, than it its for Romance speakers can only be mistaken.
>>

and of course you've studied and mastered Latin, correct?
Guest   Fri Feb 06, 2009 11:54 pm GMT
<<But Latin turned out to be much much more grammar than vocabulary. Furthermore, only a small portion of Latin vocabulary could be deduced from French. So French was of no use and even an obstacle.... >>

Thats because you speak french, which bears almost no resemblance to latin whatsoever.

A spanish or italian speaker would readily see many similarities in the lexicon and alot of the verb inflections.
Nico   Fri Feb 20, 2009 9:42 am GMT
As a french it has been really easy to learn latin and italian, more difficult about spanish.
Blemo   Fri Feb 20, 2009 9:44 am GMT
"A spanish or italian speaker would readily see many similarities in the lexicon and alot of the verb inflections."

If you knew a little bet to read french and italian you would notice how close ther are. More than spanish an italian.
Guest   Fri Feb 20, 2009 10:12 am GMT
Para un francés es imposible que aprender español sea más difícil que aprender latín. Es absurdo.
Patrick   Fri Feb 20, 2009 5:27 pm GMT
Latin is difficult to learn, also for French people! Almost no French can speak fluently Latin, while speakers of Spanish are much more numerous in France.
just a comment   Fri Feb 20, 2009 6:56 pm GMT
" If you knew a little bet to read french and italian you would notice how close ther are. More than spanish an italian. "


Very true. Many (almost everyone) people tend to think that Italian and Spanish are much more similar together than french and Italian are.
As we often saw on thsi forum, this led them to assume that french is half-germanic or sort of, and that it is very different from Italian or Spanish.

I used to think so when I knew only french and Spanish. I never interested myself much in Italian and I believed it was almost a Spanish with "i" instead of "os" at end of words.

When I began to interest myself in Italian I was surprised to realize that it was much more similar to french than to Spanish in therms of vocabulary,
grammar and structure. I think most people are mistaking because of the superfical aspect of word endings: because french words have no endings in "a" or "o" led to think french is not similar to the other romance language.
Guest   Fri Feb 20, 2009 7:38 pm GMT
<<If you knew a little bet to read french and italian you would notice how close ther are. More than spanish an italian.>>

Thats irrelevant.

My point was that spanish and italian are not as far removed from latin as french is, and have more obvious similarities. Thats objective fact, not opinion.

It would be easier for a spanish or italian speaker to notice cognates in latin, and intuit meanings.
Guest   Fri Feb 20, 2009 7:54 pm GMT
Vocabulary in general is more similar in French and Italian because Spanish words of Latin origin are more archaic. It happens the same than in Romanian. The Latin vocabulary layer in both languages tends to be conservative whereas French and Italian acquired many innovations that are absent in them. For example traditional Latin word for Cheese was Caesus (from which Spanish queso derives) but later it was changed by formicus (Italian fromaggio and French fromatge derive from this word). Said this, there is some basic vocabulary that is the same in Italian and Spanish and maybe this makes them to appear to be more similiar than they are in reality . For example: father is padre in Spanish and padre in Italian whereas it's pére in French. House is casa-casa in contrast to maison in French. Thank you is gracias-grazie (merci in French). Please: por favor- per favore (in French si-vous-plait). And many others commonly used words . Add to this that Italian and Spanish sound much more similar to each other than to French and you'll have certain air of special familiarity shared by both. In terms of syntax I would say that Spanish is more similar to Italian than French is: both are pro-drop languages for example. French in that sense is more Germanic as it never ommits the subject.
Caspian   Fri Feb 20, 2009 9:36 pm GMT
There are lies, bigger lies, then there are statistics.

<< (in French si-vous-plait) >>

For a start, 'please' in French is "S'il vous plait" or "S'il te plait".

Secondly, watch this:

French + Italian but not Spanish

French: Trop
Italian: Troppo
Spanish: Demasiado

French: Manger
Italian: Mangiare
Spanish: Comer

French: Vouloir
Italian: Volere
Spanish: Querer


There, I've disproved your point.
Guest   Fri Feb 20, 2009 11:08 pm GMT
Spanish: bailar
Italian : ballare
French: danser (Germanic)

Spanish: herir
Italian: ferire
French: blesser (Germanic)

And so on...
Guest   Fri Feb 20, 2009 11:12 pm GMT
Spanish: adios
Italian: addio
French : au revoir