Lexical similarities between French-Spanish-Italian

me   Sun Aug 06, 2006 12:59 am GMT
That is what I was trying to say by some sentences sounding so similar to Spanish. I was trying to prove that SOME French words CAN be intelligible to Spanish speakers because of that rule. I remember to reading something in French on one of these forums and I understood a little bit of the concept going back Spanish.
greg   Sun Aug 06, 2006 4:05 pm GMT
me : je suis tout à fait d'accord avec toi. L'exemple des informations à la télé est un très bon exemple.
Nassos   Fri Aug 18, 2006 3:02 pm GMT
When I was exposed to French, I was trying to learn it, but I gave up since they were difficult. Now that I can speak Italian, i do recall some of the French words. But it is because there are lexical similarities between the French and the Italian.

As for understanding, I do understand Castellano than French (written and oral). I once watched TVE (TV España) and the French TV5. From TVE I understood almost everything, but on TV5...zero!

The positive is that it is now easier to learn Castellano and French because of my Italian language backround. ;)
Guest   Fri Aug 18, 2006 9:27 pm GMT
" That's true fab, there are many similarities between written French and written Italian, but I still think that Italian is closer to Spanish because, while there may not be as many written similarities between the two as like with French, the spoken similarities are more than enough to make up the difference, considering that French has a *very* unique pronnounciation, very different from Italian. "


I particulary don't agree on this point. I tend to think that for a french speaker spoken Italian is often easier to catch than its writen form (as soon as take the attention to listen well).

Let's see with your own exemples :

"Que/Que/Che" French and Spanish writings are identic but Italian "Che" and Spanish "Que" sound identical.

"Qui/Quien/Chi", this time French and Italian words sound identical, Spanish no.

"Comunità." In French the main difference with the Italian word in the change of "i" with "au" and the "e" ending instead of "a". In Spanish the "t" sound is replaced by "d", and the sound "d" is added at the end (communidad)

"Polizia". the accentuation is very different from the spanish one. The french version just sound like the spanish one without "ia". "POLIS".

" Generare." There is a big difference with the spanish version is the sound "g", wich is completly different, wich is not the case in French. In french, as usual the sound difference lies in the ending of the word while the begining is very similar with the italian one.


I found some Italian sentences in a metod to illustrate what I want to say :

"Scuzi", the writing is not so similar but when prononce we have the feeling to hear "escusez" with an italian accentuation.

"Qual'e l'autobus", almost the same prononciation than "quel est l'autobus"

"la luna e bella", almost the same prononciation than "la lune est belle", different from Spanish "la luna esta bella". ("e"/"est") are prononced the same way in french and Italian, while spanish "esta/es" is different. and the spanish "ll" in "bella", make it sound very different while the french "belle" is almost the same sound than "bella".

"l'autobus non e troppo pieno" and "l'autobus n'est pas trop plein" seem writed quite differently, but spoken it is very easy to catch it.

"Chi e ? E ancora me?" "Qui s'est ? C'est encore moi" When heard it is much more similar than writed.

"...Allora, tu sai se lui ha bisogno di me oggi !" for a french ear it is almost the same sound than " Alors, tu sais si lui a besoin de moi aujourd'hui ! "; We could hardly say the same about the spanish "Entonces, Sabes si el me nesessita hoy !"

It is amazing that "Aujourd'hui" and "Oggi" sound so similar, it so different in writted form.

"tu ai una valigia e un pachetto da prendere ", when sopken it is almost the same sentence in French "tu as une valise et un paquet à prendre", while the writing could seem more different. This sentence is almost compeltly intelligible for a Spanish speaker : "Tienes una maleta y un paquete para tomar"

"Tutte le semane, il mercoledi, tu hai la possibilita di magiare da me" sounds almost exactly like
"toutes les semaines, le mercredi, tu as la possibilité de manger chez moi"
but quite different from
"todas las semanas, el miercoles, tienes la possibilidad de comer conmigo"

"voi avete un amico a roma" - "vous avez un ami à rome" when heard these seem very closer too.

"arrivo a Milano domani mattina" A spanish speaker would'nt have a clue what is that all about (llegaré a Milano manana en la manana), while for a french it is obvious "j'arrive à Milan demain matin"

The verbs "avere" and "avoir", very used are replaced by "tener" in a lot of cases in Spanish, which give very different sentences :

tu hai / tu as / tienes
voi avete/vous avez/teneis
etc.


etc. and there is a lot of other exemples in an Italian speech taht we catch much better wher heard than when read.
Tiffany   Fri Aug 18, 2006 9:57 pm GMT
Is that you Fab?

Italian corrections for what they are worth:

<<"Scuzi", the writing is not so similar but when prononce we have the feeling to hear "escusez" with an italian accentuation.>>

Scusi, not Scuzi.

<<"Qual'e l'autobus", almost the same prononciation than "quel est l'autobus">>

This sentence means "Which is the bus" - is this what you meant?

All of your 'e' to mean "is/est" should be è.

"Week" is "settimana", so in this respect the French "semaine" and Spanish "semana" are much closer.

<<"Tutte le semane, il mercoledi, tu hai la possibilita di magiare da me" sounds almost exactly like
"toutes les semaines, le mercredi, tu as la possibilité de manger chez moi"
but quite different from
"todas las semanas, el miercoles, tienes la possibilidad de comer conmigo" >>

Tutte le settimane, il mercoledì, tu hai la possibilità di mangiare con me.
Sergio   Fri Aug 18, 2006 10:29 pm GMT
Hi Tiffany,

As far as I know, the sense of "da me" in Italian corresponds to "at my place" in English, whereas the sense of "con me" translates as "with me".
I think that Guest was trying to express the first meaning, which makes sense with French "chez moi".
The problem is, that in Spanish there are not two different forms to express both ideas, unlease you say "en mi casa" to be more specific. But otherwise both situations are expressed with the very same words.
fab   Fri Aug 18, 2006 11:21 pm GMT
Ciao Tiffany

Si sono io

I thank you for the corrections, my "italian" is not good enough, I'm ashamed.

For the accents I knew, but I didn't know if everybody could see them correctly, so didon't writed them.

I'm sorry for "settimana", I knew this one... By the way i find the Italian word to be very etymologic and of clear meaning since we clearly recognise the "setti" prefix, meaning seven (days).

Grazie mille e buona notte ! (qui è l'ora di dormire !)
Tiffany   Fri Aug 18, 2006 11:33 pm GMT
Fab, sei tu un mal'cane. Non sentirsi in colpa per qualcosa.

Lege questo:

septimana-settimana-semana-semaine

wochentag-weekday
Tiffany   Sat Aug 19, 2006 12:29 am GMT
^ The above Tiffany is impersonating me. She also speaks bad Italian.

Sergio, yes "da me" does mean, "at my place" but I didn't think that was what fab was trying was trying to say. Of course, I didn't realize what "chez" meant then. I do now.
fab   Sat Aug 19, 2006 9:05 am GMT
"chez" in french can seem strange at first sight, but when you know the origin it is very logical.

Nowaday "Chez" means "at home of..." like in expression "chez moi".
In reality it just comes from "casa", but very tranformed :
Casa - Case - Chase - Chaz - Chez
so, "chez moi" is more or less the equivalent of "a casa mia" (at my home)
Sergio   Sat Aug 19, 2006 4:13 pm GMT
Salut Fab,

Merci pour cette explication!!!.. quelquefois c'est vraiment une surpise comment certain paroles apparement inconnues partagent-elles des origins si communs!!!!

et pardon pour mon mauvais français. :-)

Tiffany, after the explanation of Fab, I think we was expressing the correct comparison: "da me"="chez mois"="conmigo"="at my place"
Tiffany   Sat Aug 19, 2006 6:20 pm GMT
My Spanish is rusty. I saw the "con" and thought "with me". I had figured "chez" meant "with", but thank you for the explanation.
greg   Wed Aug 23, 2006 12:38 pm GMT
Fr <chez> est issu de La <casa> comme le disait fab.

D'ailleurs <chaise>, <chiese> & <chese> voulaient dire {maison} en ancien français. Voir aussi AF <chesel> & <casal>.

En ancien français, pour dire <chez> on utilisait : <ches> <chés> <chiez> <cheux> <enchés> <en chies> <achés> <a chies> etc.
ERICK   Thu Aug 31, 2006 10:42 pm GMT
Yo diria qué el francés es mcho mas difficil que el español pero , el español es mucho mas difficil qué el inglés devido a las conjugaciones del verbo ya qué el ingles carece de conjugaciones es mucho mas facil aprenderlo.
Guest   Thu Aug 31, 2006 11:07 pm GMT
Para mi el lenguage mas dificil de aprender como native del ingles fue el español devido aprender el uso coreecto de FUE que en inglés sencillamentte no existe ej:

Yo fui una , fuera,sea,hubiese
Tu fuistes ,fueras,seas,hubieses
Vos: fuistes ,fuistes,seas,huvieses
ella,el,ello fue,fuera,sea,ha,hubieses
nosotros fuimos,fueramos ,seamos,hubiesemos
vosotros(ni c)
Ellos ellas: fueron, fueran,sean,hubiesen
ustedes fueron,fueron,sean,hubiesen

Why spanish grammar is to difficult making sense using the right verb conjugated can anybody tell me WHAT IS THE GREAT DIFFERENT BETWEEN YO SEA , YO FUI , YO FUERA , YO ESTABA OH MY GOD EVERYTHING MEANS I WAS IN ENGLISH EXCEPT YO SEA ITS SUDJUNTIVE I AM SCARED START TO TALK ABOUT IT , i would say spanish is hardest language to learn becuase i did not have this grammar problem with french or portuguesse! PLEASE SPANISH PEOPLE DO NOT SPEAK SO FASTER OH MY GOD PLEASE!!!!