Lexical similarities between French-Spanish-Italian

Addendum 2

I've seen the videos. I'm happy that people are interested IN our history in Mexico. -English

Ho vistO i video. Sono contento che le persone sono interessate ALLA nostra storia DEL Messico. -Italiano

hi all,

i will not try to write in spanish because i write in english much better though i prefer to speak spanish. i am an american who has lived much time in latin america.

i speak spanish everyday. i can read a portuguese paper as if it were spanish but i have trouble reading an italian paper. but i can italian better than portuguese because the formation of the verbs sounds closer to me. but there are many words that i don't understand. if i had not studied i would not know that hablar and parlare were the same word. but i can tell that yo hablo and io parlo are the same verb form just from hearing it. know what i mean?

they are all so similiar it is hard to decide which are closest. in my opinion, and notice i said MY OPINION, spanish and portuguese are closer in grammar but spanish and italian are closer in cadence. i think that is the right word. i mean the way a language is spoken. or is that syntax. i don't claim to be a linguist although i can communicate fairly well in several languages. most of what i know is from self study.

ciao
saludos

I agree with the Mexicans and the Central Americans that Italians is easier for them to understand than Portuguese because the people of these countries are not exposed to both Italian and Portuguese.

South American Spanish speakers are able to say that Portuguese is easier for them since they are always exposed to it and always have contact with the Brazilians not with Italians.

People living near the Portuguese border in Spain find Portuguese easier since they too are exposed to it but that is not the case with the people in Central Spain and especially Eastern part of Spain.

<<People living near the Portuguese border in Spain find Portuguese easier since they too are exposed to it but that is not the case with the people in Central Spain and especially Eastern part of Spain.>>

But you're forgetting that Catalan and Portuguese have a very similar pronunciation - and vocabulary too.

Let me set something clear for some of these posts. First of all I am from one parent that is from Spain and the other Italy.

Spanish and Portuguese in the listening form" are not close at all. In fact for a Spaniard it is very difficult to understand due to the changes in the sounds and pronunciation. Having said that, for a spaniard to read portuguese it is very similar and you can make out most of it. The only spanish people that understand" by voice the portuguese well would be gallegos and the galego language from spain that is a hybird of spanish and portuguese.

For a spaniard to undertsand an italian by voice is much simpler and the languages by sound have many similarities. I would say about 80% is understandable as is the reading and comprehension.

I'm planning to take up a language either Italian or French, as i will be travelling to French and Italy regularly. After reading the posts, i have no idea still on which language should i be picking up, French?Italian? Can Italian understand French if i were to pick up french or vice versa? Need your advice on this! Greatly appreciated!! Thank you

"For a spaniard to undertsand an italian by voice is much simpler and the languages by sound have many similarities. I would say about 80% is understandable as is the reading and comprehension."

I think that Italian and Spanish have the same kind of asymmetrical mutual inteligibility that exists between Swedish and Danish (near perfect from Swedish do Danish, less easy in the opposite direction). The dropped initial "f" and the non rare words borrowed from Arabic or Basque make often Spanish expressions quite obscure to Italians.

Many educated Italians have studied French and understand and speak it well. Even the commoners will tune in to French if it is spoken slowly. The same holds true for French speakers who want to make themselves understood to Italian speakers. Again, speaking slowly and clearly is the key.

I am Italian and studied French and lived in Tunisia and France for some time as a child, so I can read, write, understand and speak French very well. However, working in Latin America and having no formal study in Spanish, after a few months I could write, read and negotiate (verbally) complex contracts in Spanish. It was quite easy. To say that Spanish is not closer to Italian, written and spoken, is rather silly.

Carlo, Alfredo, thank you for the ideas!
I shall pick up French it seems.
Thank you

"I am Italian and studied French and lived in Tunisia and France for some time as a child, so I can read, write, understand and speak French very well. However, working in Latin America and having no formal study in Spanish, after a few months I could write, read and negotiate (verbally) complex contracts in Spanish. It was quite easy. To say that Spanish is not closer to Italian, written and spoken, is rather silly."
>>That was basically because of two main reasons, first of all, Spanish and Italian are quite similar, and the second reason is cuz Spanish is the easiest language to learn, and that has already been proven in many occasions before.

Spanish and Italian are NOT quite similar, not more than Italian and French.
Spanish is not an "easy" language, not more than English anyway

"Spanish and Italian are NOT quite similar, not more than Italian and French.
Spanish is not an "easy" language, not more than English anyway "
>>And you're just an ignorant idiot that's what it is.

French is a little more similar to Italian than Spanish if we consider vocabulary only, but Spanish and Italian are closer when taking into account all the aspects together: sintax, phonetics, vocabulary...

"Spanish and Italian are closer when taking into account all the aspects together: sintax, phonetics, vocabulary..."

C'est absolument évident.
Il faut être un idiot pour le nier.

Cependant il semble que cette similarité est plus fortuite que systémique. Le toscan est géographiquement séparé du castillan par une chaîne de langues apparentées (piémontais-provençal-occitan-catalan-aragonais), phonologiquement très distinctes du toscan comme du castillan.

Phénomène paradoxal: un Castillan comprend assez mal un Catalan, plus du tout un Provençal, encore moins un Piémontais... mais retrouve une phonétique et une morphologie analogues à Florence et Rome.

Plus surprenant encore: la Vénétie, région italienne la plus éloignée de l'Espagne, a développé des phénomènes phonétiques parallèles au castillan (notamment, pas de consonnes doubles) et un vocabulaire étonnamment proche. A Venise et dans les petites bourgades voisines, l'it. 'via' ('rue') se dit 'calle', comme en espagnol, et par ex. <San Salvatore> devient <San Salvador>! Il s'agit d'évolutions locales analogues, mais non liées entre elles. Dues au hasard, en fait.