French or Italian?

Adolfo   Sun Aug 12, 2007 11:43 am GMT
French is not a germanized language. It has just a few words of germanic root here and there. Italian and Spanish have them also: "guerra", "banda", "rico",...
What makes French a different romance language is its strong celtic substratum.
Guest   Sun Aug 12, 2007 12:47 pm GMT
There is celtic in France and French like there is in Spain: almost nothing.
furrykef   Sun Aug 12, 2007 2:13 pm GMT
It's well-established that French has a Celtic substratum. The Romans taught Vulgar Latin to the Gauls, and the Gauls, as a whole, didn't learn it perfectly. It's impossible to teach a language perfectly to a large population. Some individuals might get it right, but most are too lazy. So what are the "imperfections"? Gaulish influence. Just because French has few Gaulish words now doesn't mean the substratum isn't there. It's an inextricable part of the evolution of the language.

- Kef
Guest   Sun Aug 12, 2007 3:33 pm GMT
It doesn't mean French is much more Gaulish than Latin. After the fall of Roman Empire Italy was widely invaded by German tribes (till the point there is a region which was the reign of Longobards = Lombardy), but this doesn't mean Italian was germanicezed too (apart from some words)
Milton   Sun Aug 12, 2007 5:34 pm GMT
Italian is not easy at all.
The spelling is tricky (especially double consonants, many peope pronunce double consonants as single consonants and vice versa, and vowels/accents - many people pronounce open vowel as closed, and vice versa - yet in writing you're not supposed to mix them) and grammar is difficult (to many irregular verbs, compared to English/German/Spanish/Portuguese) and the prepositions are so weird...


fare da soli - to do by oneself
why the heck plural here
go figure


Italian does not distinguish between nephew and grandchild, host and guest..way weird!
Tiffany   Mon Aug 13, 2007 5:53 am GMT
Actually, there is no plural unless there is more than one person. "Fare da soli" means "to do by themselves". For me, if I was to say "I did it by myself", I would say "Ho fatta da sola."

Correction:
"Italiano! Perché è una lingua favolosa!" instead of "Italiano! Perché è una lingua fabulosa!"

I agree about it being weird that they do not distinguish between nephew and grandchild or host and guest. I have asked about this before....

My opinion: Spanish pronunciation is much closer to Italian pronunciation than it is th French pronunciation. I see you are worried about pronunciation issues and it you were successful with Spanish, I'd vote for Italian. I got over the double consonant's hurdle pretty quickly and the prepositions are many, but logical. As you'll probably be learning Standard Italian in a professional school setting (unless you are moving to a small town in Italy and taking courses from locals), I'd say you'll find Italian spelling pretty easy, as it is phonetic.
Guest   Mon Aug 13, 2007 11:13 pm GMT
Let me explain your doubts about the nephew/niece. You don’t have to base yourself on English because it’s different, in English you don’t have the concordances that Italian has like the other Latin languages.
How to understand if we are talking about a niece or nephew?
Ex:
MIA (f) nipote è andata… = my niece has gone…
MIO (m) nipote è andato… = my nephew has gone…
Furthermore in Italian you have the past participle always in concordance with the subject (andatO (m) - andatA (f)), so it’s impossible to misunderstand.
Again:
Mia nipote fa le elementari = My niece goes to the primary school

Where there is not the possessive adjective there is the determinative article who clear the genre:
LA (f) nipote di Mary: Mary’s niece
IL (m) nipote di Mary: Mary’s nephew

As you can see, even if “nipote” is neutral and both masculine and feminine the sentences are always clear and you understand if that “nipote” is a niece or nephew.
The strange thing is that it does not distinguish between nephew/niece and grandson which are both “nipote”. In this case it's hard to understand.

For the “host/guest” in Italian the difference rely on the active or passive form of the sentence:
Ho ospitato (active): I hosted
Sono stato ospitato (passive): I was a guest

Pronunciation in Italian is quite simple (not easy, a strange legend…) to understand for a simple reason: unless many other European languages it is clear and LOGIC. It is not simple at all to pronounce WELL.
Many foreigner people can't master the double vowels in their entire life.
K. T.   Tue Aug 14, 2007 12:20 am GMT
"Many foreigner people can't master the double vowels in their entire life."

Why can't foreign people master the double vowels? The vowels don't seem that difficult to me.

It really depends on one's experiences with languages and one's mother tongue, perhaps.
Guest   Tue Aug 14, 2007 12:26 am GMT
It really depends on one's experiences with languages and one's mother tongue, perhaps.

Speaking in general obviously, I said MANY not ALL.
Anyway I base myself on personal experiences
Nana   Tue Aug 14, 2007 1:59 am GMT
French it is. Sorry Italian!
K. T.   Tue Aug 14, 2007 2:36 am GMT
I'm glad that you told us your decision. Be sure to get a good guide with recordings for pronunciation. French speakers will appreciate your French more if you pronounce things well.

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I would like to know what double vowels "guest" finds difficult. For a long time I didn't realize how double consonants were supposed to be pronounced. Some foreign speakers of the language were kind enough to give me direction about this. It really makes a difference in some words.
Tiffany   Tue Aug 14, 2007 3:58 am GMT
There are no double vowels in Italian, only double consonants (try ano [anus] and anno [year]). Also from what I can see, no one is confused about nipote not having a clear gender. The fact that it means both niece/nephew AND granddaughter/grandson is the confusing part, which you do seem to understand. Many words seem to have no clear gender, or confusing ones and then you must look at the article.
Louis   Tue Aug 14, 2007 11:01 am GMT
Guest: <<<There is celtic in France and French like there is in Spain: almost nothing. >>>

This is perfectly true: the Celtic substratum has very little to do with the French language. Romance languages all evolved from Latin and were "Germanized" in that sense that their grammar, vocab, syntax and pronunciation were altered so that the Germanic invaders and the formerly Latin speaking populations could communicate. Especially the Northern French Langue d'Oil (today's standard French) has been so heavily "Germanized" that standard French is unintelligible to Italians and Spaniards. The other way round classical Latin is unintelligible to French as well....

For a Polish it is a wise decision to take French, also because of History. Poland and France both have Germany as a direct neighbour and both have been strongly influenced by German culture and migration. A lot of Polish have German(ic) ancestors, and so do a lot of French....
Guest   Tue Aug 14, 2007 11:03 am GMT
<<<For a Polish it is a wise decision to take French, also because of History. Poland and France both have Germany as a direct neighbour and both have been strongly influenced by German culture and migration. A lot of Polish have German(ic) ancestors, and so do a lot of French.... >>>

the same is true for Italy and the Italians
Guest   Tue Aug 14, 2007 12:24 pm GMT
French isn't unintelligible to Italians and Spaniards at all!
Every Italian or Spanish speaker can understand and communicate with French with elementary basis, then know french well is ANOTHER thing