Pronunciation of Roman languages
http://venus.unive.it/canipa/pdf/Orale.pdf
It's a nice article, written in English.
The easiest dialects/accents to understand (according to Canepari):
French: Southern accents (Canadian accents are the most difficult)
Portuguese: Brazilian accents (Continental accents are the most difficult)
Spanish: Castillian Spanish (Caribbean and Andalusian accents are the most difficult)
Oh, I agree. It's easy to read. I started reading it, but I haven't finished it yet. I can read Italian, but I can't speak it.
Before talking about the italian language Please learn it and buy a good grammar not those manuals for tourists. Italian pronounciation is much trickier than the spanish one. It's got more sounds. Double consonants are really a nightmare. Italian has 7 vowels: e and o can be pronounced open or closed. Spanish just 5. Z, dz, tz, v and sh sounds don't even exist in spanish. Please don't talk about topics you don't know.
I can speak all latin languages except romanian and I know what I'm talking about..
bye
How can a person read a language and NOT speaking it, it's an unfanthomable mystery...
I have a good laugh when I hear people saying about a language: I can write it, but I can't read it, or I can pronounce it, but I can't speak it... WONDERFUL!!!!
Being able to understand a language and not able to speak or write in it is very common and is known as a passive knowledge.
which is far away from saying you KNOW a language.
The problem is many people claim to know a language then when it come sto go practical they can't: i don't know grammar, I have not a good pronunciation etc.. THEN you don't know it, why these people say they are able to speak it?
How can a person read a language and NOT speaking it,
Easy, most Spanish speakers can read Portuguese but cannot speak Portuguese. Spanish speakers can also read some Italian but to speak it it is another dimension.
<<The problem is many people claim to know a language then when it come sto go practical they can't: i don't know grammar, I have not a good pronunciation etc.. THEN you don't know it, why these people say they are able to speak it?>>
Because they think they can^^
They don't realize other people may be struggling to understand what they are trying to say and most of the time are just being nice.
It happens a lot. Oh well, as long as they are happy...
Being able to read SOME of a language and not speak doesn't mean they know the language.
If they truely could read ALL the words then they would obviously have an understanding of the vocabulary and grammar and should be able to speak as well.
For me, I've learned Spanish and can speak and read fairly well. When I try to read Italian or Portuguese (not French) I can understand some words based on similarities, but my vocab is low so I can't understand anything complicated.
For K.T. When you say you can read Italian, German etc. do you mean you can really read about everything or can you only read some? If it's everything, then shouldn't you be close to speaking?
Spanish and Italian are the easiest ones to learn - regarding pronunciation. Both go side-by-side in pronunciation similarity (i.e. ce / ci / za & a,e,i,o,u) something Portuguese has increased or depleted.
Maybe this is why Sp. and It. are MORE intelligible amongst other things. for instance>
Spanish
he
ha
has
han
hemos
habeis
*Sp. uses "haber" as an auxiliary.
Italian
ho
ha
hai
hanno
abbiamo
avete
Portuguese uses "ter" instead of "haver" which is antiquated in Brazil and so-so in Portugal.
<<Portuguese uses "ter" instead of "haver" which is antiquated in Brazil and so-so in Portugal.>>
What do you mean?
Those verbs have different meanings, one can hardly be replaced for the other... Am I being too oblivious? Can you provide a few examples?
HI, I know Spanish , Italian and Portuguese and I have to say that it's just a myth that Italian and Spanish pronounciation are so similar. I'll try to explain:
First of all, Italian has seven vowels not 5 like Spanish because e and o can be pronounced closed and open like portuguese, catalan and french.
The letter z has two different sounds in Italian: dz and tz; these two sounds don't exist neither in Spanish nor in Portuguese. Italian has lots of double consonants. This is a feature of the Italian language. Spanish and Portuguese people can hardly pronounce double consonants: they usually tend to pronounce dd tt ll rr bb pp as if they were simple d t l r b p. In my view it's harder to master italian double consonants than portuguese nasal vowels.
Sh, v, tz dz gl z ge/gi sounds don't even exist in Spanish. Even the pronounciation of the letter s is quite different in the 2 languages.
On the other hand, Spanish has got Jota, ce/ze (european spanish) the particular sounds of v/b, d and g between vowels. These sounds don't exist neither in Italian nor in standard portuguese .
The main portuguese phonetical features are: nasal vowels, the schwa, the je /gi sounds. I've got to say that there's a clear difference between Brazilian and european portuguese. European portuguese is harder because it has some peculiar phonological aspects, besides unaccented vowels are almost dropped when portuguese speak very fast.
Bye
Is it true that Northern Italians do not distinguish between open and closed e and o? That is what my textbook says, but it may be wrong.
<<HI, I know Spanish , Italian and Portuguese and I have to say that it's just a myth that Italian and Spanish pronounciation are so similar. I'll try to explain>>
How come many people always tend to give an OPINION by starting with: "You people are so stupid and I know better; let me try make you understand"...