Spanish is the most spoken language in the world?

Joao   Thu Jul 16, 2009 11:20 pm GMT
"A phrase for dumb Europeans "thank you", is "gracias" in Spanish while "obrigado" in Portuguese

//Muito obrigado is just a copy of the British archaism Much obliged."


It could be. But from where does the word "obliged" come from? Isn't it one of those countless English words with roots in the Romance world?
Or maybe wasn't the English who took the phrase from the Portuguese? Honestly do not know.
And the word "much"? Isn't it a copy of the Spanish "mucho"? Or probably the other way around?

"Gracias": just a copy of the Italian "grazie" (lol)
Joao   Thu Jul 16, 2009 11:32 pm GMT
"5. Brazilian Portuguese is separate language from Continental Portuguese (therefore all Portuguese products in Brazil, from movies to soap operas need to be dubbed in Brazilian in order to be shown there) "

From what I know about soaps (operas), the Portuguese ones are now exported to quite a few countries including Brazil.
A "brasuca" living here confirmed me that Portuguese actors are also used in Brazilian "novelas" and are popular. They often use PT accent, not BR one.

Am not a fan of soap operas anyway (lol)

So, you're trying to fool ignorant people.
Joao   Thu Jul 16, 2009 11:42 pm GMT
<<The truth is, the ones who are really interesting in deleting Portugal and the Portuguese language are the Spaniards
That's absolutely false. We have other languages which are official in their respective regions and ShoeMaker is giving them more autonomy.

1. Spain does not give a damn about Portugal.
False. We say: Menos mal que nos queda portugal.

3. Spanish is an international language and it would be, even excluding Spain.
Very true.>>

señor **; kust read the Wikipedia article about it, specially the part "encuestas" (surveys). It's not mentioned in the English version, but it is in the Spanish version of the article: 45% of the Spanish favor the Iberian Union.
Hopefully, it's not the Catalans or the Basques who want that:-))
Sander   Fri Jul 17, 2009 4:19 am GMT
Slapstick bickering and xenophobia is a sure sign of uncouth individuals.
123   Fri Jul 17, 2009 4:41 am GMT
So we also we can say that French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian are dialects of Latin.

What is wrong with Joao and Leonita?
Tionghoa   Fri Jul 17, 2009 5:03 am GMT
In fact, Chinese (Mandarin) is the most spoken language in the world.
Is Spanish the most taught language (for non-Hispanic learners) in the world?
Guest   Fri Jul 17, 2009 8:27 am GMT
Can we go to the answer, please?

Well, according to a Chinese survey, Mandarin (one of the language, like Cantonese, Hakka, etc) is only spoken by 53% of Chinese people, some 715 million.

But Mandarin has 8 major dialects (and a lot more). So we can say that every dialect is spoken but some 90 million (average). Some of them are very different. We can say that Mandarin is also a group of languages.

Spanish is spoken (mother tongue) by 420 million. The group Spanish-Portuguese is spoken by 630 million (mother tongue).

So, the clue is to consider all Mandarin dialects as one language, or only consider the Beijing dialect as Standard Mandarin Chinese, and every dialect as one different language.

If we choose the first one, Chinese is the most spoken language in the
World (mother tongue), if we choose the second one, Spanish is obviously, the most spoken language in the World (mother tongue).
CHINGO SIEMPRE CHINGO   Fri Jul 17, 2009 9:02 am GMT
How much does written Chinese vary between them?
Is there any variation at all?
Is the variation greater than the variation between written Spanish and written Portguese?
Tionghoa   Fri Jul 17, 2009 9:20 am GMT
Chinese group, as follows,
(remarks: Mandarin can be spoken & understood by more and more people who speak another dialect as their native language, and Mandarin isn't equal to Beijing dialect, it's just set up based on Beijing dialect to some extent, don't mix them up)

Mandarin: 885 million (official language of China, most widely spoken & understood)
Wunese: 77 million (actually Shanghainese is a wrong name, it should be Wunese)
Cantonese: 72 million (official language of Hongkong & Macau)
Minnanese: 50 million (common dialect of south-east China & whole Taiwan)
Hakkanese: 34 million (on the verge of dying out, not an official language)


Spanish (Castilian): 350 million
Catalan: 9.9 million
Galician: 4 million
Basque: 1,063,700
Sbaciba   Fri Jul 17, 2009 9:27 am GMT
Spanish is certainly not the most spoken language in the world, but maybe it is the second most taught language in USA, the third or fourth in Europe and Asia.
Tionghoa   Fri Jul 17, 2009 9:43 am GMT
CHINGO SIEMPRE CHINGO Fri Jul 17, 2009 9:02 am GMT
1, How much does written Chinese vary between them?
2, Is there any variation at all?
3, Is the variation greater than the variation between written Spanish and written Portguese?

Re:

1, All Chinese languages are written in Chinese characters, but some characters have a little differences between various dialects. and mandarin is the most modern one.

2, Minnanese, Cantonese, Hakkanese, and Wunese, each dialect retains some base of ancient Chinese, so it's very hard to learn for foreigners, especially Minnanese (Bân-lâm-gú), it's also called Taiwanese in Taiwan.

3, Yes, more or less, greater than the variation between Spanish & Portguese.
Usuario   Fri Jul 17, 2009 9:56 am GMT
Spanish is spoken by 420 million (m.t.) and 500 million total speakers

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idioma_espa%C3%B1ol

Mandarin can be spoken by 885 million people, but there are 8 major dialects of Mandarin: Beijing Mandarin, SW Mandarin, NE Mandarin, etc

There are several webpages that say a person that speak NE Mandarin DON'T understand SW Mandarin. In Western World that would be 2 different languages.

http://s6.zetaboards.com/man/topic/8526164/1/

If you don't consider SW Mandarin, a language of 200 million speakers and other dialects as Jiang-huai, or Jin, Standard Mandarin is really less spoken (considering only dialects TOTALLY intelligible).
Wang Xin   Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:29 am GMT
<<Usuario Fri Jul 17, 2009 9:56 am GMT

Mandarin can be spoken by 885 million people, but there are 8 major dialects of Mandarin: Beijing Mandarin, SW Mandarin, NE Mandarin, etc

There are several webpages that say a person that speak NE Mandarin DON'T understand SW Mandarin. In Western World that would be 2 different languages. >>

I don't agree with you. I can understand the Mandarin from North, West, East and South. But what I can not understand it is the different dialets like Cantonese or languages like Tibetan, Mongolian, etc...
Tionghoa   Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:33 am GMT
Usuario: Beijing Mandarin, SW Mandarin, NE Mandarin,

Re: What does SW or NE mean? And I think you don't know much about Chinese.
Tionghoa   Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:35 am GMT
<Usuario: Beijing Mandarin, SW Mandarin, NE Mandarin>,

Re: What does SW or NE mean? And I don't think you know much about Chinese.