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Spanish and Italian are much closer than Italian and French
Ok... so for the "fromage, formaggio" comment, I give you....
Sp. - Casa It. - Casa Fr. - Maison Interesting: Sp. - pescado It. - pesce, Fr. - poisson Southern Italy - u besh
Interesting also: "C'est la vie" (that's life) in French sounds like "se la vi" (I saw hers) in Spanish. How would you translate the latter ("se la vi") in French? Would it be "Je la lui ai vu" or (simple past) "Je la lui vis"?
Apologies
In my post, that should have been, more correctly "je la lui ai vue"
My common-folk native Spanish-speaker opinion is that Spain and Italian sound the most alike, you can understand many words every now and then, and you might even get the jist of it. But with French, without any formal eduction, I could not understand ANY of what was being said.
However, when French is written, I can usually get the main idea. However some words which look the same, mean different things between Spanish & French. (Fr) Maison doesnt mean (Sp) Mansion, but you'd get the main idea if you read "maison" in a web page or magazine. Spoken Italian is understandable to most Spanish speakers, but not enough to allow for a conversation. An Italian could ask a Spaniard directions to a place, and the Spaniard would probably understand. If a Francophone did so, i strongly doubt a Spaniard would be able to understand. Up to now, I've had about 4 months of French education. Spanish and French resemble themselves very much in written form. There are numerous posts here in French, and I could understand most of what they were saying, but the Italian posts....not so much.
hi guys,
i just wanted to put my two cents in. the only romance language that i really speak is spanish, but i have studied french, portuguese, and to a lesser extent italian. i speak spanish well although i don't necessarily write it as well. i can pick up a newspaper in portuguese and read 90 percent of it and could do it before having studied any portuguese. i can not understand it very well yet, i am learning, because the pronunciation is very different,but i can read it. i can not do that with french or italian. i know that most of my friends in central america that have never studied the other languages can not either. so at least in written form, spanish and portuguese or the most closely related. although it is in no way true, it is easy to understand why english speakers often think that spanish and portuguese or two dialects of the same language.
consider that fact that spanish speakers from south american countries bordering brazil and brazilians often understand each other better than speakers of their "own language" in europe.
i think much of it depends on what we are exposed to. it is natural to think that someone on the border between any two countries in the romance world will understand each other. the southern french and northern italians understand each other quite often, no? but is it really because the languages are so close or because with a little study any romance speaker can learn a good bit of any other romance language? what i mean is, do french speakers understand italian because of the similarities or because they have been exposed to italian and have "even subconsciencely" learned to understand the other language. a good example of what i mean is how the portuguese complain about the castillians not "wanting to understand them". the portuguese many times claim to understand everything in spanish and say that spanish speakers (i am talking of europeans) don't want to understand them. the truth is that spanish is played on the radio, tv, etc in portugal constantly while the reverse is not true. spain is larger and has more media stations. many of the protuguese go into spain to work and hear spanish spoken and so learn to understand it. they say that they can easily speak spanish and so spanish speakers should be able to speak portuguese. really many times they only think they are speaking spanish and what they are speaking is portunhol or "portunyol". (my accents are not working correctly on this computer.) the portuguese are more exposed to spanish and can understand it more. so might that not be true for the french with italian. they hear it spoken and understand it because it is similiar but that does not mean that any french speaker would understand italian. i hope i have made since here. sometimes i am not the best at expressing my thoughts in writing
Oswaldo :
« Sp. - pescado It. - pesce, Fr. - poisson Southern Italy - u besh » Il y avait de nombreuses formes en ancien français pour Fr <poisson> [pwasÕ]. En voici quelques unes : AF <pescion>,<poisson>, <poison>, <peis>, <peissun>, <pois>, <peison>, <pisson>. Voici les équivalents actuels dans d'autres langues d'Oïl distinctes du français : gallo = <peison>, poitevin = <poessun> et wallon <pèchon>. Oswaldo : « Sp. - Casa It. - Casa Fr. - Maison » Formes attestées en ancien français : AF <chaise>, <chese>, <chiese>, <chesel> et <casal>.
Oswaldo
Interesting: Sp. - pescado It. - pesce, Fr. - poisson Southern Italy - u besh "u besh" in southern Italy????? We say simply "pesce"!!!!!!
Actually, the pronounciation is not really [peSI] but either [paysh] or [payshee] depending on the person's accent from either Portugal or Brazil.
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