What language is easiest for Spanish Speakers to understand?
««But Portuguese is not really a language of culture, not much outside of South America anyway, so I would venture to say most people would only learn it just 'because they want to.'»»
Of couse Portuguee is not a language of culture in Europe Portugal is not in Europe. Or in Africa.
You learn Portuguese to speak with Portuguese speakers. That is why most people learn a language.
Really I hardly know anyone that learns English to be able to read Shakespear. There are translations you know? The great majority learns another language to get a better job and be able to speak with natives of the other language.
Portuguese sounds like as if SPANISH speakers had their noses pinched. Hahahah! Very true, try it out....you'll see.
>>> *CaRLoS*, Portuguese sounds like as if SPANISH speakers had their noses pinched. Hahahah! Very true, try it out....you'll see. >>>
I hate to admit it, but you're on to something there.
Castillian Spanish speakers can understand Italian better than any other language, atleast in my case. Latin american spanish however is different and is probably more towards Portugese.
BTW, two of the BEST opera singers are from Spain. Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras (he's catalan so some might say "he's not spaniard" which is rediculous but...), are the worlds best opera singers along with Luciano Pavarotti.
And saying things like "Italian is the language of the arts, of opera, classical music, fine cuisine." is plain ignorant and arrogant. This statement has no proof what so ever, it all depends on personal opinion.
In south america portugese sounds closer to the spanish they speak. But in Spain Italian is closest.
Spanish and Italian are both straigh forward meaning that the when you read the words, they come out as they are written, while in portugese it's different, which makes it harder for spanish speakers to learn it.
Argentinean/Chilean/Uruguayan/Mexican (Colombian?) spanish are the only exceptions to sounding close to Portuguese.
<<Placido domingo looks Italian. Nevertheless, he considers himself both Spanish and Mexican.>>
That's because many Italians look identical to Spaniards. They are very closely related people. And he looks Mexican to me, because as I have already mentioned, there are millions of Southern Europeans in Mexico, contrary to the Mestizo or Indian sterotype common in the U.S. I hate it when people always tell me I don't look Mexican because I am European. It's infuriating.
Spaniards and Italians look very similar, they both have the same traits such as dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin, etc.
The exceptions are: northern itaians and northern Spaniards which look more anglo. The northern Italians are blonde and blue eyed, and the northern Spaniards look more british/gaelic since northern Spain (specially Galicia and Asturias) have strong celtic roots.
Para mi, el Portugues es la lengua mas semejante al Espanol.
Ho dimenticato di dire che no si capisce facile il spagnolo in Calabria.
I don't think that all Italians find Spanish easy. My sister-in-law studied Spanish a year ago and was telling me constantly how hard she thought it was. I wanted to laugh, but I remember when I studied Italian for the first time after studying Spanish, it was very difficult for me to separate them and I always spoke Spanish when I wanted to speak Italian. Maybe this was also her problem.
Non penso che tutti gli italiani capiscano facile il spagnolo. La mia cognata ha studiato spagnolo un anno fa e mi ha detto constantamente che pensava che fosse molto difficile. Volevo ridere, ma mi ricordo quando ho studiato italiano per la prima volta dopo studiare il spagnolo, era molto difficile per me distinguere tra spagnolo e italiano e sempre parlavo spagnolo invece d'italiano. Forse anche questo era il suo problema.
D'accordo Tiffany. Io detto che spagnolo NON e facile de capire per noi Italiani in Calabria. Ma, Portoghese e molto somigliante con spagnolo.