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What language is easiest for Spanish Speakers to understand?
Ayazid
Mirandês is a language spoken in North Portugal ( They say it is a variety of Asturian-Leonese): http://www.mirandes.net/index2.asp?idcat=1008 http://www.mirandes.net/
I'm originally from Mexico. If you put an Italian, Spaniard and Portuguese together in a room to converse, and each has had no significant exposure to the other languages, the Spaniard and Portuguese would understand each other pretty well, while the Italian would struggle to make heads or tails out of the conversation. The Spaniard and Portuguese would have trouble understanding the Italian as well. As has been said many times before, differences in accent can be worked around when there is a 89% shared vocabulary and very similar sentence structure between Portuguese and Spanish. Italian and Spanish only share 82% vocuabulary. This 7 % difference may not seem like a lot, but in language it makes a huge difference. Let's remember that Spanish and Portuguese share a common vocabulary of Arabic origin (approx. 1000 words in the former, and approx. 700 words in the latter) which Italian does not.
Let me refer to this good simple example which was given before: (Italian) Voglio vedere un gioco di calcio (Portuguese) Quero ver um jogo de futebol (Spanish) Quiero ver un juego de futbol This is just a simple sentence, and there are countless even better ones to be sure. It drives home the point well nonetheless. I'll echo some of the points already mentioned because they're quite valid. Now, assuming that the speakers of these 3 languages had no exposure to the others, and without the aid of hand or feet gestures or synonyms (if there are even any), who do you think would understand one another if this sentence was spoken? Difference in accent would mean nothing here, because the Spaniard and Portuguese would be using almost identical vocabulary which would facilitate intelligibility. Thus they would understand one another perfectly well. The Italian would be at a loss in two ways, no matter how slowly or clearly the sentence was spoken: 1) the Italian would not understand the Portuguese and Spaniard 2) the Spaniard and Portuguese would not understand the Italian. I understand written and spoken Portuguese very well, but I cannot say the same for Italian.
Im from Portugal, but i lived for some years in Spain, so i left some friends there which i still contact them, and when i contact them i always talk in Portuguese and they talk in spanish just for fun, and we understand most of the things we say on phone. As for the italian, its not really the same, i've encountered many italian tourists here for many times and sometimes we have to resort to english or french to understand them, although there are cases when we do understand italians, hehehe
In Brazil, an Italian course normally takes 3 years and a Spanish one 5 years (the same as French) for a Brazilian Portuguese speaker to be considered fluent. In fact, in the first day of class in around 40 minutes it's possible to know all the 6 or 7 differences in pronounciation between the two languages so the rest of the 3 years you learn grammar. No kidding, it's wat happened to me. Spanish pronounciation is just completely different from Portuguese and the Spanish entonation I think really almost impossible (compare Jorge, which Portuguese say something very close to Giohrgee and José, which we pronounce Giooseh - with the open "e" that doesn't exist in Spanish - simply all the phonems are different), while the Italian one you learn really in one day in Italy. For a Brazilian it is even more true, specially from Sao Paulo, because Brazil received more Italian immigrants than any other country in the world (around 25 million Italian descendants nowadays) and they influenced significantly the Brazilian Portuguese. Although learning to speak Italian is way easier, Spanish grammar and vocabulary is much closer to Portuguese, what makes reading Spanish definitively very easy to a Portuguese speaker. In fact, listening to Italian is easier, we may write down almost everything they are saying, but understanding what it means is much more complicated. With Spanish is hard to get what is been said (we can't reproduce it), but if the Spaniard talks very very slowly and we can make the word he is saying (which is not easy), the chance to understand it is huge. I think the Spanish relation with Portuguese and Italian might be the same.
I speak Italian. It is easier for me to undertand a Spaniard than a Portuguese (normal speaking and not fast!).
As for the question of this thread, yes, the Spaniards can understand very well what a Portuguese says and, of course, vice versa. OK, the Spaniard will need some practising in order to undertand 100% a Portuguese guy. BTW, I once watched Caiga Quien Caiga España in Youtube. Whenever these guys speak with an Italian (France-Italy World Cup Final, Rolling Stones in Milano etc.), they were not using subtitles. I thus assume that the Spaniards understand pretty well the Italian lianguage.
<<Brazil received more Italian immigrants than any other country in the world>>
Hmm, I always thought the US held this distinction. http://library.thinkquest.org/20619/Italian.html I read however that Brazil has the largest population of people of Italian descent outside of Italy itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo-Brazilian However, it seems Melbourne Australia is also trying to claim this distinction: http://www.melbourneaustralia.org/melbourne.html
Paulo, you are the very first Brazilian that I have ever heard say that you understand Spanish less than Italian. Hmmmm, curious indeed. Most Brazilians consider Spanish a natural second language in Brazil, because it is such a breeze - it is second nature for Brazilians and Portuguese to acquire. And 25 million people of Italian descent? Sounds ridiculously high when you consider that approx. 1.5 Italians had emigrated to brazil by the 1950s. How can there be 23.5 Italian descendants since then? Yes, Italian may have exerted some influence on the accent of Brazilian Portuguese, but certainly not more than Spanish has. It is often said that Brazilians speak Portuguese with a Spanish accent. Furthermore, I do not believe that it takes 3 years for for a Brazilian to learn Italian, and 5 years to learn Spanish. A Portuguese speaker can become fluent Spanish in a couple of months, while 5 or 6 months for Italian. If I, a Spanish speaker, understand Portuguese perfectly well (different accent and all), how can it be that a Brazilian Portuguese speaker will not also understand Spanish perfectly well??????? For me, Portuguese is much more intelligible than Italian is, hands down.
I totally agree with you tiago. I tend to get caught up in the words that don't have equivalence between from spanish to italian while with portuguese and spanish they look like dialects of each other in written form.
««Most Brazilians consider Spanish a natural second language in Brazil, because it is such a breeze - it is second nature for Brazilians and Portuguese to acquire»»
I wouldn't say second nature, only that it is easier to learn. That would make Portuguese a second nature for Spanish speakers to acquire. It works both ways. ««It is often said that Brazilians speak Portuguese with a Spanish accent.»» It looks like you are talking about Galician doesn't it? That would mean Spanish speakers have a Brazilian accent. Brazilians do not have a Spanish accent or an Italian one. Brazilians have a Brazilian accent . ««A Portuguese speaker can become fluent Spanish in a couple of months, while 5 or 6 months for Italian. »» A very optimistic estimate. It is a lot easier and fast to learn Castilian than Italian, no doubt, the same way it is much easier for or a Spanish speaker to learn Portuguese than Italian. But people take a lot more time than 5 or 6 months to learn to speak properly . ««If I, a Spanish speaker, understand Portuguese perfectly well (different accent and all), how can it be that a Brazilian Portuguese speaker will not also understand Spanish perfectly well?»» Because one only understands Spanish if was exposed to Spanish, the same for Spanish speakers to understand Portuguese. It is a different language, you have to learn it.
Answer to Tiago:
It is a matter of opinion, of course, but I do understand Italian way better, but certainly is because I've studied Italian for one year and learned the very basics. In general, people in Brazil understand Spanish quite easier. What I mean is that any Brazilian (and more than the Portuguese) can comprehend the phonems spoken by an Italian way easier than a Spaniard, although since the vocabulary is not as similar as Spanish, a Brazilian would not understand many things. A Spaniard talking slowly to a Brazilian is certainly easier to comprehend, but I don't think a normal Spaniard speaking in the normal way they do (very very fast) would be the same. Again, this is just my opinion. Reading Spanish is no doubt easier for a Brazilian. I do think that the only Brazilians that have an accent that is a bit (and just a bit) influenced by the Spanish are the ones in the south of the country. In some places there, people speak the "e" or "or" as a final letter of a word like in Spanish (not sounding as "i" or "u" as Portuguese-speakers everywhere else do), but the similarity ends there. This is as much a Spanish influence as it is an Italian one, since Italians pronounce the same and the population in this part of the country (or anywhere else, by the way) is much more of Italian-descent than Spanish-descent. Moreover, only a very small part of Brazilian population do speak in this way. But considering waht Gringo said: the Brazilian accent from some parts of Sao Paulo is clearly very much influenced by Italian. The entonation is clearly very close. I say that because my accent is not the one from Sao Paulo and I do speak a bit of Italian. And Sao Paulo is always important statistically, since it is the bigger city from the Americas (more than 20 million people in the metropolitan area and more than 10 million in the city). Some Argentinian friends of mine (with whom I always do speak in English, by the way) say the same about the Buenos Aires accent being clearly influenced by Italian. About the foreign language courses, the Italian course offered by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura (www.iicrio.org.br), the "official" course connected with the government of Italy, lasts 3 years (6 sessions). The Spanish course offered by Instituto Cervantes, the "official" course connected with the Spanish government, lasts 4 years (not 5). See http://riodejaneiro.cervantes.es/Ensino/cursosgenerales_55_9.htm. You have to take 8 sessions, what last 4 years unless you take no vacation whatsoever, but anyway the course is longer. I don't know about other people, but for me this is a proof that Italian is easier to learn and has way more value than opinions about waht I think, what my friend thinks, etc, coming from people that didn't learn to speak both Italian and Spanish (and I don't also). I reaffrm what I said about pronounciation. Portigues (specially Brazilian) and Italian pronounciation are remarkably similar and there are only these differences (the rest is exactly the same): - "chi" and "che" are pronounced as Portuguese "qui" and "que" - "ci" and "ce" are pronounced as Portuguese "tchi" and "tche" - "gi" is pronounced as Portuguese "di" - "o" and "e" at the end of a word are not pronounced as Portuguese "i" or "u" as most Portuguese-speakers do - "z" is pronounced as Portuguese "tz" - "s" is never pronounced as "sch" as Portuguese people do, although most Brazilians don't either - "sch" is pronounced as Portuguese "ch" - "di" and "ti" are not pronounced is the same way as most Brazilians do (sth close to "dji" and "tchi") Spanish is way more different tah that and Spanish entonation (the rythm of the speech) is really really difficult while Italian is remarkably easy for anyone and even for more for a Brazilian, specially from Sao Paulo. I'm not a linguistic, but it seems to me that Spaniards speak in a different tone and that is quite hard to immitate. Italian is about the same in that aspect. Immigration from Europe was strongly incentivated in Brazil since the beginning of the 19th century. Brazil received 1,5 million after 1880s (and most came way before 1950), but many Italians came before the 1880s (and produced many generations of Brazilians). This is only the official number ofthe old Brazilian registries, which are deemed to have counted only men (and most people came in family with women) and to not have counted even all the men-immigrants that entered the country. Take a look at Wikipedia or google it. About the 25 million Brazilians with direct Italian descent, this is a information from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (http://www.esteri.it/eng/4_27_56_38.asp). According to Wikipedia (not a very trustful source though), Brazil has more Italian descendents than any other country. USA would have only 17 million. In both cases, I'm pretty sure they are not talking about "pure" Italian descendents, but people that have some Italian ancestry. Even in Italy many people have other background besides Italian and in Brazil (and US is the same) it is almost impossible to find a person whose ancestors came from just one country. My ancestors, for instance, came from 5 different European countries, and Italy is not one of them. I think that is the reason why the number of Italian descendents in Brazil or US grows faster than in Italy.
I'm a Brazilian from Sao Paulo, and although I agree with some of guest's points, I disagree on many others. Yes, at times the Brazilian Portuguese accent sounds like Italian, but that's about where the similarity ends. Sure, there is some common vocabulary, but not nearly as much as between Spanish and Portuguese. What good is an accent that sort of sounds like yours if you cannot really comprehend what is being said? This is not the case with Spanish. Although Brazilian Portuguese has its own unique accent, Spanish and Portuguese share a vocaubulary which is almost 90% similar, and share most of the same grammatical structures, things like the endings on nouns and verbs - sentence structure is also remarkably similar. Differences in accent between these two languages is only a minor inconvenience.
««the Brazilian accent from some parts of Sao Paulo is clearly very much influenced by Italian. The entonation is clearly very close. »»
No I do not think it is. Maybe in the begining of last century you could find areas where Italian intonation and accent could be heard in São Paulo but not anymore, not even in the Bexiga the old Italian quarter. ««Portigues (specially Brazilian) and Italian pronounciation are remarkably similar and there are only these differences (the rest is exactly the same):»» Interesting, you mean that an Italian that learns to speak Portuguese will have a Brazilian accent? Not what I have seen. Italian accent is very Italian. ««but many Italians came before the 1880s (and produced many generations of Brazilians)»» Try counting how many went back to Italy. You only see the number of people that entered Brazil, people forget that many people returned to Italy and some did not survive mosquito fever(dengue).
(Italian)
Voglio vedere un gioco di calcio (Portuguese) Quero ver um jogo de futebol (Spanish) Quiero ver un juego de futbol [Brazilian Portuguese] Eu quero assistir um jogo de futebol. ''assistir tv, assistir um jogo, assistir uma palestra'' that's the way we use it....
''No I do not think it is. Maybe in the begining of last century you could find areas where Italian intonation and accent could be heard in São Paulo but not anymore, not even in the Bexiga the old Italian quarter. ''
Oh, would you just shut up, you gringo boy. Every São Paulo city speaker has obvious Italian intonation pattern: ''cê tá inteindendoooo?'', ''caaaaaaaaaasa'' ...And many speakers, even educated ones, don't use final -s because there is no final s in Italian plural: ''o imigrante'' (singular), ''os imigrante'' (plural) [similar to italian l'immigrante; gli immigranti), it's not considered uneducated in São Paulo city, but colloquial, used by many people of all classes.
Without any previous knowledge I would have thought "Voglio vedere un gioco di calcio" to be "I'm going to see a game of calcium." (Voy yo a ver un juego de calcio)
Although with the little knowledge I have of French, I saw Voglio as a Veux cognate. Still, calcio just completely would have thrown me off. The only Portuguese and Italian that I know is what I have picked up through this forum (not much). Here is what I have understood from this Wikipedia article on Texas: Il Texas è famoso per essere lo Stato più conservatore degli Stati Uniti dove George W. Bush ha la sua roccaforte prendendo alle ultime elezione oltre il 60% dei voti. Il Texas si è reso famoso nel mondo per l'intransigenza del suo sistema giudiziario, la severità dei suoi organi di polizia e i numerosi episodi di razzismo, molto radicato in questo Stato, come in altri Stati del Sud. Texas es famoso por ser el estado mas conservador de los Estados Unidos donde George W. Bush tiene su rancho ganando (alle) ultima eleccion (oltre) el 60% del voto. Texas si es (reso) famoso en el mundo per la intransigencia de su sistema de racismo, muy radico en cual estado como en (altri) Estado del Sur. There are 4 words I could not understand in Italian. I'm not sure about roccaforte, so it could be 5. Atualmente, a economia do Texas possui um importante papel na economia americana. Inicialmente um estado agropecuário, desde o início do século XX a economia do estado diversificou-se, e atualmente, são as indústrias petrolífera e aeroespacial, bem como o setor financeiro, que possuem maior importância na economia do Texas. Actualmente, la economia de Texas tiene un importante papel en la economia Americana. Inicialmente un estado agricula, desde el incicio del siglo 20, la economia del estado se diversifico, y actualmente, son las industrias petroleras y æreoespacial, también como el sector financiero, que tiene major importancia en la economia de Texas. I understood just about all of what was said in Portuguese, and I missed 4-5 words in Italian. I have no real experience in either langauge, except what I have picked up, small words in songs and on this forum. If most somewhat-educated people can understand as much as me, there's not that big a difference between the two. Did I make any mistakes? |