Lexical similarities between French-Spanish-Italian

portuguese is quite easier than English and Spanish.

El portugués suena completamente horrible !!! no quizas yo lo oigo asi por qué es uno de los unicos idiomas que yo nunca obtara por aprender..pero mis amigos americanos prefieren mucho mas el español y les gusta mas que el portugués dicen que suena con una pronunciacion simple pero rayada ellos hablan como si estubiesen intentando hablar francés jajaja horrible lenguaje.

Soy de Sevilla, Espana. Tengo muchas amigas de Portugal, y yo entiendo todo que ellas me dicen. Si, la pronunciacion de Portugues es distincto, y en su propia manera suena bonito. Ademas, casi todas las palabras en Portugues son similares, or iguales, a las de Espanol. La forma de hablar tambien facilita un alto nivel de inteligibilidad entre ambas lenguas.

I think Portuguese sounds so romantic and full of passion. It is a beautiful language. I knew it was widely spoken in Luxemburg and I was surprised to read it was ranked the second European language most spoken in London: http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/regions/languages.htm.The rich phonology of this language makes it special among romance languages.

I agree Celine. For example, it is the perfect language to express the soul and sensual music of the people of Brazil.

For those who have doubts about the Romanian origin:

Grec — Δευτέρα
Italian- Lunedi
Romanian - Luni
French- lundi
Wallon — londi
Picard — lundi
Poitevin — léndi
Piedmontais — lùnes - lunes
Occitan — diluns
Gascon — diluns
Médiolatin — secunda feria
Espanol- Lunes
Logudorese-lunis (pronounced as 'lunes')
English- Monday
German- Montag

Grec — Τρίτη
Italian- Martedi
Romanian - Marti
French- mardi
Wallon — mårdi
Picard — mardi
Poitevin — mardi
Piedmontais — màrtes - merco
Occitan — dimarç
Gascon — dimarç
Médiolatin — tertia feria
Logudorese- martis
Espanol- Martes
English- Tuesday
German- Dienstag

Grec — Τετάρτη
Italian- Mercoledi
Romanian - Miercuri
French- mercredi
Wallon — mèrkidi
Picard — mékerdi
Poitevin — mécrdi
Piedmontais — mèrcol
Occitan — dimècres
Médiolatin — quarta feria
Gascon — dimèrcs
Logudorese-mercules
Espanol- Miercoles
English- Wednesday
German- Mittwoch

Grec — Πέμπτη
Italian- Giovedi
Romanian - Joi
French- jeudi
Wallon — djudi
Picard — juédi - judi
Poitevin — jheùdi
Piedmontais — giòbia
Occitan — dijòus
Gascon — dijaus
Médiolatin — quinta feria
Espanol- Jueves
Logudorese- yobia
English- Thursday
German- Donnerstag

Grec — Παρασκευή
Italian- Venerdi
Romanian - Vineri
French- vendredi
Wallon — vindèrdi
Picard — verdi
Poitevin — vendrdi
Piedmontais — vënner
Occitan — divendres
Gascon — diveis
Médiolatin — sexta feria
Espanol- Viernes
Logudorese-Vernes/vernos
English- Friday
German- Freitag

Grec — Σάββατο
Italien — sabato
Romanian - Sambata
Français — samedi
Wallon — sèmedi
Picard — sinmdi
Poitevin — semadi - sénmedi
Piedmontais — saba
Occitan — dissabte
Gascon — dissabte
Médiolatin — sabbatum

Grec — Κυριακή
Italien — domenica
Romanian - Duminica
Français — dimanche
Wallon — dimègne
Picard — diminche
Poitevin — dimenche
Piedmontais — duminica
Occitan — dimenge
Gascon — dimenge
Médiolatin — dominica dies

Yo soy de Valencia (España), y hablo español (castellano) y valenciano (o catalán) como primer y segundo idioma, respectivamente. He estudiado inglés, alemán y francés. No he estudiado italiano pero lo he escuchado algunas veces, y puedo decir que el italiano es más parecido al catalán que al castellano, ya que comparten (el italiano y el catalan) más vocabulario y gramática.
Por ejemplo:
- un'alta volta (it) - una altra volta (catalan) - otra vez (sp) - again (eng)
- il mio amico (it) - el meu amic (catalan) - mi amigo (sp) - my friend (eng)

(Y no puedo poner muchos más ejemplos porque no domino el italiano, aunque creo que no me supondría tanto esfuerzo aprenderlo como por ejemplo el alemán (bastante dificil de aprender en mi opinión) ).

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-I'll try to translate what I've just said and try to explain the uses of some tenses in spanish, though I have to admit that they're quite complicated but not impossible to learn (When learning a language turns difficult to me I always think that if thousands of people can speak it then I could too, and it makes me not to give up).
I'm from Valencia (Spain) and I speak spanish and catalan, as first and second language, respectively. I've studied english (since I was very young), french and german. I haven't studied italian but listened to it sometimes, and I can say it's more similar to catalan than to spanish, since they share more vocabulary and grammar.

Verbs in spanish are hard, I'm aware of that, some times even native spanish speakers make wrong uses of the different forms, but in general, people knows how to use them.

I will explain it by using the verb VER in conjugations (to see), which is regular, and in examples I will use "ver" or different verbs but in the same tense I will be explaining.

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Presente Simple (indicativo)
Yo veo
Tú ves
Él / ella ve
Nosotros / -as vemos
Vosotros / -as veis
Ellos / -as ven

This is like the present simple in english.
Example:
- Yo veo tu cara (I see your face).
- Nosotros tenemos un perro (We have a dog).

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Pasado Simple (indicativo)
Yo vi
Tú viste
Él/ella vio
Nosotros/ -as vimos
Vosotros/ -as visteis
Ellos / -as vieron

* This tense is used in spanish in this case:
- An action happened in the past and it's already finished.
Example:
- Ayer te vi en el parque (Yesterday, I saw you in the park).
- La semana pasada compré una alfombra (Last week I bought a carpet)

Imagine a time line [ -------------- ] like this. If in the moment you are saying the sentence you are OUT of the time line, you have to use Past Simple, if you are IN, you would have to use the composed form with the verb "haber", equivalent to the auxiliar "have" in english. (yo he visto, tú has visto, él ha visto, nosotros hemos visto, vosotros habéis visto, ellos han visto). (i have seen, you have seen..., etc) . Visto = past participle for "ver".
Lets see some examples:
1. First, you think of your time line, for example, year 2005. You are out of the year 2005, it has already finished, so you have to use the simple form:
- En 2005, yo fui muy feliz. (In 2005, I was very happy).
- En 2005, empecé a trabajar (In 2005, I started working).
Another example, with this time line: "Today". You are IN this time line, it has not finished yet, so you would use the composed form.
- Hoy "he visto" a mi amigo.

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Pretérito Imperfecto (indicativo) it's a past tense too.
Yo veía
Tú veías
Él/ella veía
Nosotros/ -as veíamos
Vosotros/ -as veíais
Ellos / -as veían

*This tense is used in spanish in these cases:

- A continious action in the past.
Example: Llamaba por teléfono a mi madre cuando viniste.
This is equivalent to past continious in english, and in spanish you can say it in both ways. (Llamaba a mi madre/ Estaba llamando a mi madre / I was calling my mother) when you "came" = "viniste". This "viniste" is Pasado Simple because it's an espontaneous and quick action that happened in the future.
In general, this tense gives the sense of continuity.

- Descriptions in the past.
Example: La habitación "era" grande, del techo "colgaba" una lámpara que "iluminaba" cada rincón.

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Present (subjunctive)
Yo vea
Tú veas
Él/ella vea
Nosotros / -as veamos
Vosotros / -as veáis
Ellos / -as vean

Pretérito Imperfecto (subjunctive)
Yo viera/viese
Tú vieras/vieses
Él/ella viera/viese
Nosotros/-as viéramos/viésemos
Vosotros/-as viérais/viéseis
Ellos/-as vieran/viesen

both forms are equivalent, though in spoken spanish is more usual to use the first form, and in written spanish the second form, which is considered a bit more formal, but this is not a rule, you can say or write what you want.

I can't really explain the uses of subjunctive tenses in spanish because it's quite complicated, I could give you some links in which this tenses are explained, but I don't know if I need any permission to do it. Anyway, If someone is interested, tell me, and I would give those links.

I hope you could understand me, english is not my language so i could have made mistakes. Sorry if I have!

Un saludo a todos!

returning and answering the very first topic of LAA (Wed Jul 12, 2006), I must say that in modern popular french we may hear some few arabic lexical elements in what we call "argot" (french slang). These words has first been heard in colonial french (in northern africa) and recently an important community from northern Africa has installed in France. Most of them seem now to be stable and you may found them in the vocabularies.
For example :
- un klebs (un chien/a dog) <kleb
- un toubib (un docteur/a doctor) <tabib
- kiffer (aimer/to like) <kif
- barda (équipement du soldat/soldier equipment) <barda'a
- baroud (< barud) -> we say "baroud d'honneur" to express "the ultimate fight to save the honor"
- caua (café/coffee) <qahwa (in french you ought to pronouce ca-wa)

We also have a lot of arabic words entered in french centuries ago, probably from spanish, as : alambic, abricot, alchimie, alcali, alcazar, alcool, algèbre, algorithme, almanach, amiral, aubergine, assassin, azimut, babouche (shoe), fakir, gazelle, échec (chess), hammam, haschich, zénith, zéro, azimut...........

I speak both Italian (Napolitano) and Spanish and I can tell you that Italian is way closer to Spanish than it would ever be to French. French is very "odd" and is very hard to understand.

Portuguese has the same odd oral difficulty with french,but fortunately the orthography is easy

I love all this languages, but I believe that French is hard, and maby its similar to spanish because french and spanish have some words that are pronouce & spelled in english...

SP: Hospital
En: Hospital

FR: Telephone
EN: Téléphone

See how spanish and french have certain words in english, the onyl thins is that in spanish the H is silent and as for french é make a ay sound, and ph and f...

SP: Amor
IT: Amore
FR: Amour
PRT: Amor

are all smiliar...

But I strongly believe that Italian & Spanis are so a like,

IT: Madre
SP: Madre

IT: Freddo
SP: Frio

as for Portuguese & French they are alike to because of all the accent marks and certain letters are pronounced and are silent.

as for Portugues and Spanish they share so many words that are alike...

PORT: primo
SP: Primo

meaning (A male) cousin

As French, Italian. Portugues, & Spanish the ony thing I see that again when two letters come together they make a diffrent sound,

FR: Quoi (What)
IT: Che (What)
PORT: Dia (Day)
SP: Llora (Cry)

in french an O & an I make a wah, Italian C & H make a K sound... Then comes portugues , you might thing that its dia as inspanish but when a D & I come together it make a G sound... And in spanish when two L's are to together it makes a y sound. but thats what I notice.

Rolando, Dia might be pronounced 'Jee-ah' in Brasil, but in Portugal and of the other Portuguese speaking countries it is pronounced as it is spelled like in Spanish 'Dia = Dia'.

Portuguese and Spanish vocabulary are 89% similar according to the ethnologue of languages. Italian and Spanish vocabulary are 82% similar. So, Portuguese and Spanish are still the closest major romance languages by far.

I dont understand how on earth French & Italian are 89% similar according to the ethnologue of languages. I mean Spanish & Italian sound so much the same... They are like brothers... So alike... the spelling is somewhat similar, but the pronounciation is so much alike... :-)


Then how are they 2 types of French & Portugese alike


Brazilian Portugese
Canadian French

Which would be easy to learn European French or Canadian French or European Portugese or Brazilian Portugese...?

Rolando, I have an Italian mother and a Portuguese father. I speak Portuguese, Italian perfectly. To answer your question, people learn the variety of a mother tongue which they prefer, and depending on which country they will visit.

Although Spanish and Italian sound alike, for all practical purposes, that's where the similarity ends. Portuguese and Spanish are the "Brother" languages. Spanish and Italian would be more appropriately called close "cousin" languages.

When on holidays in Cuba, Mexico, or Dominican Rep., the Spanish speaking locals always understand me much better when I speak to them in Portuguese instead of Italian. Why? Because the sentence construction and vocabulary of Portuguese is remarkably close to Spanish, even if the accent is different. When I try Italian with the same Spanish speakers, communication is good for about the first couple of minutes, and then intelligibility breaks down quickly after that.

Italian sentence structure,grammar and vocabulary more closely matches French, even if the accents are different. The ethnologue's findings are not based on how close accents are (evidently it is not the main criteria for evaluating how close languages are to one another). The main things that are looked at are: vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, orthography. And when these factors are closely compared from language to language, Portuguese and Spanish are still the closest major Romance languages by far, a fact which is has been proven to me from my own personal experiences with each of those languages.

Spanish is my mother tongue, I'm currently teaching my self Italian. I'v heard people speak in Portuguese, and I DO NOT understand what they are saying. in a sentence of 15 words I migh or will pick up 2 or 3 words that sound alike in Spanish. As for Italian, I can undertsand it pretty well when it's being spoken, and when I read a text in Italian I can understand what is writin. In my opinion French and Portugese are like, to many accents. As for French & Rumanian, they must be step brothers or something to Spanish... those two languages are Way off. But yes, Spanish & Portuguese are alike, when I see a Text in Portuguese, The words are so close to Spansh, But When Portugese is spoken I don't have a minimal idea about what I'm being told.