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Genders between Romance Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| banyon Newbie United States Joined 6863 days ago 10 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 12 03 March 2006 at 3:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In comparing genders in French, Spanish, and Italian how often are they the same in all the languages and how often are they different? If you can speak one or two of these languages will that help you decide on the correct genders for nouns in another?
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| Alfonso Octoglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 6862 days ago 511 posts - 536 votes  Speaks: Biblical Hebrew, Spanish*, French, English, Tzotzil, Italian, Portuguese, Ancient Greek Studies: Nahuatl, Tzeltal, German | Message 2 of 12 03 March 2006 at 3:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I suppose that noun genders in Romanace Languages are similar, but it's not 100% the same.
According to my first French teacher -a native speaker- there's about 80% gender equivalences between French and Spanish. My experience induces me to think that he was not so wrong. Probably it's the same percentage between Italian and Spanish or a little bit higher maybe (85%?). I don't believe that there could be a bigger difference than that. Banyon, I guess that if you learn one of these three languages, you would have an advantage to learn a second one considering that there are many gender noun similarities. The real problem is that phonetics between Italian and Spanish (but not French) are so alike that could get you confused at the beginning. Edited by Alfonso on 03 March 2006 at 3:47pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7016 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 12 03 March 2006 at 5:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
Alfonso is correct. They are similar but not the same all the time.
Not necessarily, but it is useful to know one of these languages since you will definitely be at a distinct advantage when learning another. Your chances of guessing the correct gender of a noun would probably be greater than just 50-50. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Eidolio Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 6862 days ago 159 posts - 164 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Dutch*, Flemish*, French, English, Latin, Ancient Greek, Italian, Greek | Message 4 of 12 04 March 2006 at 4:29am | IP Logged | |||||
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studying Latin can help you a lot if you want to learn Romance noun genders.
Latin has got some rules about gender, if you're experienced you can almost always guess the gender of a new noun, based on the word ending. These endings changed in Italian, French and Spanish, but the gender stayed the same. So you can't know the gender if you're looking at the modern ending, but when you think about the latin word you'll often know immediately. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Alfonso Octoglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 6862 days ago 511 posts - 536 votes Speaks: Biblical Hebrew, Spanish*, French, English, Tzotzil, Italian, Portuguese, Ancient Greek Studies: Nahuatl, Tzeltal, German | Message 5 of 12 04 March 2006 at 10:50am | IP Logged | |||||
Eidolio: That's true! Latin helps us a lot when learning Romance Languages in noun genders, but there are not 100% equivalences. I give you an example: The latin word for "milk": lac, lactis is neuter. Let's remember that the neuter gender doesn't exist in Spanish, Italian nor French. The Spanish word leche has become feminine. The Italian word latte and the French one lait are both masculine. Even in Portugues the word leite is masculine. Spanish is the only exception in this case. As long as I know, Latin is a always an excellent reference, but has its own complications! Edited by Alfonso on 04 March 2006 at 11:44am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| banyon Newbie United States Joined 6863 days ago 10 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English* | Message 6 of 12 04 March 2006 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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How close are italian and french in gender similarities?
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| Eidolio Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 6862 days ago 159 posts - 164 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Dutch*, Flemish*, French, English, Latin, Ancient Greek, Italian, Greek | Message 7 of 12 05 March 2006 at 9:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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you're right, Alfonso, neutral Latin words are usually masculine in modern Romance languages (simply because there's no neutral gender anymore) but not always.
my italian isn't excellent but I experienced that Italian and French are very similar if you consider the noun genders. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6895 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 12 05 March 2006 at 12:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The percentages mentioned sound about right.
In Spanish there are rules covering a large majority of cases, mainly based on the word endings. If you are familiar with those rules, there is rarely any doubt about the gender even for unfamiliar words. Apart from that you only need to learn a few special cases like día and mano (and the masculine case of Fiesta :o - though I suppose that could be seen as following a rule too). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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