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Learning a second Romance language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| jalcalde Bilingual Heptaglot Newbie Spain Joined 6877 days ago 28 posts - 28 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, Portuguese, Esperanto, FrenchC2, English, ItalianC2 | Message 25 of 33 30 January 2006 at 10:26am | IP Logged | ||
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It is difficult to give a good advice on this subject for everybody, I think it heavily depends on your background. I will try to summarize my experience:
a) I have 2 romance languages as mother-tongues (Spanish and Catalan). The result is that I started to spaek a little bit later than other children, making sometimes a mess/mixture of both, but from the age of 10 I could speak perfectly each of them. b) After learning English, I learnt Italian. I found very easy to reach a basic level, but quite difficult to reach a profficient level. There is an easy explanation for this: the similarities make me very easy to understand it but they also provoke interferences when trying to speak it correctly. c) I've then learnt Portuguese and French. I've tried to do it at the same time and it is really difficult. Even now, that I have an advanced level in both it is difficult for me to change from one to another. Conclusion: Italian now is ok, I don't have any problems or doubts. So when you can reach this level, you ensure that no other language will interfere with it (more than once in a while, something that from my point of view will always happen, even with my mother tongues). For French and Portuguese I've developed an strategy that you may find useful. I am now stuyding both of them, but I try not to do it at the same time. I mean, I try to spend small intensive periods on one of them and then on the other one. I believe that it is better to spent 1 month in Portuguese and then 1 in French. However if it happens that I have a Brazilian sitting nect to me in a dinner in a 'French period' of course I will try to practice a little bit. Thanks 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7206 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 26 of 33 15 February 2007 at 9:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've been feeling tempted over the last few days to add some "passive" learning to my mp3 player with Esperanto or French dialogs. I've studied both languages enough in the past that I have a foothold in them. Right now my mp3 player has about 15 hours of Spanish monologues, dialogues, and songs. I listen to this mostly while I'm at work "being productive". I'm adding 15-30 minutes of my next target language.
Esperanto technically isn't a Romance language, but its vocabulary is similar to one. http://lernu.net has a good Assimil-like introductory course called Vojaĝu kun Zam (Travel with Zam). I also have Jen Nia Mondo on CD, and it would be pretty easy to put the 25 or so dialogs into my mp3 player. On the French scene, I have Assimil's New French with Ease. I can plop it on the player without the editing I felt necessary with Spanish with Ease. I think if I read the lesson, it wouldn't take but a few minutes a week to get a good understanding of the spoken word. The plan isn't to "activate" either language right away. I'll just listen. Perhaps I should just start with only one, but I've put both on and we'll see how it goes. Somehow I think branching out a little bit at this point will help my Spanish studies. Edited by luke on 16 February 2007 at 7:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Vinnie Groupie England Joined 6525 days ago 65 posts - 66 votes Speaks: English* | Message 27 of 33 16 February 2007 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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This may sound stupid, but because italian and Spanish are closely related would it be a good idea to learn both at the same time so that vocabulary sticks better? I mean if a word in italian is the same as in Spanish youd remember it more.
Further more studying another language might help my italian not be so boring, it would add variety. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dreaminjosh Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6528 days ago 32 posts - 32 votes Speaks: French, English* | Message 28 of 33 19 February 2007 at 9:39am | IP Logged | ||
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I mishmash French and Spanish all the time. I grew up speaking french, but really only started learning Spanish this year because of all of the hispanic students at the school where I work. I always say things like "No puedes ir avec lui" or "No conosco à el parce que no esta mi estudiante". I also spanglize (word?) french words for which I don't know the Spanish equivalent. Like, for 'ennuyé' I'll say 'ennuyado'- for 'mouillé' I'll say 'muyado'. Sometimes I accidentally discover a Spanish word in this way- I turned "occupé" into "occupado" and found out that was actually a word. Spanish speakers sometimes cock their heads to the side as if they know what I'm saying, but can't really figure out the language.
*note Is there a word in any Spanish speaking country that corresponds to french "Ordinateur"? I actually used to say "Ordinator" until I found out the word for computer in Spanish was "computadora". The reason I ask is because I've found that certain words in french have a lot more Spanish cognates that I previously thought- you just have to dig through various dialects of Spanish to find them though. Also, is there a Spanish words that's closer to french "bière"? I know you can say 'cervesa', but french even at one time used 'cervoise'- is there an "updated" Spanish word for beer too? Sorry for rambling. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| morprussell Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7164 days ago 272 posts - 285 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 29 of 33 19 February 2007 at 12:35pm | IP Logged | ||
In Spain they say "ordenador" for computer. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Topsiderunner Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6919 days ago 215 posts - 218 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Arabic (Written) | Message 30 of 33 19 February 2007 at 2:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's obviously up to you Vinnie, but when I tried to do both at the same time I found it too difficult to separate the two. However, I haven't had nearly as much trouble with Italian-French and French-Spanish.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7016 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 31 of 33 19 February 2007 at 5:03pm | IP Logged | ||
Only in Latin America. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geronimo Newbie Canada Joined 6488 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Studies: German | Message 32 of 33 20 February 2007 at 3:12am | IP Logged | ||
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I think it should be possible to learn two Romance languages, one after the other. That is what I plan on doing; complete French, and then move on to Spanish, and then move on to Italian. I do not speak Spanish, but thanks to my knowledge of French I can understand some Spanish here and there, although if I ever try to contruct a sentence, it's always very poor and sprinkled with French words in place of some of the words I don't know.
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