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Which romance language next? | ||
Tags: Romance Languages | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Roq71 Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6557 days ago 63 posts - 72 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Haitian Creole | Message 1 of 17 15 December 2006 at 9:42am | IP Logged |
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I know there have been several threads about order of learning romance languages. I am a native English speaker and I have achieved basic fluency in Spanish (whatever that means). I love Spanish and I need it for professional reasons and I will continue to take it to advanced fluency with frequent study. My ultimate goal would be to learn Portuguese, French, and Italian as well. Perhaps some of the more advanced and experienced learners could help me make the decision as to which to tackle next.
I would love to get right into Portuguese but I'm afraid it might be too confusing after just having learned Spanish. Should I try French or Italian next and then move on to Portuguese? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7144 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 2 of 17 15 December 2006 at 10:59am | IP Logged |
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I'm certainly no expert but, I would go with Portuguese or French, merely because they would give you a lot more travel value for your money than Italian or Romanian. The Portuguese might well reinforce the Spanish.
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| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6622 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 3 of 17 15 December 2006 at 11:34am | IP Logged |
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If you learn Spanish, you'll find that you're able to understand written Portuguese moderately well. Comprehending spoken Portuguese will be more of a challenge. In my case, the rough part is trying not to speak Spanish when I'm trying to speak Portuguese.
Portuguese is different enough that it shouldn't be much of a problem learning it right after Spanish. When I was an undergraduate in college, my school offered a Portuguese class that was only open to students in Spanish who had reached the intermediate level. I was a French major and had no Spanish classes, so I didn't qualify...and I was very jealous of the Spanish students who could take the course. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6853 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 4 of 17 15 December 2006 at 11:34am | IP Logged |
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Italian is a good option as it's a fairly easy language to progress to from Spanish. Very phonetic, its grammar isn't too hard and, according to my very uninformed mind, it seems to have a lot in common with Spanish. You'll still have to learn quite a bit of extra vocabulary and there are a number of false friends to watch out for but nothing too major.
French is a good option if you want another 'major' language on your list. Italian is restricted very much to Europe while you can get by in French in some areas of Africa and Canada. It has a lot of shared vocabulary with Spanish but it is less phonetic than Italian and Spanish and dictation can be a nightmare. Too many silent verb endings and nasal vowels (though still one of my favourite languages). I can't really think of many reasons to recommend Portuguese as I personally don't like the sound of the language or the culture attached. Reading Portuguese is not a huge challenge once you know Spanish but pronunciation differs considerably. I don't know whether you're interested in Brazilian or European Portuguese, though. Brazilian Portuguese has a nicer sound to it (again, these are my own opinions) and its pronunciation is a little more phonetic than European Portuguese, where word endings and vowels seem to get eaten up. At the end of the day, I'd say go with the language that you feel you will benefit from the most and interests you the most. If you are more interested in Italian cuisine or opera, then Italian is the obvious choice. If you want a language you can use fairly widely, French is the better option. And if you like your word endings to get eaten up, then go for Portuguese. ^_^ 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| TDC Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6884 days ago 261 posts - 291 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French Studies: Esperanto, Ukrainian, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Persian | Message 5 of 17 15 December 2006 at 2:25pm | IP Logged |
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I'd suggest French > Italian > Portuguese.
Cos Italian and Portuguese are both close to Spanish both different from each other. French is maybe the most different, so it broadens your knowledge base of the family. Just what I suggest. My own path has been French, Italian, Spanish, and I'm planning on learning Portuguese later next year followed by Latin, Catalan and then Romanian. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6545 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 6 of 17 15 December 2006 at 2:54pm | IP Logged |
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Naturally, go with the language that interests you the most.
Having said that, I wouldn't recommend Portugese if you're not really interested. Might be a good idea to let the Spanish really sink in first. But if you've got basic fluency, mixing them up shouldn't be that big a deal (I think). I remember Ardaschir recommending the path French>Spanish>Latin... uhm... Portugese, Romanian, Italian, maybe? Didn't remember that as well as I thought. But try a search, there are plenty of threads on the subject. But really, go with the language that you want to learn. Otherwise there's the risk that you'll regret after half the journey. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6628 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 7 of 17 15 December 2006 at 6:16pm | IP Logged |
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I'd recommend French. It's by far the most useful of the three choices, unless you have particular interests for Brazil or Italy. All over the world you can meet people who speak French as a second language, which is not the case for Italian or Portuguese. With most educated Portuguese or Italians you'll be able to converse in French, whereas even educated Frenchmen generally speak neither Italian nor Portuguese (but with a bit of luck they might know some English).
From a literary point of view, I also think that French is more interesting; there are awfully many things to read in French. By the way, I don't think French is more difficult than the other two choices, spelling can seem a bit strange at the beginning but some aspects of the grammar are simpler (use of the subjunctive for example). Don't forget that most English words derive from French. This means that on the one hand studying French will enable you to better understand your own native language and on the other hand this makes learning easier for you. Edited by Marc Frisch on 15 December 2006 at 6:17pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Roq71 Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6557 days ago 63 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Haitian Creole | Message 8 of 17 16 December 2006 at 10:03am | IP Logged |
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Oh, what to do?
The truth is that French scares the hell out of me. I think I could make excellent progress with Italian or Portuguese, but I hope that I don't get bogged down with French's liason, nightmarish orthography, and pronunciation. I was hoping to save it for last, but maybe I'll bite the bullet and get down to it. Don't get me wrong, I think it is a beautiful language and I know I'll really get into it. It's just that I know its a higher mountain to climb than the others. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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