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Which latin language is better to learn? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Enrico Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 3755 days ago 162 posts - 207 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Italian, Spanish, French | Message 1 of 44 07 September 2015 at 5:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi everybody!
How do you think which is the best language to learn from Italian, Spanish, French or Portuguese to partially understand others from this list (by ear or written)? For traveling purposes. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 4062 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German | Message 2 of 44 07 September 2015 at 7:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hello Enrico,
While you pose a very interesting question, the answer might depend on a number of factors. My response is nothing more than a "personal opinion". Hopefully, someone who has studied the question, or who can recommend a specific resource that addresses the matter, will respond. In the meantime, ... I see that you are already studying Italian, Spanish, and French. So, I might be tempted to turn the question back on you. That is, from your experience to date with these languages, which one seems to be the best "porte d'entrée" for studying the others? My level of French is C2 and I have studied Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese to roughly the A2 level. Many of my Francophone friends have studied either Italian or Spanish, or both. Their experiences is that Italian "seems" present the "best porte d'entrée" for learning French and Spanish. They also found that, as French speakers, learning Italian was easier than learning Spanish. Finally, those who have tried to learn Portuguese found that this language was the most difficult of the three. Having said that, Portuguese represents something of an "exception" in this group of languages. From what I have read, it is easier for a native Portuguese speaker to learn Spanish than it is for a native Spanish speaker to learn Portuguese. The explanation is that Spanish is more clearly articulated than Portuguese. Thus, Spanish speakers must make a greater effort to understand the somewhat slurred or "swallowed" endings of Portuguese words, whereas Portuguese speakers need only become accustomed to hearing the more clearly articulated Spanish word endings that they would normally "assume" they hear. My experiences in studying Spanish and Portuguese left me with the same impression. So, does this mean that one should begin with Portuguese? No, my "gut feeling" tells me that one should begin with either French or Italian, as both facilitate the learning of Spanish as well as of each other, and I would tend to treat Portuguese as the exception. Finally, the matter of "partially understand others ... for traveling purposes" should be given some consideration. In my experience, native speakers of any language can display important differences in pronunciation that can been so pronounced as to be classified as dialects by some linguists. Also, native speakers employ, unconsciously, vocabulary and colloquialisms that extend well beyond the level of language that one encounters in introductory language courses. Thus, even students who have achieved a CEFR level of A2 in particular language will experience difficulties understanding native speakers. For this reason, I would not rely on my level of one Romance language as a guarantor of my ability to understand another language in this family. Yes, the ability to speak Italian at the A2 level "might" help one in Spain, but I doubt that it would help very much (my C2 level French helped me only a little while travelling in Spain). To my mind, if one wishes to "get by" when travelling, is more important that one be capable of making oneself "understood" when expressing one's basic needs, than it is to "understand" the local native speakers, which requires a fairly advanced level of skill. In closing, my comments are "pure personal opinion" and I would be quite interested in reading the responses of other Forum Members to your question. Edited by Speakeasy on 07 September 2015 at 7:28pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6607 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 3 of 44 07 September 2015 at 8:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hehe, my first Romance language was Portuguese and to me Spanish has always looked like a mess :P IDK, my impression is that it's largely an exposure issue. Those who have exposure to Portuguese will understand it, such as many Uruguayans.
With my Portuguese I've had no trouble learning to understand Spanish and Italian. French is another story, but I dislike the sound of the language. I can understand a lot in writing. In the long run you'll need some exposure to all the four languages. Grammar-light methods would be great. I recommend you to continue learning French, Spanish and Italian and eventually add Portuguese, when you need it or when you can't resist. Taking a break is also less of a concern when it comes to related languages and especially passive skills. Edited by Serpent on 07 September 2015 at 8:10pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4678 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 4 of 44 07 September 2015 at 10:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Portuguese.
Think Madeira, Oporto or Fernando de Noronha 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Enrico Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 3755 days ago 162 posts - 207 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Italian, Spanish, French | Message 5 of 44 08 September 2015 at 2:20am | IP Logged | |||||
It would be enough for me to understand only written French by learning Italian or Spanish.
I think I have no time for English + Spanish + French + Italian, I think I have to either go with English only or with English + one romance language to increase ability to understand people while travelling. I incline to either Italian or Spanish Edited by Enrico on 08 September 2015 at 2:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Enrico Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 3755 days ago 162 posts - 207 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Italian, Spanish, French | Message 6 of 44 08 September 2015 at 2:30am | IP Logged | |||||
Hello Speakeasy, Thank you for you detailed answer. It seems to me that Italian or French are closest to Latin so they can be good "porte d'entrée" to others but as French has a totally different pronunciation among other 3, so it turns out that there is only Italian left. But Spanish is more widely spoken than Italian, it brings some doubts. And it also seems to me that learning Italian I will understand more written French than learning Spanish. I don't know why, it is some kind of "gut feeling" as you say ))) Maybe I'm wrong Edited by Enrico on 08 September 2015 at 2:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 4062 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German | Message 7 of 44 08 September 2015 at 3:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hello Enrico,
First, I can easily sympathize with your quandary. Over the past few years, I have tried to keep my Spanish and Italian at an A2 level and perhaps even progress a little, while adding Dutch, Polish, and Russian, all the while trying to improve my German. At times, I feel like a "one-armed paper hanger" and I get the impression that ALL of my languages are suffering. Second, it is true that there are more speakers of Spanish than there are of the other Romance languages ... but they are live in the Americas! Are your travels going to take you there or to Western Europe? Yes, the Spanish speaking world has a broad, lively, culture. However, perhaps like many of us, you MAY have to enjoy it only through the contact of modern media. The same could be said for Portuguese; that is, most of the world's Portuguese speakers live in the Americas. As for French, despite the efforts and successes of "l'Organisation internationale de la Francophonie", outside of France and Québec, French is more of a highly-accented second language than it is the main-stay of the people who speak it, or claim to do so. Ah, but Italian! Despite the limited geographical reach, consider the wine, the food, the tailors, the sports cars, and I'm sorry but, political correctness precludes my mentioning their greatest attraction. Third, an Italian-Canadian acquaintance of mine, who is very proud of his heritage, says of the Spanish language, "it is a very poor Italian" and of the French language "it, too, is poor Italian, but not as poor as Spanish and, besides, French wines are superior to Spanish wines, but not quite as good as Italian wines". So, perhaps Italian IS the key to the other languages! Fourth, while we've been having fun here, there MAY NOT exist a "correct" answer to your question. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Enrico Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 3755 days ago 162 posts - 207 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Italian, Spanish, French | Message 8 of 44 08 September 2015 at 5:19am | IP Logged | |||||
In Americas I'm interested in USA, Canada and Brazil. In Europe I'm interested in all the Mediterranean coast. ) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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