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Can a Spanish speaker understand French? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Talib Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6662 days ago 171 posts - 205 votes  Speaks: English*, Arabic (classical) Studies: Arabic (Egyptian) | Message 1 of 31 18 April 2013 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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There are a lot of shared features between the Romance languages, but in particular, I am
wondering how much a Spanish speaker can comprehend spoken French. This obviously refers to the Spanish speaker who hasn't made any formal attempt to study the French language. For example, if the Spanish speaker is listening to a French conversation or a French newscast, will he/she be able to understand anything from it? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6660 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 2 of 31 18 April 2013 at 2:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would not think so.
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| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5208 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 31 18 April 2013 at 3:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Quite a few Spanish people have told me that they understand little to nothing of French.
However, I'd expect that a few hours spent learning about the pronunciation of French and the common patterns between the two languages would allow them to understand a reasonable bit. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Paco Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 4278 days ago 145 posts - 251 votes Speaks: Cantonese* | Message 4 of 31 18 April 2013 at 3:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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I remember a member here mentioned a Spaniard was able to communicate with an Italian,
but I have never come across anything related to Spanish-French mutual intelligibility. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 5 of 31 18 April 2013 at 4:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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As others here have said, I don't believe French is easily understood by Spanish
speakers. Though, I'll say that once I studied Italian and eventually became fluent in it, it opened up French a lot for me. I still don't consider myself to be able to speak French (I can stutter out some travel phrases, when needed), I can understand some and can read a lot. R. == 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| vogue Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4255 days ago 109 posts - 181 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Ukrainian | Message 6 of 31 18 April 2013 at 4:42pm | IP Logged | ||
This is absolutely true, I hear people cross communicating in these languages all the time - sometimes there's explanation involved, but the more they interact the less explanation I've seen. However, I have never heard a Spanish (or Italian) person cross communicating in French, and my circle contains all of these groups in close contact. Edited by vogue on 18 April 2013 at 4:44pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Talib Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6662 days ago 171 posts - 205 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (classical) Studies: Arabic (Egyptian) | Message 7 of 31 18 April 2013 at 5:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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That is interesting. So I take it that the only way Spanish will give you a discount with French is when you take the time to learn it properly.
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| Mad Max Tetraglot Groupie Spain Joined 5052 days ago 79 posts - 146 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, Russian Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 8 of 31 18 April 2013 at 9:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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We usually can understand Portuguese and Italian people if they speak slowly. We can
understand the general sense of the conversation, but not all. When I am in Portugal and Italy we understand each other. If I don't understand a phrase I use some English words. Spanglish is very useful in this particular situation. So, Spanish-Portuguese are mutually intelligible in theory, and in a lesser degree Italian too. We can understand in different degrees of intelligibility some 800 million people. But we don't understand French if we don't study the language. They use nasal sounds and other vowel sounds that make difficult the understanding. Written French is easier. Romanian is also difficult for us. 11 persons have voted this message useful |
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