Nature Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 5238 days ago 63 posts - 80 votes Speaks: English*, French
| Message 1 of 2 06 January 2012 at 10:24am | IP Logged |
Whenever I go to a Spanish speaking country, and I encounter people that don't understand English (usually outside tourist areas) I'll switch to Italian. I had a much easier time communicating in Italian in Spain, than when I had gone to Mexico. They didn't even speak Italian to me, they spoke Spanish but they seemed to understand me (and I,them) better than any other Spanish country I've visited...
And vice versa. My family from Rome seem to understand Spanish a lot better than I, or even my grandparents who had emigrated from Italy in the 50's can.
Why is it? Is the Spanish in Spain closer to Italian or something? More exposure to each others' languages? TV? There must be a reason! :P
Edited by Nature on 06 January 2012 at 10:25am
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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 2 of 2 06 January 2012 at 11:31am | IP Logged |
Well, European Spanish is not closer to Italian than Mexican Spanish. It is the same
language, but the slang of every country.
The reason is that we have more exposure to Italian. For instance, I visited Italy
twice and I know some basic Italian.
At the same time, a lot of Spaniards know some basic French, and that's very useful to
understand Italian (formaggio and fromage, bonjour and buongiorno, etc).
I think that it is also the opposite. Your family from Rome have some exposure to
Spanish because there are a lot of tourists from Spain and Hispanic countries in Rome
every year. Spanish is also more studied nowadays in Italy and vice versa.
So, when I was in Italy I talked to them in Spanish slowly and they answered in Italian
also slowly. We understood each other perfectly.
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