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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 4091 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 11 18 November 2014 at 7:11pm | IP Logged |
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Hi all,
I have studied Spanish last year, and have a B1-B2 level, and want to begin Italian now. But as I begin my coursebook, I realise of course how difficult it is not to mix them up. Does anyone have a tip or piece of advice? Maybe there is something special for French native speakers? Thanks in advance! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 2 of 11 18 November 2014 at 10:34pm | IP Logged |
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Well, I cannot speak from the position of a serious learner of Italian as well but
what has helped me not to confuse French+Spanish when I was more or less at your place: 1.Listen a lot. Those languages look more alike than they sound. Use both the visual and sound memory. Let the different pronunciation and prosody patterns guide the pieces into the appropriate "drawers" in your brain. 2.Don't be afraid to compare them and tell yourself directly: "Yes, this is the same but here L2 does this while L3 does the opposite". 3.Practice them both a lot. Initial mix ups will get better if you keep improving them both. 4.Do different things in each. Don't follow L2 Grammar with L3 grammar, do some reading instead. Don't anki them both, after one listen to a podcast in the other. And so on. 5.Don't panic. I think all the interference discussion is being quite overestimated. Usually, it is the weaker language that drags in pieces of the stronger one when you are out of your depth. If you keep improving, than from my experience, you should experience less and less interference. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 3 of 11 18 November 2014 at 11:06pm | IP Logged |
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It won't be as fun as starting a new language right now, but my advice is to get your Spanish to B2 first- then start Italian. The stronger your Spanish, the less you'll have to work to maintain it. It will also give you more time to work on Italian and even more of a discount. B1 to B2 isn't that much of a heavy lift and the extra time spent to get your Spanish higher won't be too long.
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| drygramul Tetraglot Senior Member Italy Joined 4467 days ago 165 posts - 269 votes Speaks: Persian, Italian*, EnglishC2, GermanB2 Studies: French, Polish | Message 4 of 11 19 November 2014 at 12:41am | IP Logged |
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I agree with iguanamon and I'd suggest you get to an even higher level in Spanish before starting Italian. If your Spanish isn't strong enough, you'll keep having doubts about both Italian AND Spanish at the same time, and it will be harder for you to spot the differences when you're aiming at a good command of the language.
You shouldn't worry too much about confusing the two languages (or even 3 in your case) later anyway . That's something that a language partner can take care of for you with a little practice. Edited by drygramul on 19 November 2014 at 12:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 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 5 of 11 19 November 2014 at 5:02am | IP Logged |
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If you don't have an immediate need for Italian, consider learning it passively first.
See this article as well :) I've found lyricstraining very useful for switching between the Portuguese/Spanish/Italian spelling. And yeah, interference is overrated. This kind of blunders can happen even when you learn one language at a time, and when you learn completely unrelated languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4046 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 6 of 11 19 November 2014 at 8:34am | IP Logged |
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Whenever you start withwith Italian, if your
Spanish is good enough, you should be able to understanding it without previous study, both in written and oral form. In that case I suggest you to listen a lotlot of Italian: even if the written languages appear to be very similar, the prosody is completely different. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5206 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 11 19 November 2014 at 10:50am | IP Logged |
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I did it the opposite way: starting Spanish with B2 Italian. I agree with iguanamon and others about reaching B2 first and that the higher level your Spanish is before starting, the better. And Cavesa has great advice as always.
To me it's a question of compromise: in theory I believe focusing on one at a time is best, but if you're really keen on Italian and/or have practical reasons to learn it soon (opportunities to speak it etc.) then that beats the theory! In fact, I recently decided to stop Spanish and just focus on Italian again. I simply don't have time for both. Time is an important consideration if your intention is to keep improving your Spanish: remember that getting to B1/B2 is, comparatively speaking, the easy part, and if you're aiming for higher levels then you've still got a lot of work ahead. Fitting in another language, even a similar one, might not be realistic. On the other hand, if you're happy with your Spanish level for the moment and simply want to maintain that while learning Italian, time will be less of a problem. Interference is inevitable at first but it does become less of a problem as your newer language gets stronger. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 4091 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 8 of 11 19 November 2014 at 11:05am | IP Logged |
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thank you for all your advice! :)
actually, my girlfriend is half Italian, and I really would like to converse with her only in Italian one day. that's why I would like to learn it "quickly" I do agree that it's better to get to B2 in Spanish first, but it would indeed take some time... that's why I was curious about learning Italian now and finding a way not to mix them up Furthermore, another information to take into account: during the second semester, I would like to take a free Spanish course at my university (the same as last year actually, same teacher, but this time the course won't focus that much on grammar, but rather on conversation). so I thought I could learn Italian to a small B1 within 2 months with a lot of work (although it's just a wish ;) ) and then use italian with my girlfiend, and use Spanish in the course, with the goal of improving them both. But, I am not sure this is going to work. to have an answer to this question, I prefer to refer to you... what do you think I should do in this situation? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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