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Catalan: intelligibility | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4048 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes  Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 1 of 26 17 January 2015 at 1:28am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi,
I just watched this video and I realized that I understand Catalan (just missed a couple of short sentences and a few words here and there). Now, beside my mother tongue, Italian, and English, I'm aware to understand also those languages: - Milanese (and variants), main dialect of the area I was living in Italy - French - Spanish and I find Catalan more similar to Italian than all of those. I cannot evaluate the intelligibility between Catalan and Italian because my understanding of Spanish and French is most probably the reason I can understand Catalan. I indeed thought this to be a strange mix between French and Spanish. It would be interesting, if there is another Italian in this forum who doesn't understand French nor Spanish, if he can understand what is said in this video. But, more in general, which is the intelligibility between Catalan and the other romances? Edited by tristano on 17 January 2015 at 9:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| anamsc2 Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 4560 days ago 85 posts - 186 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Catalan, German Studies: French | Message 2 of 26 17 January 2015 at 2:42am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not Italian, but I do speak Catalan, and when I listen to Italian I often get the feeling that a sentence was suddenly in Catalan. This happened to me both in Italy and in an Italian TV show I used to watch. Also, it's pretty common for Catalan speakers to go to Italy and just speak slow Catalan, and have people speak back to them in slow Italian, and be able to get by. In fact, there is a storyline in "Digui, digui" (a beginner Catalan video course) about that. Therefore, I'd say that the mutual intelligibility between Catalan and Italian is very good.
Based on my experience with Catalan and other Romance languages, plus what I have seen with French, Spanish, and Portuguese speakers in Andorra, I'd rate the mutual intelligibility as follows: Spanish -- probably the easiest Romance language for Catalan speakers to understand; Spanish speakers can understand it but usually only once they've had a chance to get used to it French -- I think it's easier for French speakers to understand Catalan (compared to other Romance languages); however, Catalan speakers can read French pretty easily Italian -- not quite as easy as Spanish, but still pretty close Portuguese -- not very easy to understand but can be read to some extent; usually Catalan speakers use Spanish when trying to get Portuguese speakers to understand them 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4666 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 3 of 26 17 January 2015 at 1:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Based on my conversations with many Romance language native speakers, few of them could understand much of spoken French before studying it. The written language is obviously another story, since even an English speaker can get a lot out of a passage of French if you choose the right subject. Edited by tastyonions on 17 January 2015 at 1:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5309 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 4 of 26 17 January 2015 at 1:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Lexical similarity coefficients
Catalan English French German Italian Portuguese Romanian Romansh Russian Sardinian Spanish 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4666 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 5 of 26 17 January 2015 at 1:22pm | IP Logged | ||
Haha, it's so weird to see 0.60 for English and German. If I can get anything at all out of a German text, it's only after quite a bit of puzzling about similarities to English roots, or thanks to obvious direct loan words. On the contrary I could often get the broad strokes of French news articles without having studied the language at all. Maybe there is some point of enlightenment an Anglophone reaches in the study of German where the kinship becomes much clearer. I guess I'll find out when I study it. :-) Edited by tastyonions on 17 January 2015 at 1:28pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| chokofingrz Pentaglot Senior Member England Joined 5190 days ago 241 posts - 430 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Japanese, Catalan, Luxembourgish | Message 6 of 26 17 January 2015 at 1:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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To study Catalan, I recently made a list of 1000 Catalan words alongside their translations in Spanish, French and Italian. In each case I kept only the foreign word which was most similar to the Catalan word (based on spelling and sound). 72% of the time this was Spanish, 20% French, and 7% Italian. (There was also about 1% with no obvious cognate.)
All the numbers would have been much higher if I had kept all similar words; but I was employing a minimalist style of learning. Anyway, my point is that out of French and Italian I believe that French has more cognates with Catalan. Italian grammar may be closer, but I place more value on the cognates. But since I learned French, then Spanish, then Italian, then basic Catalan, I am too biased and unfortunately in no way able to approach the subject from the viewpoint of a monolingual Romance language native speaker. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gomorritis Tetraglot Groupie Netherlands Joined 4279 days ago 91 posts - 157 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English, Catalan, French Studies: Greek, German, Dutch | Message 7 of 26 17 January 2015 at 9:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I speak Spanish, Catalan and French (and understand most spoken Italian), but I have never tried to analyze the similarities in detail. However, in my mind the general feeling is that the closest to Catalan is Spanish, then Italian but not so far, and finally French.
In that ranking I am referring to spoken language, and specifically to the capability of a hypothetical person who only speaks Catalan and never heard another romance language before (there might barely be anyone like this) to understand those languages in oral form. French cognates with Catalan might be obvious for a Catalan speaker when written, but rarely when spoken. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4666 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 8 of 26 17 January 2015 at 11:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Looking at that chart again, it seems like the most "logical" step for me to take after French in my path through the Romance languages would actually have been to Italian (.89 lexical similarity) rather than to Spanish (.75). I've noticed recently that while French certainly does help with Spanish, it helps even more with reading Italian. Based on the chart they actually have the same lexical closeness to each other as the famously close pair Spanish and Portuguese!
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