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Confusing Spanish and Italian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| tw561 Newbie United States Joined 4541 days ago 26 posts - 28 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Italian | Message 1 of 9 11 November 2012 at 6:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello everyone :)
I have been attempting to study Italian now for several months. I am enrolled in my 5th semester of Spanish at my university, and I practice and study Italian on the side. I have had formal Spanish instruction since the 7th grade, thankfully since I live in South Florida and we have a large amount of Spanish speaking people from Cuba/Puerto Rico/etc. However, lately I have been getting both languages mixed up in my head. I guess I am finding it difficult to differentiate between the two. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions on how to keep both languages separate? Or are they "too" similar? I know that there are successful people who can speak both fluently, but I am finding them almost too close to tell, as far as the verbs and adjectives are. I am constantly getting them mixed up when I speak. My problem though is that I would like to be fluent in BOTH. I am a dual citizen of the US/Italy, so I would like to show my relatives and cousins that I can indeed speak their language. I am sure I can get by, due to the similar verbs...but it really isn't the same. Any suggestions or tips to help keep both languages separate? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6258 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes  Studies: German | Message 2 of 9 11 November 2012 at 7:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Learn one really well.
4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tw561 Newbie United States Joined 4541 days ago 26 posts - 28 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Italian | Message 3 of 9 11 November 2012 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | ||
This is irrelevant and not really applicable to my question at all. But "thanks" I guess... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4518 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 4 of 9 11 November 2012 at 10:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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The tip was relevant: the better you know either, the easier the separation will be. It's
just a matter of practice and getting better. It doesn't have to be "learn one really well" but more practice will make things clearer for you. Furthermore if you're worried about mixing them up then that worry isn't doing you a whole lot of good anyway. Concentrate on what you do know, not what you don't know Furthermore, if you lack a word, the gap can usually be filled by assuming it's the same word in the other language (spelled differently or something). It's more of an advantage I'd say. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Itikar Groupie Italy Joined 4480 days ago 94 posts - 158 votes Speaks: Italian* | Message 5 of 9 12 November 2012 at 7:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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They aren't to similiar, at least to a Romance-speaker perspective.
However when Spanish and Italian speakers speak together there are many situations when we can understand each other well. So we can recognize pronunciation is closer in comparison to French and (therefore) cognates are easily recognizable. We are a family after all! So if I were in your place I wouldn't worry too much. Go on and do not surrender! :) Then my suggestion could be to try not to study one immediately after the other to avoid confusion. Try also to do a lot of audio training in order to distinguish how they sound and the difference in their intonations. Good luck and wish you best results. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 6955 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 6 of 9 12 November 2012 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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While I don't have any actual advice on the best ways to keep the two languages distinct, I thought I'd share this link which focuses specifically on the two languages, just in case it might be helpful:
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/staff/letchfoa/comparison/comparison. htm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4450 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 7 of 9 13 November 2012 at 9:53am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi tw561. I was pretty much in the same situation as you many years ago when I was at university. I had studied Spanish for a couple of years, including immersion courses in Spain, when I started on Italian. I would be interested to know how exactly you mix them up. In my experience, I tended to use "italianised" Spanish words when speaking Italian. Sometimes I was lucky and got it right, but often it was wrong or it made my Italian sound weird.
Since my Spanish was at a higher level than my Italian, I found it very useful to work a lot on writing Italian. This forced me to think about correct grammar forms, vocabulary and spelling. I relied on a good dictionary and grammar book and of course on feedback from my Italian tutor. Another trick is to take parallel texts in the two languages to become aware of where they are similar and where they differ. Apart from that, I can agree that audio training is also useful. Bottom line is: Work a lot on both languages, identify what exactly you mix up (vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation etc) and concentrate on those issues. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tw561 Newbie United States Joined 4541 days ago 26 posts - 28 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Italian | Message 8 of 9 13 November 2012 at 2:47pm | IP Logged | ||
Thank you for this! It is rather fascinating. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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