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Can a Spanish speaker understand French?

 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages Post Reply
31 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4  Next >>
Talib
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United States
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Studies: Arabic (Egyptian)

 
 Message 1 of 31
18 April 2013 at 2:39pm | IP Logged 
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?   
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Hampie
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 Message 2 of 31
18 April 2013 at 2:44pm | IP Logged 
I would not think so.
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garyb
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 Message 3 of 31
18 April 2013 at 3:00pm | IP Logged 
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.
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Paco
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 Message 4 of 31
18 April 2013 at 3:35pm | IP Logged 
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.
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hrhenry
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Senior Member
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languagehopper.blogs
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Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
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 Message 5 of 31
18 April 2013 at 4:25pm | IP Logged 
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.
==
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vogue
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 Message 6 of 31
18 April 2013 at 4:42pm | IP Logged 
Paco wrote:
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.


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

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Talib
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 Message 7 of 31
18 April 2013 at 5:21pm | IP Logged 
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
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Spain
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 Message 8 of 31
18 April 2013 at 9:10pm | IP Logged 
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.


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