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Catalan: intelligibility | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5795 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 9 of 26 18 January 2015 at 12:06am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, there definitely is. A combination of sound shifts and spelling reform means that cognates are not quite so obvious to the uninitiated when reading, but once you get used to it things become clear pretty quickly. It also means you don't have to suffer the frustration of every Anglophone French learner, when you can get the gist of pretty much any text but listening is still a mystery. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 3860 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 10 of 26 18 January 2015 at 1:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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Strange. According to the table the closest language to Italian is French; however, Italians without exposure to
French have harder time with it than with Spanish, which the written language seems to me much closer to Italian. The pronunciation is much more straightforward with an handful of words that are exactly the same in the two languages. An Italian reading Spanish as he would read Italian is still almost perfectly understandable, while the result doing the same with French would be totally unintelligible and quite hilarious. An interesting point in this table is that the Italian should have the most advantage when picking other romance languages, being something in the middle. Too bad there isn't a score for the pair Italian-Portuguese. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5133 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 11 of 26 18 January 2015 at 1:50am | IP Logged | |||||
IMHO, you can only arrive at 0.60, if cognates are included, because according to Wikipedia, only 26% of English words are of Germanic origin.
If you watch the entertaining Verner's Law consonant shift videos (1, 2, 3), you might recognize some cognates that you might otherwise miss. :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 4872 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 12 of 26 18 January 2015 at 6:37am | IP Logged | |||||
Well, it's only lexical similarity. Italian and Spanish sound similar, so it's easier to understand the cognates. Even though it turns out there are more cognates with French, they are buried under the mess of what's happened to French phonology and orthography over the past few hundred years. That's why no country's people can understand French without studying, even though French's lexicon is typical Romance. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6410 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 13 of 26 18 January 2015 at 10:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
Initially I found Italian clearer than Spanish, for example look at figlio/filho/hijo (and even ll is no longer pronounced like gli/lh). But once I got past this sort of thing, Spanish became much easier. If you ever play around with Portuguese, you'll notice that many words have fewer syllables than in Spanish or especially Italian. And the pronunciation is still quite different, especially if you compare to the Brazilian variety. Besides, you're already learning Spanish. Italian+Spanish are an excellent starting point for Portuguese, and definitely better than just one of them. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4520 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 14 of 26 18 January 2015 at 10:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
French also had a significant influence from the Germanic languages which the other languages lack. In terms of lexicon. This is not that big a deal, but substantial. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 3860 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 15 of 26 18 January 2015 at 11:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
Therefore I can conclude than the most intelligible language for an Italian must be Catalan, because it has bigger lexical similarity than Spanish and a much more transparent spelling than French. Makes sense?
Interesting... wait a minute... now I had the idea to do the Romance language family continuity project. I just have to add Catalan, Portuguese and Romanian and then I understand all the major romance languages :P Off course Russian would postpone again. Mmmhh... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6410 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 16 of 26 19 January 2015 at 11:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think it's time to do something challenging that you can stick with, whether it's Russian, Mandarin or Persian etc. Well, obviously it depends on your goals and so on. But if you were itching to get some specific content in Catalan or Portuguese, you'd be doing them already, wouldn't you? I'd say just let the cool content find you. Sooner or later the time will come. Keep working on your French and Spanish too, obviously.
You also seem to have an issue with grand schemes, like kujichagulia. Oops, I did not just send you to Kuji's log after telling you to put off Portuguese until the time is right :) Edited by Serpent on 19 January 2015 at 11:41am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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