# Spanish or Italian?



## alahay

Is Portuguese more similar to Spanish or Italian?


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## Tomby

I think that Portuguese is more similar to Catalan.


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## Vanda

Tombatossals is quite right. I feel that too. Portuguese was born from the late latin spoken in the Lazio region with a good mixture of the language spoken in Galícia, but as for nowadays structure, resembling words and spelling (well you have to forget that half of them are false cognates - just exaggerating ) Spanish is closer to Portuguese.


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## Outsider

But Catalan is not Spanish, Vanda.
Perhaps you misread Tombatossals' post...


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## GoranBcn

Spanish for sure, there is no doubt.  But it's much easier for spanish speakers to understand written portuguese than the spoken one.


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## Vanda

No Outsider, I haven't misread Tombatossals's post, I just didn't feel like going on details.  What I haven't said is that when I read the Catalan speakers' posts in this forum I can identify many Pt characteristcs. So I feel it has quite a similarity, but, then, I came back to Spanish.


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## Outsider

So, you have two minds about the matter...


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## irisheyes0583

For me, as a non-native of any of the languages in question , I would say that Spanish is closest to Portuguese... Italian is also close to Spanish (heavy on the French influences though).


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## Vanda

Outsider, I do. Until very recently I didn't know that.  Just after the posts reading I've learned that. I'll have to research about to speak about it. For now, it's just a feeling!


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## anamadrid

I will give you an example,
I work with portuguesses and italians,
with portuguesses I speak spanish and they portuguesse, and we understand perfectly one to each other,
But with my italians custamers I have to speak in English, as I dont speak italian... what I mean is that I can have a conversation with an portuguesse but not with an italian.


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## langalejandro

The catalan is not a country official language.


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## Vanda

> But with my italians custamers I have to speak in English, as I dont speak italian... what I mean is that I can have a conversation with an portuguesse but not with an italian


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Anamadrid you reminded me of my boyfriend. He's Czech, speaks German, as he has lived in Gr for more than 30 years now. We were in Italy in July/2004 and he insisted to speak Portuguese to the Italians. I kept saying to him not to do that, because they wouldn't understand. So he said to me: ok, I'll speak German then!


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## cirrus

langalejandro said:
			
		

> The catalan is not a country official language.


 
So why is the catalan listed as an official language on the Spanish constitution website ?

Link


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## Tomby

Olá pessoal! 
Apenas duas coisas: 
Em primeiro lugar, o catalão é uma língua oficial do Estado Espanhol. Fala-se na Catalunha, nas Ilhas Baleares (onde é conhecida como maiorquino ou balear) e na Comunidade Valenciana onde é conhecido como valenciano. 
Quanto às semelhanças entre o português, espanhol e italiano eu disse que o idioma mais semelhante ao português é o catalão além do galego, que segundo diversas opiniões de importantes filólogos dizem que se trata da mesma língua. Não sei, nem posso opinar sobre este tema.
É mais parecido o português ao espanhol do que ao italiano? Vou arriscar e dizer que o português fica mais perto do espanhol. 
Bom fim-de-semana!


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## Outsider

Alguém votou no italiano! Seria bom saber porquê.


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## Vanda

Outsider said:
			
		

> Alguém votou no italiano! Seria bom saber porquê.


 
Boa idéia Out! Um fato interessante que aconteceu comigo, voltando da Itália , estava lendo Pinocchio em italiano no avião. O coordernador do instituto Torino aqui, que estava no mesmo vôo que eu, disse-me que eu provavelmente estava encontrando dificuldades na leitura, por ser num italiano mais antigo, e que eles, italianos, têm um pouco de dificuldade de entender. Ao contrário - foi minha resposta, estava mais fácil do que o italiano do cotidiano. Daí ele disse-me que os alunos dele aqui fazem o mesmo comentário, quando ele marca as obras clássicas como leitura. Será que o italiano antigo guarda mais semelhanças com o português, ou , melhor ainda, será que o português retém uma similaridade com o italiano antigo?


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## Icaro_mad

cirrus said:
			
		

> So why is the catalan listed as an official language on the Spanish constitution website ?
> 
> Link


 
The Catalan is a co-official language, that means that Catalan is official only in Catalonia, Valencia and Balears, but is not official in the rest of the country. This also happens with Basque and Galician.
We could also discuss whether the languages that are spoken in Valencia and Balears are Catalan or not. but this is not the place to argue about this.


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## glasgow_girl

I agree with Icaro_mad. Catalan is an official language and those who do not know anything about the situation in Catalunya should be careful with their comments because I am sure it must be very annoying for a Catalan person to hear somebody say things like "catalan is not an official language".


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## Icaro_mad

glasgow_girl said:
			
		

> I agree with Icaro_mad. Catalan is an official language and those who do not know anything about the situation in Catalunya should be careful with their comments because I am sure it must be very annoying for a Catalan person to hear somebody say things like "catalan is not an official language".


 
My point was that Catalan is not strictly an official language, because the only official language in the whole Spanish Terrioty is the Spanish (Castellano). I live in Madrid an we only have the Spanish as official language. We are not talking about the annoyance of some people, because we could also talk about how the Valencians and Balears feels about some Catalans saying that Valenciá and Balear are dialects of Catalan. That´s politics!!


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## Outsider

Is the official or unofficial status of Catalan truly relevant to this thread? I don't think so, folks.


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## SambaBaby

langalejandro said:
			
		

> The catalan is not a country official language.



I think it is. I am to believe that in Spain Galician, Catalan and Euskera are all now official languages.


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## Tomby

Não misturemos a política com a língua, a literatura ou a cultura. A realidade é que todos os filólogos do mundo coincidem numa coisa: que o catalão, o valenciano e o balear são uma única língua. Dizer o contrário seria como afirmar que o _brasileiro_ é um idioma distinto do português falado em Portugal.

Dicionário:http://dcvb.iecat.net/inici.asp
A primeira vez precisa-se escrever duas vezes a palavra a procurar.


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## SambaBaby

Já. Não quis dizer isso. Está claro que estamos a misturer a política como a língua ... e acho que em todos os países temos o mesmo problema. Então, melhor deixar falar de todo isto porque isto é um foro de língua não da política.


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## Tomby

SambaBaby said:
			
		

> I think it is. I am to believe that in Spain Galician, Catalan and Euskera are all now official languages.


http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiomas_de_Espa%C3%B1a#Idiomas_cooficiales


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## Roi Marphille

Tombatossals said:
			
		

> Não misturemos a política com a língua, a literatura ou a cultura. A realidade é que todos os filólogos do mundo coincidem numa coisa: que o catalão, o valenciano e o balear são uma única língua. Dizer o contrário seria como afirmar que o _brasileiro_ é um idioma distinto do português falado em Portugal.
> 
> Dicionário:http://dcvb.iecat.net/inici.asp
> A primeira vez precisa-se escrever duas vezes a palavra a procurar.


perfeito amigo! obrigado pela expliaçâo.
Anyway, I'd say that Portuguese is more similar to Castilian by sintaxis but more similar to Catalan by phonems. Specially Iberian Portuguese, I've been told by many people. When I speak Portuguese for instance, I have the "_perfect"_ Portuguese accent-phonetics. One day a Portuguese guy thought that I was Portuguese even that I don't speak it very well but the phonems are very very similar...(PS:maybe it helped that I was drunk though  )
I also confused a Portuguese girl to be Catalan because she spoke a perfect Central-Catalan and she learned it in few months.


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## angelina barbosa

Well, I would say that Portuguese definitely resembles Galician.


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## Tomby

angelina barbosa said:
			
		

> Well, I would say that Portuguese definitely resembles Galician.


Angelina, eu já respondi neste tópico:  



			
				Tombatossals said:
			
		

> ... o idioma mais semelhante ao português é o catalão além do galego, que segundo diversas opiniões de importantes filólogos dizem que se trata da mesma língua. Não sei, nem posso opinar sobre este tema...


 
Cumprimentos!


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## latormentabritanica

Etymologists trace portuguese back to Galician, and therefore is related more to Spanish than to Italian.  However, much of the evolution of Spanish grammar has not bled through into Portuguese (i.e. stem-changing verbs, personal "a"), and the pronunciation of many consonants is more related to those in Italian (i.e. j, g, ss, intervocalic s, z, etc).


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## Outsider

Welcome to our forum. Just a note: depending on what you mean by 'stem-changing verbs', we have some in Portuguese, too.


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## latormentabritanica

I am fully aware of the use of stem-changing verbs in Portuguese, however their presence is not to the same extent as in Spanish.


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## Outsider

Oh, you must be talking about the diphthongation of stressed vowels which occurs in many Spanish verbs! For example, _poder-puedo_, _sentir-siento_, etc.


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## latormentabritanica

That's exactly what I'm talking about!  I'm studying for a Linguistics degree right now, but I'm in the first class so I haven't gotten all the terminology down.  However, the concept of poder-puedo etc. has always been referred to as being a "stem-changer" in the shall we say "normal" world.


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## Outsider

_Conocer-conozco_: is this not a stem change, too?


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## latormentabritanica

I'm not sure to be honest


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