# Spanish/Provençal/French: Mutual Intelligibility



## tvdxer

Is there any intelligibility between Spanish and Provençal, which seems to be closer to French than Spanish yet still maintaining some Spanish-like traits?  

And while I'm certain native Spanish-speakers who haven't formally or informally learned it can't understand French to any useful extent, does any of it sound familliar or similar to them?

I know there is a limited degree of mutual intelligiblity between Spanish and Portuguese and Spanish and Italian.


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## DrLindenbrock

I really can't answer directly because I'm not a native Spanish speaker.
As an Italian speaker, I can say that - to stick to the examples you gave - Italians can understand Spanish better than Provençal although this could seem counter-intuitive as it goes against what geographical proximity might suggest.
What really matters for mutual intelligibility, at least in Romance languages, is the vowel system.
As Spanish and Italian basically have the same vowels in may words (except for some diphthongs in Spanish where in Italian there's a simple E or O), that's why comprehension is fairly easily.
Provençal is different, as Spanish and Italian O tends to be pronounced U (or English double O like in "food", Provençal U is prounounced like in French and German, in many varieties a final A sounds like an O, etc.

E.g.
Change = Fr. Change, It. & Sp. Cambio, Prov. Canvi
Horse = Fr. Cheval, It. Cavallo, Sp. Caballo, Prov. Shibau
Water = Fr. Eau, It. Acqua, Sp. Agua, Prov. Aiga

I hope you get some more direct answers, mine was just some preparatory info


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## Outsider

I'm not a native speaker either, but consider this:

1) Provençal and Catalan are closely related. 

2) Catalan is closer to Spanish than Provençal.

3) Yet Spanish speakers seem to have trouble understanding Catalan.


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## jmx

As a native Spanish speaker who has studied French for more than 5 years, I can confirm that the intelligibility of colloquial spoken French for the average spaniard is close to zero, and maybe just a little more for formal spoken French.


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## Setwale_Charm

Outsider said:


> I'm not a native speaker either, but consider this:
> 
> 1) Provençal and Catalan are closely related.
> 
> 2) Catalan is closer to Spanish than Provençal.
> 
> 3) Yet Spanish speakers seem to have trouble understanding Catalan.


 
Interesting. Because not being a native Spanish speaker, I nevertheless understand a lot when I hear Catalan radio on the basis of my knowledge of Spanish and of some basics of Catalan.


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## jonquiliser

I think it must (as everything) vary a lot with the person. I know a bunch of people who say they understand Catalan fairly well even though they never learnt it. But many of these people speak other languages besides Spanish, which might make them more capable of "hearing" the language.

French on the other hand is not something Spanish speakers seem to understand without any sort of previous teaching/learning. The two languages simply aren’t that similar. Although, there’s a lot of shared vocabulary, so they might pick up some words here and there.

(Anyway, I'm not Spanish, I'm just saying what Spanish friends have expressed.)


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## María Madrid

My experience is that Catalonian native speakers don't seem to have difficulty in understanding French (I don't know exactly to what extent, though) while native Spanish speakers who don't speak Catalonian nor French (like me) more or less manage to understand Catalonian (again it varies for each individual), but certainly not French. In all cases I refer to listening comprehension, as reading is always much easier. Yes, you can more or less guess if they're talking about food or politics, but not so much more than that. 

Sometimes I see tv on people from Southern France (no idea if that is Provençal or what) and I can hear their pronounciation is much clearer and I'm able to detect some more words. 

I agree with Jonquiliser, there's a big difference between educated and non-educated speakers, those who speak more languages and those who don't, etc.

Even though I remember one Swedish guy claiming that since he spoke Spanish he could understand both French and Italian with no problem (ha!), an "average" Spanish speaker would understand Catalonian to a varying extent, yet not that much Italian and even less French. And, of course, I mean Spanish speakers from Spain, who have heard Catalonian many times, on tv, etc. Many American Spanish speakers look puzzled the first time they hear Catalonian... unless they speak French, of course. Saludos,


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