# How close is Spanish to English?



## RDJEBENIANI

Hi,
I noticed that definitely Spanish is the closest romance language to English (assuming that Portuguese does not differ so much from Spanish). After learning Spanish, having been already knowledgeable of French and then Italian, I have often come across fancy English terms from the perspective of a French Speaking person (I mean words that you think are really specific to English and than turn out to be coming from Latin) being in fact used in Spanish in similar ways (obvious, preterit, implementation and many others).

My feeling is that Spanish (and Portuguese) is the closest to English followed by Italian with French relatively aspiring to demark itself from these words coming from Latin.

Moreover, Spanish has spanishized some English terms like goal (gol), penalti etc.


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## Abaye

The first result when googling the thread's title is this informative article: Capitalizing on Similarities and Differences between Spanish and English.


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## RDJEBENIANI

Thank you very much. Much appreciated.


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## Penyafort

RDJEBENIANI said:


> Hi,
> I noticed that definitely *Spanish is the closest romance language to English*
> 
> My feeling is that Spanish (and Portuguese) is the closest to English followed by Italian *with French relatively aspiring to demark itself from these words coming from Latin.*


You are mixing two things here.

First, no, it can't be Spanish. The closest Romance language to English are clearly French or Norman. Which is logical.

Secondly, yes, French is definitely the Romance language that is nowadays farther away from Latin.


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## Abaye

Penyafort said:


> First, no, it can't be Spanish. The closest Romance language to English are clearly French or Norman. Which is logical.


Is this reply about historical development or about the situation today which, seems to me, is what the thread opener cares about?


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## Penyafort

Abaye said:


> Is this reply about historical development or about the situation today which, seems to me, is what the thread opener cares about?


Both. I can't see what may make it different today, either from a phonological, lexical or syntactical point of view.


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## Terio

It is sometimes said that French is the more germanized romance language and English the more romanized germanic language. The original germanic influence on French did not come from English, but from Frankish, in the Middle Ages. The influence of English itself, in modern French (mostly on the vocabulary) is relatively recent (XIXth century).


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## Penyafort

Abaye said:


> The first result when googling the thread's title is this informative article: Capitalizing on Similarities and Differences between Spanish and English.


Out of those four points mentioned there, only one is important (number 2), because the other three could also be mentioned between English and many other European languages. And the percentage of lexicon is far more similar between English and French.

30% come from French or Norman (called 'Anglo-French'), to which we can add much of the 30% coming from Latin. In other words, it's quite likely that about 50% of the whole English lexicon can find some correlation in the French one.

In terms of phonology, comparing both charts make it obvious that English and French are closer, as both languages are used to having a high number of vowels as well as voiced fricatives like v, z or j, which Spanish lost centuries ago.

Neither English nor French speakers have to think about differences between ser and estar, because it's only one verb for them.

Some syntactical constructions, like the second and third conditionals, are more similar between English and French, because Spanish uses the subjunctive: If I saw / If I had seen... (Si je voyais/j'avais vu... vs Si yo viese/hubiese visto...)


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## Olaszinhok

In my opinion:
As for vocabulary - French
As for the usage of verb tenses - Spanish (I’m not taking the Subjunctive into account).
Spanish and English make use of one auxiliary verb (to have - haber) to form the compound tenses (no past participle agreement in the active voice) and the progressive tenses are very similar in the two languages:
I am  singing - estoy candando
I was singing - estaba cantando
I have been singing - he estado cantando
I had been singing - había estado cantando and so forth.
Even the difference between the Present Perfect and the Simple Past (Pretérito perfecto and Pretérito indefinido) is almost the same, particularly in certain varieties of Spanish.

P.S. I am still convinced that most Germanic languages are more similar to English than French or Spanish, especially Dutch and Scandinavian languages.


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## Penyafort

Olaszinhok said:


> In my opinion:
> As for vocabulary - French
> As for the usage of verb tenses - Spanish (I’m not taking the Subjunctive into account).
> Spanish and English make use of one auxiliary verb (to have - haber) to form the compound tenses (no past participle agreement in the active voice) and the progressive tenses are very similar in the two languages:
> I am  singing - estoy candando
> I was singing - estaba cantando



That's correct. The use of the gerund is closer between English and Spanish (or Italian), as French definitely behaves a bit weirdly there. 

But then, in French, as in English:

- pronouns must be said before verbs: _I_ think, _je _pense (Sp. pienso)

- there's no _a _before direct objects referring to people, which limits freedom in word order:
​_Sp. Pedro pegó a Juan. Pegó Pedro a Juan. A Juan pegó Pedro. Pedro a Juan pegó. A Juan Pedro pegó._​_En. Pedro hit Juan._​_Fr. Pedro a frappé Juan._​
_- _the use of the passive voice is frequent, compared to the use of it in Spanish, in which se tends to be preferred:

_En. Databases are regularly updated._​_Fr. Les bases de données sont mises à jour régulièrement._​_Sp. Las bases de datos se actualizan regularmente._​
_- _the Spanish structure [_lo_ + adjective] must be expressed using [what + verb to be + adjective]:

_Sp. Lo natural no puede ser malo._​_En. What is natural cannot be bad._​_Fr. Ce qui est naturel ne peut pas être mauvais._​​- etc.

There are quite a few subtle similarities too that I've also perceived when reading in both languages, which are hard to explain as they are rather related to a certain writing style. But we could also add more significant aspects, like semantics (e.g., days divided into four parts, compared to the three in Spanish), spelling (complicated in both English and French with regard to Spanish), etc.


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## RDJEBENIANI

Penyafort said:


> But then, in French, as in English:
> - pronouns must be said before verbs: _I_ think, _je _pense (Sp. pienso)
> 
> 
> spelling (complicated in both English and French with regard to Spanish), etc.


Yes it is remarkable that spelling is wisely simplified in Spanish with especially avoidance of unnecessary doubling of consonants, which is the PECHE MIGNON of French and English. Also words derived from English are simplified (gol, penalti).

Regarding use of pronoun before verbs, similar to Spanish and Italian, Semitic languages (at least Arabic) do not use it either except, as is the case in Spanish and Italian, when you need to put emphasis on who is doing the action.


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## Olaszinhok

Penyafort said:


> The use of the gerund is closer between English and Spanish (or Italian),


I was actually speaking about verb tenses.  It seems to me that there's an almost perfect similarity between Spanish and English verb tenses. I do know that in Spanish the usage of some tenses is not as strict as in English, though. I am not obviously taking the Subjunctive, nor the Imperfect into consideration. However, in no other Romance language you can find such a similarity, neither in Portuguese nor in Italian. Progressive tenses such as _he estado comiendo_ or _había estado comiendo_ are not used in Italian, for instance. They exist in Catalan but I reckon that they are Castilian syntactic calques. I am not sure, though. 


Penyafort said:


> In terms of phonology, comparing both charts make it obvious that English and French are closer, as both languages are used to having a high number of vowels


They certainly have a higher number of vowels compared to other languages, but the vowel system is pretty different in the two languages.
English speakers  could  have a hard time pronouncing nasal vowels and y, ø, œ vowel sounds correctly and ʌ, æ, ɪ,ʊ English vowels can be a  nightmare for a French speaker, not to mention certain English diphthongs. So, in the end the number of vowels is not that important to compare the  two languages,  in my view.


Penyafort said:


> Sp. Pedro pegó a Juan. Pegó Pedro a Juan. A Juan pegó Pedro. Pedro a Juan pegó. A Juan Pedro pegó.


That's a feature of Spanish, southern Italian dialects and Romanian, amongst the Romance languages.


Penyafort said:


> _- _the use of the passive voice is frequent, compared to the use of it in Spanish, in which se tends to be preferred:


That's true. Also in Italian the passive voice is more common than in Spanish. For instance,  your example above would be translated into Italian like in French.


Penyafort said:


> the Spanish structure [_lo_ + adjective] must be expressed using [what + verb to be + adjective]:


I have always thought that all languages should have the article_ lo_  or the phrase _lo que_, they help simplify syntax quite a lot, in my opinion. Most languages have to resort to more complicated and less intuitive syntactic constructions. Not for nothing are they becoming popular in Catalan as well. 


Penyafort said:


> And the percentage of lexicon is far more similar between English and French.


I totally agree, as I said in my previous post.


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## Delvo

When I see written Spanish or French, I'm more likely to understand French, because English has imported a lot more French words than Spanish words. But when I hear them spoken, I'm more likely to understand Spanish, because French speech is harder to pick the separate phonemes out from (and/or connect with what's written). It's drifted too far in the last several centuries. I've even often found that an English word sounds more like its Spanish counterpart than like its French counterpart, even though English got it from French, just because French pronunciation has gotten so strange.

(I'm a native Englisher with no training in Spanish or French or their relatives. I only know the bits & pieces that have either been imported to English or come to my attention in my reading about historical linguistics in general.)


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## RDJEBENIANI

Abaye said:


> Is this reply about historical development or about the situation today which, seems to me, is what the thread opener cares about?


@Penyafort 

Yes, actually I was talking from the perspective of a French speaking person at their initial stages of working with English speaking people in my specific work domain of public health. 

You hear words like emphasize, discrepancy, consistent, obvious, obfuscate, implementation and you feel impressed. 

And then many years later, you start learning Spanish and you find the equivalent of these words in Spanish and you tell yourself wow Spanish is really closer to English than French. 

Yes it is just subjective and coming from a specific perspective. I really appreciate the valuable insights I am coming across in this thread. Impressive.


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## Penyafort

Olaszinhok said:


> I was actually speaking about verb tenses.  It seems to me that there's an almost perfect similarity between Spanish and English verb tenses.


They are pretty similar indeed. But as you mention, one has to be very careful with the Spanish 'flexibility'. _He vivido dos años en Londres_ does not necessarily mean that you're still living there, for instance. And while you can say _He estado estudiando... _, constructions such as _Llevo estudiando _are sometimes much more common. Some of the verbal periphrases coincide but many don't. Common ones like the _volver a + infinitive _would rather be said in English as in French, both using an adverb.



Olaszinhok said:


> Progressive tenses such as _he estado comiendo_ or _había estado comiendo_ are not used in Italian, for instance. They exist in Catalan but I reckon that they are Castilian syntactic calques. I am not sure, though.


They are not calques from Spanish because they can be seen in medieval texts. But they were probably not as common as in Spanish back then.



Olaszinhok said:


> They certainly have a higher number of vowels compared to other languages, but the vowel system is pretty different in the two languages.


I agree. But then, even if Spanish has the typical 'simple' system of a/e/i/o/u, we must take into account that none of these simple vowels exists in English in that simple form. In other words, the Spanish a, e, i, o, u do not exist in English either, whether due to a the difference in quality or in quantity.



Olaszinhok said:


> I have always thought that all languages should have the article_ lo_  or the phrase _lo que_, they help simplify syntax quite a lot, in my opinion. Most languages have to resort to more complicated and less intuitive syntactic constructions. Not for nothing are they becoming popular in Catalan as well.


It's very practical indeed. And a nightmare to translate into Catalan, because it doesn't have just one equivalent.



Delvo said:


> I've even often found that an English word sounds more like its Spanish counterpart than like its French counterpart, even though English got it from French, just because French pronunciation has gotten so strange.


That's not strange. Portuguese is much closer to Spanish than Italian is. Yet many Spaniards would often understand spoken Italian better. Some languages like Spanish, Italian, Greek, Japanese have a clear sonority. Others like Portuguese, English or Russian have a rather obscure one, mainly due to reductions.



RDJEBENIANI said:


> You hear words like emphasize, discrepancy, consistent, obvious, obfuscate, implementation and you feel impressed.
> 
> And then many years later, you start learning Spanish and you find the equivalent of these words in Spanish and you tell yourself wow Spanish is really closer to English than French.


As I say, those words, learned words coming straight from Latin, are the same in both languages. The only thing that makes them look clearer is the difference in sonority. It is easier to understand konsistente than kɔ̃sistɑ̃. More understandable doesn't mean closer, though.


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## Dymn

Penyafort said:


> As I say, those words, learned words coming straight from Latin, are the same in both languages.


I think the equivalents in French are secondary or have other meanings. The WR dictionary translates them with non-cognates.

I'd add _relevant, globalization _and _digital_, with straightforward Spanish translations, but complicated French ones. I'm not sure if there is a tendency for French to deviate in terms of Latinisms, I would say no, but there's indeed at least a short list of forms where French is the odd one out.

Let me add that I always thought of Spanish _evidente_ as much more common than it synonym _obvio_, but I'm under the impression this has changed over the last 10 years or so due to English influence. (I have the same feeling with _casualidad/coincidencia, polémica/controversia, sinceramente/honestamente_).


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## Hulalessar

I think the question is impossible to answer because in the end it has to come down to each individual's impression.

First you have to ask whether you are comparing what you hear or what you see on the page. Then you have to ask if you are comparing grammar, lexicon or phonology. In the case of lexicon, you have to ask what fields you are comparing. If you include the higher registers of English there are going to be more coincidences with any Romance language. Once you have decided what you are going to compare you have to come up with a system of assessing closeness. Take the word "religion". Which of "religion" (French), "religión" (Spanish), "religão" (Portuguese), "religione" (Italian), "religio" (Catalan) and "religie" (Romanian" is closest to English? How do you treat words which are etymologically related but have different meanings? And if you are comparing more than one thing, what weight do you give to each?


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## Terio

Dymn said:


> I'd add _relevant, globalization _and _digital_, with straightforward Spanish translations, but complicated French ones. I'm not sure if there is a tendency for French to deviate in terms of Latinisms, I would say no, but there's indeed at least a short list of forms where French is the odd one out.


What do you call odd ?

English _relevant_ cannot be translated in French as _relevant_, because _relevant _in French_, _means _lifting up_.

In French, the basic meaning of _global_ is _overall, comprehensive_. Due to the English influence, it is often used as in English, but _mondial_ sounds better, because it refers to the whole world (monde). So, I think, it's closest to the latin root : there is a difference between _a globe_ and _the world_.

In English, _digital _refers to _digits. _In French, closest to the latin root, it refers to fingers : _finger prints : empreintes digitales. _In French, _digits_ are _nombres _and what refers to _nombres_ is _numérique, _not _digital_. That's why _une montre digitale_, instead of _une montre numérique_ is considered a calque of _a digital watch_.

In Spanish, in my opinion, _gobal_ and _digital_ are also calques. Maybe the first translators who kept them as such did not think long enough before using them.

There is a long long tradition of translation from English to French, and many translators are aware of that kind of traps.


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## S.V.

CORPES has some interview transcripts. For ex. in _Papa Francisco entrevistado por Valentina Alazraki_, without /+/+/ or /-/-/ matches, you'd also see an edge, in_ FR ~ EN_ shared vocabulary.


Spoiler: tr



(CORPES, +Subcorpus for _Arg._ & _Oral_; EN)
no es que pretenda
en eso me tengo que cuidar​el modo de ser el auto
la sencillez en eso
una simplificación que no tiene sentido
un hecho histórico  /  pequeño o grande
yo conocí gente rica​Dios se lo da para que lo administre bien  /  y este hombre lo administraba bien
aquel que tenía los graneros y ahí va a hacer otro
cuando no se paga el sueldo justo
eso es aprovecharse de la pobreza de otro
pero no porque la patrona o el patrón sea rico  /  sino por esa actitud
segundo es la vanidad​y tercero es el orgullo y la soberbia
los que se aprovechan de los demás  /  los explotadores ¿no?​la nueva zona de  /  de Puerto Madero
que es preciosa / es fantástica
lo hemos visto en los dictadores
los que se aprovechan de los demás
que hay pobreza
o no le pagás la pensión
y tengo que andar cuidándome de no aprovecharme
la persona pobre honesta tiene una sabiduría
cuidar a la cría como decimos
los pobres  /  son más capaces de entender
la bandera de la pobreza es evangélica​la robaron los marxistas porque nosotros no la usábamos
pero son hijos de Dios
creo que hay expectativas desmesuradas
desde ese punto de vista​lo que el Señor quiere es que enfrentemos eso
y llevan bien su familia​testimonio de verdad
pero te viene un mafioso
como está casado por la Iglesia​no es impedimento
por eso yo me opongo a que sean publicadas
cuando no piden ciertos créditos
segundo ¿hubo encubrimiento?​bueno eso yo no lo he investigado
eeh la comisión esta no es para los abusos
un solo cura  //  que abuse​es suficiente para mover toda la estructura
la obligación de hacer crecer​hay que escuchar a los abusados
es como si comieran a los chicos​destruir una criatura es es horrible horrible
esa valentía de decirlo en público​en usted agradezco al pueblo mexicano a quien quiero mucho


Notice _administrar, soberbia, preciosa, testimonio, impedimento, investigado, criatura_ also fit the remarks on Latin. Then if you weigh all the /-/-/ & /+/+/ matches being easier to parse in ES, I'd also agree with Delvo in #13. A different matter, if after a couple years of ES/FR a student may have an easier time understanding that interview, than its FR equivalent.


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## Penyafort

Dymn said:


> I think the equivalents in French are secondary or have other meanings. The WR dictionary translates them with non-cognates.


Right. What I had in mind when writing that were actually words coming from Latin in general rather than those specific ones. I mean, those Latinisms that are more or less common to many European languages, at least at an educated level.

Obviously we could go one by one and make some statistical analysis. We'll find sometimes French moving apart indeed. And we'll also find cases we know well, like the constipated/constipé vs constipado.


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## elroy

Another feature French is the only major Romance language to share with English is the use of non-nominative pronouns disjunctively:

- Who wants the last piece of pie?
- Me. / Moi.

- I really like movies.
- Me too. / Moi aussi.

Nominative pronouns would be ungrammatical in English and French, but obligatory in the other major Romance and Germanic languages.

The difference is that French has a unique set of disjunctive pronouns, whereas English recycles its objective pronouns.  What’s crucial is that neither language uses nominative pronouns.


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## Hulalessar

elroy said:


> Nominative pronouns would be ungrammatical in English and French


French, yes; English, I would say not. In the example given, "me too" has I think to be accepted as grammatical as it is so widespread. "I too" sounds very formal, and even slightly odd, but cannot be ruled out as ungrammatical; it is an elliptical form of "I (do) too".

French certainly requires disjunctive pronouns where standard English would consider them ungrammatical except in informal speech. An example is that if a pronoun is part of a compound subject it has to be disjunctive.


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## jimquk

Hulalessar said:


> French, yes; English, I would say not. In the example given, "me too" has I think to be accepted as grammatical as it is so widespread. "I too" sounds very formal, and even slightly odd, but cannot be ruled out as ungrammatical; it is an elliptical form of "I (do) too".
> 
> French certainly requires disjunctive pronouns where standard English would consider them ungrammatical except in informal speech. An example is that if a pronoun is part of a compound subject it has to be disjunctive.


"I too"? I don't think a native speaker would say that, to me it's simply wrong. "Me too", or "I do too".


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## Hulalessar

jimquk said:


> "I too"? I don't think a native speaker would say that, to me it's simply wrong. "Me too", or "I do too".


I am inclined to agree, but do not think it can be classed as ungrammatical anymore than "It is I".


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## S.V.

S.V. said:


> an edge, in_ FR ~ EN_ shared


Apparently _a close_ edge, once weighted. _Table 2_ in Cross-Language Distributions of High Frequency and Phonetically Similar Cognates:



Language Pair​Translation Equivalents (F)​Cognates (F, O)​Cognates (F, P)​Relative Cognate Frequency (F, O, P)​Spanish-Italian​2946​_(2)_ 1438​996​(1) *1.04*​Dutch-English​4192​1104​_(2)_ 1223​(2)*.94*​Dutch-German​2802​_(1)_ 1474​_(1)_ 1640​(3)*.89*​...​...​...​...​...​German-English​4625​778​953​*.76*​French-English​_(2)_ 5206​_(3)_ 1272​_(3)_ 1058​*.57*​Spanish-English​_(3_) 5057​1057​869​*.57*​


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