# Understanding languages you've never learnt



## Wordsmyth

Hi fra, fetch, & all

First a comment on these posts brought over from another thread (then afterwards a question for all).



			
				fra said:
			
		

> [...] Lots of words in Italian and French are also quite similar, and the text's structure is more or less the same.
> But it isn't true that every italian can speak or listen to french. They can understand the general meaning of a text, however.





			
				fetchezlavache said:
			
		

> huh ?????????? my grandparents were italian, they came to france when they were quite young, and to their death they were still not speaking perfect french, let alone understand it.
> 
> i don't know where you got this idea fra. really i'm puzzled.


I have to agree with fra: I've never learnt Italian, but by extrapolating my French I can often understand the general meaning of written Italian, and even some (slowly) spoken Italian -- there's so much similarity between the two languages.

On the other hand, maybe it's not so easy in the reverse direction. Italian is very phonetic and usually well articulated (at least on RAI Uno), whereas French has many 'mute' letters and syllables (maybe that didn't help your grandparents, fetch!  )

But mostly I think it depends on how people have learnt to learn languages. If you instinctively see word-roots, sentence structure, etc, you'll make the link between similar languages. If you just learn "word _x _ has meaning _y_", it's harder to 'extrapolate'. An example:

An English friend (living in France!) was stuck on the French verb "garer". When I explained that it means to park (a car), and referred to the English "garage", he said "But it's not the same, it hasn't got '-age' in it" (He wasn't joking!).

So ... *Question*: Does anyone have examples (apart from Italian/French) of how knowing one language has helped you understand another that you've never learnt?  

(English/Dutch/German?, Mandarin/Cantonese?, Malay/Tagalog? -- I'll be surprised if anyone quotes Basque or Hungarian!!)

Thoughts?

Ciao  

W


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## timpeac

Wordsmyth said:
			
		

> Hi fra, fetch, & all
> 
> First a comment on these posts brought over from another thread (then afterwards a question for all).
> 
> 
> 
> I have to agree with fra: I've never learnt Italian, but by extrapolating my French I can often understand the general meaning of written Italian, and even some (slowly) spoken Italian -- there's so much similarity between the two languages.
> 
> On the other hand, maybe it's not so easy in the reverse direction. Italian is very phonetic and usually well articulated (at least on RAI Uno), whereas French has many 'mute' letters and syllables (maybe that didn't help your grandparents, fetch!  )
> 
> But mostly I think it depends on how people have learnt to learn languages. If you instinctively see word-roots, sentence structure, etc, you'll make the link between similar languages. If you just learn "word _x _has meaning _y_", it's harder to 'extrapolate'. An example:
> 
> An English friend (living in France!) was stuck on the French verb "garer". When I explained that it means to park (a car), and referred to the English "garage", he said "But it's not the same, it hasn't got '-age' in it" (He wasn't joking!).
> 
> So ... *Question*: Does anyone have examples (apart from Italian/French) of how knowing one language has helped you understand another that you've never learnt?
> 
> (English/Dutch/German?, Mandarin/Cantonese?, Malay/Tagalog? -- I'll be surprised if anyone quotes Basque or Hungarian!!)
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Ciao
> 
> W


 
I speak some French and Spanish and learnt Latin at school. I've never studied Italian, but I can read Italian okish (particularly if technical - some linguistic textbooks at uni I had were only written in Italian). An Italian collegue came across and spoke Italian slowly to me and I could understand pretty much what she was saying. No chance if it's spoken fast or between natives etc.


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## yolanda_van huyck

I'm Spanish, i speak Spanish, English, French and Italian. Once you learnt Italian, French is easier (and vice versa) because the grammars are very similar. I'm married to a guy from Antwerp, Belgium; even if i can speak English or French with his family and friends, i can't speak a work of Flamish, however i understand a lot of things similar to English (some vocabulary and constructions)... i'm trying to study it, i'll tell you how it's going in a short while!



			
				Wordsmyth said:
			
		

> Hi fra, fetch, & all
> 
> First a comment on these posts brought over from another thread (then afterwards a question for all).
> 
> 
> 
> I have to agree with fra: I've never learnt Italian, but by extrapolating my French I can often understand the general meaning of written Italian, and even some (slowly) spoken Italian -- there's so much similarity between the two languages.
> 
> On the other hand, maybe it's not so easy in the reverse direction. Italian is very phonetic and usually well articulated (at least on RAI Uno), whereas French has many 'mute' letters and syllables (maybe that didn't help your grandparents, fetch!  )
> 
> But mostly I think it depends on how people have learnt to learn languages. If you instinctively see word-roots, sentence structure, etc, you'll make the link between similar languages. If you just learn "word _x _has meaning _y_", it's harder to 'extrapolate'. An example:
> 
> An English friend (living in France!) was stuck on the French verb "garer". When I explained that it means to park (a car), and referred to the English "garage", he said "But it's not the same, it hasn't got '-age' in it" (He wasn't joking!).
> 
> So ... *Question*: Does anyone have examples (apart from Italian/French) of how knowing one language has helped you understand another that you've never learnt?
> 
> (English/Dutch/German?, Mandarin/Cantonese?, Malay/Tagalog? -- I'll be surprised if anyone quotes Basque or Hungarian!!)
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Ciao
> 
> W


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## Wordsmyth

timpeac said:
			
		

> [...] I've never studied Italian, but I can read Italian okish [...]


Wow, timpeac, wish I could read 'Italian okish' :  sounds pretty exotic!   

But seriously, thanks for the reply ... and I've always believed that learning Latin gives a really good start in understanding many European languages (including English!)

W


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## haujavi

Well, Basque has many words from Spanish, because of the interaction. Maybe just adapted to the particular ortographic forms of Basque. For example, kotxe/auto.

Iy's true that I'm learning German and my knowledge about english helps a lot. Also I've been to Italy and knowing spanish and french helped me to understand almost every word.


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## garryknight

I agree with your comment about Latin, Wordsmyth. Having learnt it at school has been a big help with learning Spanish. A couple of weeks ago I was in a delicatessen-style shop in Central London and I noticed that I could read many of the labels, although quite a few seemed to be misspelt. For example, they'd labeled the cod pie with the word 'bacalhao' (at least, I think that's how it was spelt). The shop was owned and run by people from Portugal. I hadn't previously realised how close the two languages were. The food was tasty, too.


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## Like an Angel

Hi Wordsmyth!

Well from what I know Portuguese is 90% similar to Spanish as what you have said about French and Italian, I can read those 3 languages and I'm taking courses to be able to speaking them correctly. About Chinese and Japanese, well most Japanese writing is taken from Chinese so if one knows Japanese, could read Chinese too but can't speak it because the way of reading is not the same, hard for me to explain this in English but I hope you can understand me!

Cheers!


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## Wordsmyth

yolanda_van huyck said:
			
		

> [...]i can't speak a work of Flamish, however i understand a lot of things similar to English (some vocabulary and constructions)... i'm trying to study it, i'll tell you how it's going in a short while!



Goedenavond, Yolanda,

Hoe is het met u?  (Is that like English, or what?)

Alstublieft, do keep us posted on your progress in Flemish -- maybe there'll be a Flemish-Spanish forum here one day  

Tot ziens

W   

PS. If my humble attempts at Flemish are wrong, I cheated -- it's Dutch. But then I'm told there's virtually no difference (???)

PPS for haujavi:


			
				haujavi said:
			
		

> [...]Well, Basque has many words from Spanish, because of the interaction. Maybe just adapted to the particular ortographic forms of Basque. For example, kotxe/auto.


Thanks for picking up the challenge, haujavi. Now I just need to be corrected about Hungarian!  

W


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## beatrizg

For me Italian is easy to understand and learn, but I wouldn’t say the same thing about French!

Now that I can speak Greek, I feel it’s easier to tackle other languages. It’s not because there are similarities, it’s probably just because I feel less apprehension.


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## Wordsmyth

Like an Angel said:
			
		

> [...] most Japanese writing is taken from Chinese so if one knows Japanese, could read Chinese too but can't speak it because the way of reading is not the same, hard for me to explain this in English but I hope you can understand me!
> 
> Cheers!



Hi Angel,

Indeed I do understand you: As long as the Japanese is written in Kanji (pictograms), and not in Hiragana or Katakana (syllabaries), then the pictogram for, e.g., "mountain" is the same in Japanese and Chinese, but the spoken word is completely different (and maybe even different between Mandarin & Cantonese?... not sure) ... Any help from foreros from the Orient on that one?

W


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## yolanda_van huyck

great!

goedenavond Wordsmyth

when you hear someone speaking, you can understand a lot if you speak English. There's not a great difference between Flemish and Duth so i could understand perfectly what you wrote. I'll keep you informed about my progress.

tag!!!


			
				Wordsmyth said:
			
		

> Goedenavond, Yolanda,
> 
> Hoe is het met u? (Is that like English, or what?)
> 
> Alstublieft, do keep us posted on your progress in Flemish -- maybe there'll be a Flemish-Spanish forum here one day
> 
> Tot ziens
> 
> W
> 
> PS. If my humble attempts at Flemish are wrong, I cheated -- it's Dutch. But then I'm told there's virtually no difference (???)
> 
> PPS for haujavi:
> 
> Thanks for picking up the challenge, haujavi. Now I just need to be corrected about Hungarian!
> 
> W


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## Whodunit

I can easily understand Dutch, since it's very similar to German. And I've never learned Spanish, but I can understand it if someone writes it here.


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## Like an Angel

Wordsmyth said:
			
		

> (and maybe even different between Mandarin & Cantonese?... not sure) ... Any help from foreros from the Orient on that one?


 
From what I know it happens the same with Mandarin and Cantonese, they can understand each other by writing but not by speaking


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## timpeac

Wordsmyth said:
			
		

> Wow, timpeac, wish I could read 'Italian okish' : sounds pretty exotic!
> 
> But seriously, thanks for the reply ... and I've always believed that learning Latin gives a really good start in understanding many European languages (including English!)
> 
> W


 
Haha. You should learn - it's a fascinating language!!


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## Artrella

I can understand Italian, French and Portuguese because they are very similar to Spanish.
Since I have a good level of English I find German not so difficult to understand but not easy to speak or write.  Mostly I understand German when I read it.


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## tintinnabulum_m

Chinese and Japanese are similar in some ways, especially when Japanese is written with their Chinese character. 

I don't know if Japanese think the same, but I sure think so.


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## zebedee

Latin definitely helped me when learning French and for understanding little used words in my own language, English.
Later on in life I learned Spanish using my French base (I was months saying "la coche" instead of "el coche" because of "la voiture" but I got there in the end!)

Though I think Wordsmyth has a good point when he says: 



			
				Wordsmyth said:
			
		

> But mostly I think it depends on how people have learnt to learn languages. If you instinctively see word-roots, sentence structure, etc, you'll make the link between similar languages. If you just learn "word x has meaning y", it's harder to 'extrapolate'. An example:
> 
> An English friend (living in France!) was stuck on the French verb "garer". When I explained that it means to park (a car), and referred to the English "garage", he said "But it's not the same, it hasn't got '-age' in it" (He wasn't joking!).



zeb


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## Wordsmyth

Thanks everyone for your inputs to this thread.

zeb came up with an interesting slant on the topic :


			
				zebedee said:
			
		

> [...] I learned Spanish using my French base (I was months saying "la coche" instead of "el coche" because of "la voiture" but I got there in the end!) [...]
> 
> zeb


So, alongside any further thoughts on how one language can help with another, *anyone have any more stories (warnings?!) about the opposite effect?* (les faux amis, pour les français) ...

... like the first time I heard "constipado" in Spanish : extrapolating my English/French, I thought it a strange declaration (for a conversation in a bar), until I discovered the person only had a cold!!  

W


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## Jana337

I can more or less get the meaning of sentences in all Slavic languages. The more to the east, the worse.
Next, when I was in Denmark, it took mere two weeks before I could start reading newspapers - pretty easy as I was able to use my German as a leverage. Yes, and the Danish crash course helped somewhat.

Jana

Jana


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## Like an Angel

Wordsmyth said:
			
		

> *anyone have any more stories (warnings?!) about the opposite effect?*


 
Hi double smile!

Vaso (Portuguese): Inodoro (Spanish): lavatory
Vaso (Spanish): Copo (Portuguese): glass
Papo (Portuguese): Conversación (Spanish): chat
Papo (Spanish - slang!): Pussie (for a female genital)
Borracha (Portuguese): Cubierta (Spanish): tire/tyre
Borracha (Spanish): Drunk women 
Masas (Portuguese): Pastas (Spanish): pasta
Masas (Spanish): Biscuit 

And so on...


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## yolanda_van huyck

in Italian, "aceto" is vinagear and in Spanish "aceite" is oli; the same for "melocotogno", which is a quince and "melocotón", peach in Spanish

sometimes we thhink we can understand a language because of the similar words it has with our one language, but we don't have to search always the closer coincidence

cheers


			
				Wordsmyth said:
			
		

> Thanks everyone for your inputs to this thread.
> 
> zeb came up with an interesting slant on the topic :
> 
> So, alongside any further thoughts on how one language can help with another, *anyone have any more stories (warnings?!) about the opposite effect?* (les faux amis, pour les français) ...
> 
> ... like the first time I heard "constipado" in Spanish : extrapolating my English/French, I thought it a strange declaration (for a conversation in a bar), until I discovered the person only had a cold!!
> 
> W


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## Like an Angel

yolanda_van huyck said:
			
		

> sometimes we thhink we can understand a language because of the similar words it has with our one language, but we don't have to search always the closer coincidence
> 
> cheers


As mine Portuguese teacher says they are _insincere friends_... _not everything is what it seems_ _to be _


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## garryknight

Wordsmyth said:
			
		

> the first time I heard "constipado" in Spanish : extrapolating my English/French, I thought it a strange declaration (for a conversation in a bar), until I discovered the person only had a cold!!


I had advance warning of this one as the first time I came across it was in a list of false cognates. Then I found out that the actual Spanish word for what we call constipation is estreñimiento and it, well, took the strain out of having to commit it to memory...


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## Like an Angel

Something like this happens with the word actually, most beginners think that *actually* means *actualmente* (currently) because of they look similar...


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## Wordsmyth

garryknight said:
			
		

> I had advance warning of this one as the first time I came across it was in a list of false cognates. Then I found out that the actual Spanish word for what we call constipation is estreñimiento and it, well, took the strain  out of having to commit it to memory...


Oh, nice one, Garry !!  

W


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## Wordsmyth

Like an Angel said:
			
		

> Hi double smile!
> 
> Vaso (Portuguese): Inodoro (Spanish): lavatory
> Vaso (Spanish): Copo (Portuguese): glass
> Papo (Portuguese): Conversación (Spanish): chat
> Papo (Spanish - slang!): Pussie (for a female genital)
> Borracha (Portuguese): Cubierta (Spanish): tire/tyre
> Borracha (Spanish): Drunk women
> Masas (Portuguese): Pastas (Spanish): pasta
> Masas (Spanish): Biscuit
> 
> And so on...


Double smiling at you, Angel

Some of yours above made me think also of the Mitsubishi 4x4 that they named Pajero - raises smiles in Spain! (maybe also Portugal?)




			
				Like an Angel said:
			
		

> Something like this happens with the word actually, most beginners think that *actually* means *actualmente* (currently) because of they look similar...


Same problem with "actuellement" in French. But the French/Spanish & the English are linked by the concept of "what is" :

Fr/Sp: actuel/actual >> what (currently) is
Eng: actual >> what (really) is

W


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## Outsider

Like an Angel said:
			
		

> *Vaso* (Portuguese): Inodoro (Spanish): *lavatory*
> Vaso (Spanish): Copo (Portuguese): glass


That's an unusual meaning of _vaso_, however...



			
				Like an Angel said:
			
		

> Borracha (Portuguese): Cubierta (Spanish): tire/tyre
> Borracha (Spanish): Drunk women


More precisely, _borracha_ means "rubber"...



			
				Like an Angel said:
			
		

> Massas (Portuguese): Pastas (Spanish): pasta
> Masas (Spanish): Biscuit


 

Lista de falsos amigos português - espanhol /español - portugués


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## JLanguage

Only knowing English and a bit of Hebrew, I can't understand any other languages without learning them. With Latin, knowing English does help me remember some of the vocabulary, but everything else is completely different from English.


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## mjscott

My father's first language is Portuguese. After spending a little over half a year in a non-Brazilian South American country, I came home, and for the first time in my life, I could understand my grandmother, who had, by that time, been in the US for about 40 years from the Azores. I could speak to her in Spanish, and she could speak to me in Portuguese. However, my grandfather came from another island in the Azores (I can't recall which one offhand) where the dialect was known to be unique and hard to understand, even to Iberian mainlanders....
....For the life of me, I couldn't understand my grandfather!

I have been able to follow the story line in Italian movies because of my knowledge of Spanish, but cannot say the same about French movies.

As a teacher, "multiple intelligences" is a catch-phrase kicked around a lot nowadays for the way people learn. If you are more adept at learning audially, listening very carefully is a way you can learn in leaps and bounds in another language. If you are a visual learner, you can read text and visualize its meaning--so reading text is a good way to learn. You can increase adeptness in both learning styles through practice--and if you can incorporate both, plus action, you're in the business of learning a language!

As a four-year old, I played with Italian friends, Helen and Moddio. It wasn't until Mario Brothers came out with the game Donkey Kong that I realized I had learned to pronounce Mario's name the way his family pronounced it--side-stepping the English pronunciation altogether!


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## cuchuflete

Some people has useful funetics:
http://198.65.131.33/v4/noticias/recortes/chuleta_ingles.htm


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## Like an Angel

Outsider said:
			
		

> That's an unusual meaning of _vaso_, however...
> More precisely, _borracha_ means "rubber"...


I forgot to mention that is Brasilian Portuguese, maybe that's the reason of the differences


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## Outsider

It's possible. Still, I checked in a dictionary...


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## Nenita84

I´ve just started to learn Dutch, but before that i was already able of understanding written Dutch because of the fact i´d learnt 6 years German. 

Moreover I´ve never learnt Italian but I can understand it... It has so many similarities with Spanish! And the same happens with the French, although i´ve to recognise that i´ve learnt a bit French (mais seulement un petit peu )


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## badgrammar

Definitely, knowing English helped with learning german, but perhaps more interestingly, I think becoming familiar with Turkish is going to help me understand slightly more Hindi (or perhaps Tamul) on my upcoming trip to India than I might have otherwise...  I will let you know if this turns out to be the case...


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## canvist

Using my English and French, I can understand most of written Spanish, Portuguese and Italian, although Italian is a bit harder. Actually, I find that written Portuguese is quite close to Spanish, but it sounds totally different! I can't understand a word.

Also, knowing Russian, I can understand the general idea of Slavic languages like Ukrainian, Polish and Czech. Especially in written form.


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## LaSmarjeZ

Speaking Italian I can understand and also a little bit speak Spanish (I think the dialect helps me a lot), and understand pretty well Portuguese, especially written. About Franch, I did learn it at school, so I cannot say.
And now that I'm learning Danish it's easy to understand Norwegian and Swedish, also if I find the pronunce quite different.


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## natasha2000

Well, thanks to my knowledge of Spanish, I understand 99% of Catalan, even though I have never learnt it. I understand it better if I read it, than when I listen to it, although if I listen to my colleagues at work, I can uderastand pretty well what they are saying. The problem is that I cannot speak it. It just doesn't come out... But I guess it's normal, considering I have never had any classes nor did any kind of studying it...

As far as other Slavic languages are concerned, I can say that I can understan some Macedonian and Bulgarian, and Slovenian, maybe, but that's all. Czech, Polish, Russian, etc... are completely unknown for me. Besides, there are so many false cognates among all Slavic languages, that I wouldn't dare to try to understand what some Russian or Polish speak... 
And of course, I do understand completely Croatian and Bosnian, since these are different names for the same language, but due to the political reasons they are now considered different languages, but then, this is another topic...


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## cirrus

I wonder just how much do we understand when we are listening to languages we haven't learned?  Is it just that we pick up on words which sound familiar?  As a Spanish speaker I can get the gist of most of what is being said on the news in Catalan, Italian or Portuguese.  Similarly having studied German (although it is nothing like as easy a job) I can get a sense of what the news in Dutch or Flemish is about.  On a good day, with a following wind I might even be able to have a stab at saying what a bulletin on Romanian radio was talking about.

Trouble is if you pin me down with a concrete question in any of those languages where I have to reply and actually commit myself to saying they said x y or z then the words disappear like leaves in the wind.


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## vince

cirrus said:
			
		

> As a Spanish speaker I can get the gist of most of what is being said on the news in Catalan, Italian or Portuguese





			
				natasha2000 said:
			
		

> Well, thanks to my knowledge of Spanish, I understand 99% of Catalan, even though I have never learnt it. I understand it better if I read it, than when I listen to it, although if I listen to my colleagues at work, I can uderastand pretty well what they are saying.



This is impossible. I refuse to believe that you didn't study it at least a little beforehand. Catalan, Italian, and Portuguese are separate languages, that is why they are unintelligible. Maybe you can understand rudimentary phrases like "hello" or "what is your name", but if you can understand news broadcasts and everyday conversations between natives, then there is something that you are not telling us.

El català és una llengua distinta!!!


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## natasha2000

vince said:
			
		

> This is impossible. I refuse to believe that you didn't study it at least a little beforehand. Catalan, Italian, and Portuguese are separate languages, that is why they are unintelligible. Maybe you can understand rudimentary phrases like "hello" or "what is your name", but if you can understand news broadcasts and everyday conversations between natives, then there is something that you are not telling us.
> 
> El català és una llengua distinta!!!


 
Nobody told that Catalan is not a language apart. I really do not have any problem reading newspaper in catalan. Sometimes there is a word or expression I do not understand, but it does not bother me to understand thewhole text.
 If you want to believe it or not, that is your problem.


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## vince

Written language is different. I know French so I can understand Spanish and Catalan writing just fine. All Chinese people can communicate with only minor misunderstandings when they write. But their languages (Cantonese, Mandarin, Wu, Minnan) are all mutually unintelligible like spoken French and spoken Spanish and therefore separate languages, not dialects. But now you are saying that you can understand Catalan just like a (distant) Spanish dialect.


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## natasha2000

vince said:
			
		

> Written language is different. I know French so I can understand Spanish and Catalan writing just fine. All Chinese people can communicate with only minor misunderstandings when they write. But their languages (Cantonese, Mandarin, Wu, Minnan) are all mutually unintelligible like spoken French and spoken Spanish and therefore separate languages, not dialects. But now you are saying that you can understand Catalan just like a (distant) Spanish dialect.


 


> But now you are saying that you can understand Catalan just like a (distant) Spanish dialect.


 
Listen, I have never said that Catalan is a dialect of Spanish. Please, don't put the words in my mouth I have never told. This is what you are saying. I think that you really have a problem, and it is not of a linguistic nature, since I see that you have changed your native language in your data between two posts. A post earlier it was Catalan, and now yo don't have native language. And I am really sorry because you don't believe, but I do understand 90% of two Catalan speakers and I do understand news broadcast. It is also true that I do get tired earlier than if I listened to a Spanish broadcast, since I have to concentrate much more, but I UNDERSTAND IT. Sometimes I even had a good laugh with Buenafuente and Corbacho while he still had a program in Catalan TV.



> ...but if you can understand news broadcasts and everyday conversations between natives, then there is something that you are not telling us.


Yo do not have any right to call anybody a lier.


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## vince

Okay sorry, I was just getting over the fact that you said Catalan and Spanish were intelligible, which I still can't believe. (my problem).  You say "I have never said that Catalan is a dialect of Spanish", I never claimed you did, I am only saying that you being able to understand Catalan implies the concluding fact (not saying it's your opinion) that Catalan and Spanish are the same language.

Hope this makes my point clear and to avoid any personal spat from going on, alright?


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## cirrus

vince said:
			
		

> Okay sorry, I was just getting over the fact that you said Catalan and Spanish were intelligible, which I still can't believe. (my problem). You say "I have never said that Catalan is a dialect of Spanish", I never claimed you did, I am only saying that you being able to understand Catalan implies the concluding fact (not saying it's your opinion) that Catalan and Spanish are the same language.
> 
> Hope this makes my point clear and to avoid any personal spat from going on, alright?


 
I think you are getting the wrong end of the stick and making a political point rather than a linguistic one.  

I might never have studied Catalan but I have lived in Valencia and go there quite frequently. Equally I shared a flat with Italians in London and heard lots of Italian being spoken.  This still doesn't mean I formally studied either language.


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## Tatzingo

Like an Angel said:
			
		

> Hi Wordsmyth!
> 
> Well from what I know Portuguese is 90% similar to Spanish as what you have said about French and Italian, I can read those 3 languages and I'm taking courses to be able to speaking them correctly. About Chinese and Japanese, well most Japanese writing is taken from Chinese so if one knows Japanese, could read Chinese too but can't speak it because the way of reading is not the same, hard for me to explain this in English but I hope you can understand me!
> 
> Cheers!



Hello everyone,

I realise i'm joining this discussion rather late but i do feel the need to comment ;-) 
Firstly, i would say that there are far more similarities between spanish and italian than there are between french and Italian, whether written or spoken.
Secondly, i've been told by various spanish and portuguese speakers that whilst a portuguese speaker can understand spoken spanish without havent studied it, the reverse is not true at all.
Thirdly, Japenese and chinese? To my knowledge (i'm chinese) japenese, shares about 30-50% of chinese traditional characters. Modern day china uses simplified chinese which to someone who learnt traditional written chinese is imcomprehensible at times. I would love for someone to tell me otherwise, but i don't believe that being able to read chinese/japanese gives you sufficient knowledge of the other. At best, i could maybe understand 10% of a written japanese text.

Tatz.


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## Tatzingo

vince said:
			
		

> Written language is different. I know French so I can understand Spanish and Catalan writing just fine. All Chinese people can communicate with only minor misunderstandings when they write. But their languages (Cantonese, Mandarin, Wu, Minnan) are all mutually unintelligible like spoken French and spoken Spanish and therefore separate languages, not dialects. But now you are saying that you can understand Catalan just like a (distant) Spanish dialect.



Hi, 

I'm not sure whether i follow this comparison at all. Written chinese is the same across the board (nowadays Simplified Chinese), we all use the same set of 50,000 idiograms (pictures;-) ). The differences between cantonese, mandarin and i suppose the other languages, is the way that the idiograms are pronounced. And no, they aren't completely unintelligible between them.

This is in contrast to french/spanish/catalan which have shared alphabets but even these aren't completely the same. 

Tatz.


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## coro

*Portuguese:* _



			Que tal um tópico sobre expressões típicas de uma região nossa, (que acabará, no final, sendo também usada em mais regiões) e expressões nacionais - em uso ou desuso - para que nossos amigos tenham um referencial quando "tropeçarem" por acaso em algumas delas?
		
Click to expand...

_ *Catalan:*


> Hola a tothom!
> Avui he llegit aquesta notícia a Catalunya Informació i la veritat és que no se si és correcta. La víctima és un home (masculí) però també és una víctima (femení). Els subjectes són femení i masculí al mateix temps en la mateixa frase. Diríeu que està bé? Jo no en tinc ni idea.


 
I've copied those paragraphs from two differents threads in the Portuguese and Other Languages forums.

I don't know anything about Portuguese or Catalan, and I've never been to Portugal or Catalonia, but with my intermediate Spanish I can understand those two paragraphs without any problems.

If I heard them spoken, I'm sure it would be different, but written down they are 100% understandable. I would go as far as to say that Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese are mutually intelligible languages in written form. In my opinion, written Standard English and, say, written Scots English would be less mutually understandable.

As far as I know, the closest language to English (apart from Fresian) is Dutch. I've been to the Netherlands on several occasions and when I've had to read a notice or anything in Dutch, I've never been able to understand more than a very small part. If I stood there for half-an-hour studying it closely, maybe I would be able to pick up a bit more, but not much.


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## Juri

Visiting some Greek islands ,the guides were surprised that only I, of the Italian group of tourists, was able to reed local writings. 
I had to explain that knowing Cyrillic alphabet, (used in Serbia, Russia,Bolgaria) it isn't very difficult to reed capital Greek too.
I guessed also the sense of some words, e.g."mikropedià",because of "paediatry" means child.


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## ronanpoirier

Wordsmyth said:
			
		

> I'll be surprised if anyone quotes Basque or Hungarian!!)



Well... I study Hungarian and I have to say... even though I know 3 languages and I know the basics of many others... nothing helps you to understand that language! lol but for my surprise, I have found a bunch of words that are written in the same way as portuguese, all them of latin or greek origins 

Well... by the way, knowing a neolatin language helps you to learn any other neolatin language  and I think the same happens when you know a slavic language and you wanna learn another one and so on...


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## LaSmarjeZ

> _Borracha (Portuguese): Cubierta (Spanish): tire/tyre_
> _Borracha (Spanish): Drunk women_


_In italian the word "borraccia", pronounced as the spanish "Borracha", means flask..._



> So, alongside any further thoughts on how one language can help with another, *anyone have any more stories (warnings?!) about the opposite effect?* (les faux amis, pour les français) ...


Just a funny thing: in my village using the dialect if you say the world "aghina" this means grape, in another village just 6km away this means garbage


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## JimPojke

Having spanish as mother tongue helped me to understand portuguese without studying it. I had some brazilian friends and we could communicate without problems.

When I learnt french, it helped me understand catalan because it's like a mixture of french and spanish. And also to understand a bit better italian.

Learning german helped me to understand a bit of dutch and some words in swedish.


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## vince

Tatzingo said:
			
		

> Hi,
> 
> I'm not sure whether i follow this comparison at all. Written chinese is the same across the board (nowadays Simplified Chinese), we all use the same set of 50,000 idiograms (pictures;-) ). The differences between cantonese, mandarin and i suppose the other languages, is the way that the idiograms are pronounced. And no, they aren't completely unintelligible between them.



I take it that, knowing Mandarin, you can understand the speech of all 17 of the major Chinese "dialects"? So far no one has submitted a post where they've claimed that "I learned Mandarin, so I can automatically understand all other Chinese dialects when spoken".

Go see the topic I opened in the "Other Languages" forum about "Mandarin and Cantonese: Possessives" and then come back and tell me "the only differences are the way the idiograms are pronounced".

Chinese, like Burmese, and to a more limited extent, Arabic, has a radical dichotomy between written and spoken language in that there are a large variety of non-intelligible spoken languages with divergent grammar, vocabulary, and syntax on the same order as Portuguese, French, and Catalan, but when they write, they force themselves to use a standardized language that most often uses grammatical constructs and vocabulary that is never spoken or used outside literature. All Chinese people write the same, all Burmese people write the same, but even the most basic written sentences like "How are you? I love you. My name is Paul"* would never be used in the same form when spoken. Nationalists like to call these differences "slang", but the grammar and syntax produced by "slang" is obligatory even in formal speech, and disappears only when writing.

You should not be calling Catalan and Spanish separate languages if you are calling the Chinese languages the same language.

*These are just examples, some languages may or may not coincide with their written forms for these particular ones.


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## Nikolas_GR

As a native Greek, I can say (after having learnt some ancient greek too) that both ancient and modern greek help you understand many words in all latin and cyrillic languages... English, french, spanish, italian, russian! I have learnt english, french and a little spanish and I think that knowing a little greek is a some kind of a privillege! I don't want to be a chauvinist but that's what I think!!!


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## Tao

It could definitely help understanding other languages if you a certain one.

I can understand written german reasonably well due to similarities between it and dutch (and since I was obligated to learn it in highschool). But understanding somebody who's speaking german is another story, heh 

By the way, in dutch there are actually sometimes words being used that you have in german. For instance: überhaupt, sowieso.
Also french words: trottoir, portefeuille, toilet(te), and more.

If it's about french I tend to remember most of what I learned back then. There were times it was very difficult to understand a french text, but now for some reason I can read it pretty easily *?*
It probably - among other things - has to do with the fact that I think of english, too, when reading french, since I spot similarities at times.

To add something... Maybe due to the fact that I'm trilingual, it's easier to understand a certain language sometimes.
Surinam for instance is one I know well and it is actually a creole one meaning there are lots of different influences from languages. I don't know exactly, but from the top of my head I would guess; english, dutch, spanish, german, french.


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## vince

It's unfortunate that English diverged so much from the Germanic stock that it's not remotely intelligible to anything. Even Frisian and Dutch are almost completely unintelligible except for a small number of basic words.

I guess if you include Scots and creoles then we might have something we can partially understand.


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## cirrus

Vince I so disagree.  The beauty of English is that is got rid of so much complication - gender, cases, deeply involved congegations of verbs that plague many languages. 
Also in English we have a language which is really good at hoovering up terms from other languages which means that our vocabulary is really richly textured as a result.


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## tvdxer

My native language is English.  I do get a Dutch-language TV station, BVN, which I sometimes watch.  Most of it sounds like very throaty gibberish, but occasionally a phrase will pop out almost perfectly...e.g. "and now here is Twee Van Daag" or something like that.  

I know Spanish as a second language, at a level you could probably call "intermediate".  Supplemented to my Spanish knowledge is some Italian, for example certain words that are completely different, e.g. comer <-> mangiare.  I don't have too much trouble making out what one is saying in formal Italian, if speaking slowly, and can at least get the gist of written text.  Dialects are incomprehensible to me however.


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## tvdxer

Like an Angel said:
			
		

> Something like this happens with the word actually, most beginners think that *actually* means *actualmente* (currently) because of they look similar...



...and have the same root.


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## optimistique

tvdxer said:
			
		

> My native language is English.  I do get a Dutch-language TV station, BVN, which I sometimes watch.  Most of it sounds like very throaty gibberish, but occasionally a phrase will pop out almost perfectly...e.g. "and now here is Twee Van Daag" or something like that.



Very basic Dutch sentences sound indeed completely like English sometimes, like *'t is hier* '- it is here, or as you said: "_en nou is hier Twee Vandaag"._
You should also have no problems with some Norwegian sentences like "vi skal gaa", "vi kan gaa" [we skal/kan go]. 

Personally I once read a text on a Luxemburgian petrol station, which said something like: *Den tubak is ein gefor fir d'Gesundheit* (Tobacco is a danger to your (litterally: the) health). Now that was not a problem at all to understand since it is almost similar to Dutch and German. 
Also in Scandinavian languages I can find such a lot of similarities, but mostly it only sounds like I should understand it, but I do not. When I read it, I understand much more. The Norwegian "*Vi vill betale*_"_ is practically similar to the Dutch "*wij willen betalen"* (we want to pay). 
Sometimes similarities can also be deceptive. The Norwegian '*jeg*' sounds exactly like the Dutch *'jij'*, but the Norwegian one means 'I', while the Dutch means 'you' (singular). 

I used to find it so strange as a child when my girl next-door born in germany always asked to her mother "*ob wir reinkommen duerfen*" (if we may come in), because in German 'duerfen' means 'may/to be allowed to", while in Dutch 'durven' means 'to dare'. "Why would we not dare come in?" I always asked to myself.

I can also decypher a lot of Italian, through my knowledge of French and Latin.


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## Zoowärter

When I first moved to Vienna (aged 16) and saw "Funk Taxis" I seriously thougt they were cabs that played Funk music ;-)))
when learning Spanish, I remember thinking "sonrisa" meant sunrise - ah, but there is a similarity! Speaking 2 or more languages usually helps learning others; at least if you´re capable of thinking "around corners".


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## sdr083

I think that it's not just a question of how many or which languages you know, but also how you learnt them and are used to using them. Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are similar enough for the mother tounge speakers of one to understand the two others. Talking e.g. to a Swedish friend of mine, I will speak Norwegian, she will speak Swedish and it usually works very well... But according to research done by Sandinavian linguists, Norwegians generally understand Swedish and Danish better than Swedes and Danes understand Norwegian (and each other). Many linguists think this is because the dialects in Norway are stronger (have a stronger position in society) so Norwegians are used to more variation in language. Contrary to for example Italy, where everybody uses Italian in "official" situations and talking to people from other parts of the country, there does not exist a standard spoken Norwegian. All Norwegian is dialect, and everybody grows up learning to understand all the dialects (even the spelling has two official standards, both with a considerable amount of variety) I think that if your brain is trained to figure out what something means, even when it's pronounced or expressed very differently from what you are used to, it makes is easier to understand other languages as well, at least languages that are related to something you know.
Spanish is the only Romance language I will claim to be able to speak very well, but I can perfectly understand (and to some degree write) Italian and Catalan. I can read quite a lot of French and Portuguese as well, but I don't understand them when they're spoken. Knowing Spanish was an enormous help in learning Italian, and I started reading a book in Catalan five days after my first encounter with the language. However, even if I can perfectly understand what someone is saying to me in Italian or Catalan I automatically switch to Spanish when I try to answer them. I think my brain treats these languages the same way it treats Norwegian dialects, or Norwegian, Swedish and Danish (i.e. as versions of the same "language-group"). 



> You should not be calling Catalan and Spanish separate languages if you are calling the Chinese languages the same language.


 
There is no clear line between _language_ and _dialect_. What is considered a_ language_ and what is considered a _dialect_ is usually based more on politial and cultural criteria than on linguistic ones...


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