What other language is most similar to Spanish?

Question

Is it Portuguese? Or Italian? Or someother one? Anyone knows? Thank you.

• wow yolii ! i was going to ask the same question . great question yolii - lovely_lovel Jul 7, 2010

Answer 1

(as a side note, in Brazil we joke that to speak Italian all you have to do is speak Spanish and move your hands a lot. I guess Italian is closer to Spanish in sound, but I have no idea what Portuguese sounds like)

How could you be in Brazil and have no idea what Portuguese sounds like?

Answer 2

I keep hearing Spanish speakers tell me Italian is easier to understand than Portuguese.

I agree with that, my vote goes to Italian.

Answer 3

I was reading an article last night on Wiki:

Spanish and Italian share a very similar phonological system. At present, the lexical similarity with Italian is estimated at 82%.[38] As a result, Spanish and Italian are mutually intelligible to various degrees. The lexical similarity with Portuguese is greater, 89%, but the vagaries of Portuguese pronunciation make it less easily understood by Hispanophones than Italian is. Mutual intelligibility between Spanish and French or Romanian is even lower (lexical similarity being respectively 75% and 71%[38]): comprehension of Spanish by French speakers who have not studied the language is as low as an estimated 45% ? the same as English. The common features of the writing systems of the Romance languages allow for a greater amount of interlingual reading comprehension than oral communication would.

Espero que sea útil.

• I agree as someone who has studied Spanish French and Brazilian Portuguese and learnt a little Italian - FELIZ77 Jul 8, 2010

Answer 4

I think it depends on who you ask and what you mean by similarity. When you compare written Spanish with written Portuguese and written Italian, Portuguese is definitely closer to Spanish (it has far more words in common). But while Portuguese speakers usually have no trouble understanding spoken Spanish, I keep hearing Spanish speakers tell me Italian is easier to understand than Portuguese. I have always been puzzled by that.

(as a side note, in Brazil we joke that to speak Italian all you have to do is speak Spanish and move your hands a lot. I guess Italian is closer to Spanish in sound, but I have no idea what Portuguese sounds like)

• I would say that Portuguese sounds closer to French in that it nasal Also there is big difference between Brazilian and European Portuguese. - BellaMargari Jul 7, 2010
• As someone who has learnt Brazilain Portugues from a native I would say that it is more similar to Spanish in Written form but in Pronounciation it has nasal tones whiich can make it difficult for Spanish speakers to comprehend - FELIZ77 Jul 8, 2010

Answer 5

How could you be in Brazil and have no idea what Portuguese sounds like?

I meant I don't know what Portuguese sounds like to someone who does not understand it. I'm sure everyone has the same inability with their native language.

It's the same thing with accents. You can easily describe what characterizes a particular accent, but I doubt you can describe what's different about your accent. To your ears, people from your part of the country don't even have an accent.

Answer 6

In my opinion it is Portuguese. I personally am able to better understand Portuguese when I hear it than when I hear someone speaking in Italian.

Answer 7

Lament for a Language
Below is a verse written by Jose dos Santos Ferreira, the most famous (and maybe only) poet of Macau's special language, patúa, with translations:

PATUA:
Língu di gente antigo di Macau
Lô disparecê tamên. Qui saiám!
Nga dia, mas quanto áno,
Quiança lô priguntá co pai-mai
Qui cuza sä afinal
Dóci papiaçam di Macau?

PORTUGUESE:
A língua da gente antiga de Macau
Vai disaparecer também. Qui pena!
Um dia daqui a alguns anos
A criança perguntará aos pais
O que é afinal
A doci lingua de Macau?

ENGLISH:
The language of the old people of Macau
Will disappear also. What a pity!
One day, in a few years
A child will ask his parents
What is it, after all,
The sweet language of Macau'

Answer 8

I have to say that Italian is closer to Spanish than Portugese.

1) I took beginning Italian in college after I had already taken 4 years of Spanish in high school. I easily got an A in the class by basically guessing the Spanish word for any Italian word I didn't know.

2) My wife is a native Spanish speaker and I have seen her have conversations with Italian tourists when we used to live in New York. They would speak Italian and she would speak Spanish. They both understood each other fine.

3) I was in Brazil earlier this year a couple of times on business trips and although I can speak Spanish and English fluently, I couldn't understand hardly anything they were saying. I sat at a business dinner for two hours and couldn't even follow the topic of the conversation in Portugese.

Answer 9

my vote goes to Italian

Here is a piece of dialogue between Susanna and Figaro, from Mozart's opera. Which one do you think is closer to Spanish, or easier to understand?

ITALIAN:

• Cosa stai misurando, caro il mio Figaretto?
• Io guardo se quel letto che ci destina il Conte farà buona figura in questo loco.
• E in questa stanza?
• Certo: a noi la cede generoso il padrone.
• Io per me te la dono.
• E la ragione?
• (toccandosi la fronte) La ragione l'ho qui.
• (facendo lo stesso) Perché non puoi far che passi un po' qui?
• Perché non voglio. Sei tu mio servo, o no?
• Ma non capisco perché tanto ti spiace la più comoda stanza del palazzo.
• Perch'io son la Susanna, e tu sei pazzo.

PORTUGUESE:

• Que estás medindo, meu caro Figaretto?
• Estou vendo se a cama que nos dará o Conde ficará bem neste lugar
• E neste quarto?
• Correto. O patrão generoso nos cede-la
• Eu, por mim, daria-la
• E a razão?
• (tocando a testa) A razão, tenho-la aqui
• (fazendo o mesmo) Por quê não podes fazer que passe um pouco aqui?
• Porque não quero. ÿs tu meu servo ou não?
• Mas não entendo porque tanto te desagrada o quarto mais cômodo do palácio
• Porque sou a Susanna e tú és um palhaço

Answer 10

Josue, this is very interesting as I was just going to say that. If reading, the Portuguese looks definitely easier, however, when spoken, that is a different story.

Answer 11

Thank you "josue3" the information you provided is very interesting and useful.

I have no background in either one of these two languages, I agree with "Heitor" that Portuguese is easier to read but I don't know which is easier to understand to my Spanish/English ear.

Based on some of the feedback on this thread is seems like Italian is easier to understand to someone who speaks Spanish...

Thank you all for your feedback-very much appreciated.

What I want to do is start learning a new language, one that is most similar to Spanish and I was debating weather to study Portuguese or Italian.

And I'm inclining towards Portuguese....

Answer 12

(as a side note, in Brazil we joke that to speak Italian all you have to do is speak Spanish and move your hands a lot.
I love it! But why bother to speak at all?
Can you have accent in hand movements? This question may be funny to some, but I do not speak any language without an accent.

Answer 13

(as a side note, in Brazil we joke that to speak Italian all you have to do is speak Spanish and move your hands a lot.

I love it! But why bother to speak at all?

Good point

Can you have accent in hand movements?

Considering how linguistically messed up Italy is, they probably have a lot of "hand dialects"

Answer 14

What I want to do is start learning a new language, one that is most similar to Spanish and I was debating whether to study Portuguese or Italian.

And I'm inclining towards Portuguese....

I hope you decide to learn it; then I won't be the only poster here who speaks Portuguese. It feels so lonely sometimes

Answer 15

Definitivamente el portugués. Sin ningún tipo de dudas.

El italiano y el castellano (más conocido como español, pero éste proviene del Reino de Castilla, por eso se llama castellano *) provienen del mismo idioma, el latín. Pero el portugués es una variante del castellano antiguo, es muy similar al gallego que es un idioma que se habla en el noroeste de España.

*Nota: En España se hablan varios idiomas como el gallego, el vasco, el catalán, el valenciano y otros más. Todos provienen de la misma raíz lingüística salvo el vasco, el oficial y el que todo español tiene que aprender es el castellano y debido a que lo habla todos los españoles se le denomina español.