Interested in Comparing Spanish and Italian?

Question

Comparing Spanish and Italian -

For those of you who have become confidently fluent with Spanish and may be considering a new language exploration, you may be interested in the following site. It compares Italian to Spanish in all aspects. (Grammar; pronouns; general words / nouns; verbs; conjugation (I think), etc. You may find it an easy enough transition. Adiós las gentes!

link text

Aquí está un extracto

Similar Vocabulary In many (but by no means all) cases, the Italian and Spanish words for something are very similar. In fact there are some simple rules for converting one to the other which work in many cases:

Almost all words in Italian end in a vowel, whereas many Spanish words do not. Compare giardino/jardín, partire/partir, migliore/mejor. Italian 'o' or 'uo' often becomes 'ue' in Spanish when the syllable is stressed. E.g. morto/muerto, posto/puesto. Italian 'e' often becomes 'ie' in Spanish when the syllable is stressed. E.g. concerto/concierto, tempo/tiempo. Italian 'f' often becomes 'h' in Spanish when at the start of a word. E.g. fumo/humo, figlio/hijo. Italian voiceless consonants 'c' and 't' often become voiced ('g' and 'd' respectively) in Spanish. E.g. amico/amigo, potere/poder, colpo/golpe. Italian 'sc', 'sf', 'sp' and 'st' often become 'esc, 'esf', 'esp' and 'est' in Spanish, when at the start of a word. E.g. scrivere/escribir, sforzo/esfuerzo, speciale/especial, studente/estudiante. The Italian suffixes '-tà' '-tù' and '-zione' become '-dad', '-tud' and '-ción' in Spanish. E.g. università/universidad, virtù/virtud, informazione/información.

As for me, still being 'fresh behind the ears', I will concentrate on spanish for now. - Nise, Jul 28, 2010

Fixed the link, Nise! If you click edit, change anything, and save, your avatar will replace mine. - LateToDinner, Jul 28, 2010

Like maybe add a : (colon) after ...un extracto .... or something. - LateToDinner, Jul 28, 2010

Thanks for the editing. Is there a reason I should want to be 'first in line"? :/ - Nise, Jul 28, 2010

Was your editing the putting of the link box within the text, rather than having it in writing? I don't want to sound 'late to dinner';D, but how does one do that? - Nise, Jul 28, 2010

No question was asked folks, but do drop a note of interest to the topic. - Nise, Jul 28, 2010

Answer 1

I watched La vita è bella link text

very recently and was delighted to find I could 'understand' a lot of what was said (I use the word understand a little loosely; on reading the subtitles at the same time as listening it was all making sense in my brain) - it seemed that so many words are either very close to Spanish, and if not then they are close to French or English.

Ohh! I think that's the program I fell upon a few days ago. for quite some time during the program, I thought I was listening to a spanish show! :D - Nise, Jul 31, 2010

Answer 2

That´s funny because when I was middle school I studied Italian during the first half six grade before Spanish I guess because they are similar, it helped prepare the students for Spanish. I guess this is why Spanish speakers understand Italian easier than Portuguese although Portuguese developed side by side with Spanish. However, I still remember that verb conjugation is quite different. I think there is more indicative forms in Italian and the pluralization in Italian is more complicated. You also forgot to mention that gn in Italian has the same sound as the ñ in Spanish. The spelling differences are due to fact that Italian stuck closer to Latin than Spanish.

Thank you for these interesting facts Margaret. I didn't forget anything. I just posted a very small portion as an example of what you can find at the given website. You can get the whole kit and kaboodle there! :D - Nise, Jul 28, 2010

Answer 3

Maybe we should draw linguistic comparisons between ALL Romance languages. That would be more complete. It should also be, I think, fun.

Sounds good! And would likely get a lot of interested respondents. Go for it!:D - Nise, Jul 31, 2010

Answer 4

Knowing Italian before I started Spanish I found confusing for quite a while ,

I would immediately conjugate and translate in Italian , which was no help.

Understanding a great many Italian verbs which are similar to Spanish was a bonus ,

but I forced myself to forget Italian unfortunately ,though now I let it flow more freely

from one to the other without confusion . Knowing French has also been a great help ,

maybe even more than Italian has. But sadly Spanish eludes me , I am finding it more

difficult than I thought it would be , I keep hitting a brick wall which takes me quite

a while to struggle over , I fear I may have left my run too late.

Perhaps the little grey cells are just plum tuckered out this time around. :-) - webdunce, Jun 25, 2011

you may have something there mate , i just have to try harder and study more. - ray76, Jun 26, 2011

Answer 5

Are there any native Italian speakers here? What are your experiences in learning Spanish?

You also forgot to mention that gn in Italian has the same sound as the ñ in Spanish. The spelling differences are due to fact that Italian stuck closer to Latin than Spanish.

Yes, "gn" in Spanish is tricky for me, too. Whenever I see it written down like in "magnífico", I automatically want to say "mañifico" - the result of years of French. Yet it should be easy as English treat them as two consonants, as well. But so far my brain hasn't made the connection. Perhaps it will now... and let's hope it doesn't "back influence" my French !

Answer 6

I went to Italy a couple of weeks ago and whenever I heard people talking or the radio at the hotel i had to do a double take and remind myself that I was not in Spain.jajajaja

It is quite similar isn't it? There IS that certain lilt to the Italian language that gives it away. - Nise, Jul 31, 2010