Thinking about learning 5 more languages
Hola mis amigos,
I'm thinking about learning five more Westerner languages (Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese). I was told when you're good with Spanish, you're more than half-way-there to speaking Portuguese. French is another big one that I want to learn. If I'm not too tired from learning those three, I might go for German and Italian.
To those that speak some of those common Westerner languages that I just mentioned, can you give me info that you feel would be helpful: cognates, similar grammar structure, difficulty level, and etc
Gracias
4 Answers
My native language is English, but at school I was taught Latin, French and Spanish. Some words are the same in French and Spanish, but the pronunciation is different.
I learned French for a number of years before I started learning Spanish. Our teacher advised us not to try learning Italian at the same time as we could get in a muddle. I remember an aunt of mine who had taught French and spoke fluent Italian was able to read my Spanish books - the books were not that complicated.
As Portuguese, French, Italian and Spanish are romance languages they do have some similar words, but also traps too. I had a good friend who was Portuguese and gave a group of us some basic lessons but though you may be able to guess some of the words the pronunciation is very different.
Unless you have a natural aptitude for languages - musical ability helps I would concentrate on improving your Spanish and if it is going well then use your skills to acquire another language. You need to be motivated - do you like the music sung in that language/ the films/ the books or do you want to explore a country where it is the main language? I remember speaking French in Laos where the younger people spoke Russian, but older people knew French.
I believe the grammar of German is difficult to master, but of course English has a lot of words derived from German.
I suspect for your third language French would be easier than German but think about why you want to learn. Unless you keep using a language you begin to lose it. I rarely speak French and though in exam terms I reached a higher level than in Spanish, my Spanish is now better.
Good for you, Chris! You will discover the cognates as you go along. I know Spanish and French at an advanced level. I see you have started with Spanish. As a fellow English speaker, in my opinion French would have been the one to start with. I think Spanish is more difficult. The largest Portuguese speaking country is Brazil, but I don't know if Portugal usage differs greatly.
It sounds from your narrative that you are pursuing the normal adult path of learning to read the language and possibly speak it with a good accent. If you can do an immersion course it will help you read and compose once you master speaking and listening skills.
I don't know how difficult Portuguese is, but perhaps it could come third after Spanish and French then Italian. German has many difficulties and should probably be reserved until last. I have nothing other than accrued insights from a lifetime of loving languages to give as credentials so I hope my advice proves to be helpful.
Even if you are just doing this for "fun", I applaud your ambition and wish you success!
Hello Bern,
Welcome to the SpanishDict forum 
You said:
Hola mis amigos, I'm thinking about learning five more Westerner languages (Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese). I was told when you're good with Spanish, you're more than half-way-there to speaking Portuguese. French is another big one that I want to learn. If I'm not too tired from learning those three, I might go for German and Italian. To those that speak some of those common Westerner languages that I just mentioned, can you give me info that you feel would be helpful: cognates, similar grammar structure, difficulty level, and etc Gracias
I am and have been learning 5 other languages: Spanish, French, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese and Swedish. (I already speak English fluently!) The first 4 of these are considered Romance languages and so are in the same language family group! I can therefore speak with some degree of experience! I cannot possibly comment on German as I have no experience of learning this language nor any desire to do so. lol
There are similiarities in the grammar in Spanish, French and Portuguese in so much as when two verbs follow each other the second is generally in the infinitive
For example, " I would like to reserve a table for four people"
= Me gustaría reservar una mesa para cuatro personas (Esp)
= Je voudrais reserver une table pour quatre personnes (Fr)
= Eu gostaria reservar uma mesa para cuatro pessoas (Portug)
The pronounciation is noticeably different between all these languages so please be careful. The pronounciation of Portuguese in Brazil is often easier both to speak and understand than the Portuguese spoken in Portugal although I have been able to make myelf understood when I speak Portuguese to natives from Portugal. The sounds used in Brazilian Portuguese are more open (not clipped) I initially received lessons for about two years from a native from Sao Paolo in Brazil who was the youth pastor in our church.
The word when is spelt similiarly in Spanish and Portguguese but the pronounciation is not the same ..it is distinctly different:
Cuando (Spanish) (pronounced: Kwan doh)
Quando (Port) (Kwen doo) The a sound is pronounced like an e and the o is pronounced like a u)
You mentioned about level of difficulty in your question. ..this is hard to comment on since it is very subjective...some people will find French easier, some Italian, others Portuguese It really all depends on various factors such as: your innate language ability and previous level of exposure to these (or any other) languages!
I would suggest that Italian would be a good starting point for a second foreign language as it is more phonetical than either Portguese or French which have nasal sounds which can be very tricky for British people. I have personally found, and still consider, Portuguese to be the hardest to pronounce of all the Romance languages, although I have not really seriously tried to learn either Romanian or Catalan! 
In terms of pronounciation, in my view Spanish is much easier than French because it is more phonetical and therefore becomes more intuitive when you have reached a reasoanble standard of proficiency (eg Intermediate), but I think that Spanish grammar is more complex having more verb forms.(tenses, and moods) Daniella or Jubilado might correct me on this, as they speak Spanish and French to a more advanced level!
I hope this helps
Wow! Ambitious and admirable! I'd be interested in knowing why you want to learn five languages and what you want to do as a career. Depending on what you do, you might become a jack of all trades, master of none.
Good luck whatever path you take.
