How closely related are the Romanic languages

[Warman17]

thanks to wiki(as always):

A computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd ed.) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973) which estimated the origin of English words as follows:

* French, including Old French and early Anglo-French: 28.3%
* Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
* Other Germanic languages (including Old English, Old Norse, and Dutch): 25%
* Greek: 5.32%
* No etymology given: 4.03%
* Derived from proper names: 3.28%
* All other languages contributed less than 1%

James D. Nicoll made the oft-quoted observation: "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle [sic] their pockets for new vocabulary." [2]

 

[willemvanoranje]

Let me tell you from personal experience that they are very closely related. In Brazil I learned Portuguese, and I have no trouble what so ever reading Spanish, Galician (which is almost the same as Portuguese), Catelan and most other languages from the Iberian peninsula. Also Italian is way easier to understand. French I can't tell you about since I learned that in high school a bit, so I can't tell what comes from that and what comes from the knowledge of other latin languages. I must repeat though, that this is about reading (and to some extend writing). In listening I need to concentrate a lot to understand the twisted accent of Portuguese from Portugal, and Spanish from Spain is way harder to understand (because it seems they don't like to move their mouth when speaking) than Spanish from Mexico or Central-American countries.

 

[willemvanoranje]

Like R all ways sounds like H in portuguse (Sp: Resturate Po:Hesturantchie (resturante) (ante is often chi ) Y is allways J yaves Javes (keys) there's alot more but I don't consiously know that I just guess and I am ussually right I wanna say 90% + I am right on a word allthou there are some words that are completly diff.

Note: of the three guys I worked with the Rio accent is easyer to under stand than sao paulo (for my mexican ears anyway).
+ Brazil has some of the best music anywhere so if you want to learn there you go

Ok, so there are a lot of differences in Brazil and I do not know all the dialects, but I think that in the extreme south (Rio Grande do Sul), most people actually pronounce all the r's. In Paraná, and I think in most or even all of Brazil the very basic rule would be that one R is pronounced as an R, unless it's the first letter in a word (Ronaldo = Honaudu). A double R (RR) is pronounced as an H.

Carro = Caho

As for the Y thing, not sure what you tried to say, but keys is not javes but chaves I think. The ch in Portuguese does not have the 't' sound in front of it like in Spanish or English, and therefor sounds like 'sh'.

I could go on like this haha, but the most dificult part about pronounciation is the nasal sounds. The most basic is ã, and then there is the combo sounds ão, ãe and õe.. and the hidden ones: the part of a word where the stress is on, is also pronounced with a slight nasal sound. To use your example, restaurante, they pronounce it hestorântche (I made an ^ to show that it's the semi-nasal sounds and not the same as an ~ haha).

Also the differences between O and U are usually very small or totally absent (usually meaning the O become an U), and the E on the end of a sentence is usually pronounced as an Y in the English word "happy"...which can be very, very annoying. Thank God there are some "in between" sounds because I don't think I can take it hearing "Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeentiiii" one more time! (or for the matter of fact "Que bonitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinho"). Too much drama haha.

And to me the São Paulo (propper) accent is way nicer. Rio accent is not dificult to understand, but I just can't take certain sounds of it. Too ugly haha. Then again, I prefer it over "Mineiro", because all Mineiros I know do not bother to even try to pronounce the words completely or correctly.



From Spanish to Portuguese some small stuff I noticed:

-ción becomes -ção in a lot of cases (revolución - revolução, estación - estação)

L becomes R in certain type of words (plaza - praça, playa - praia)

In names endings with an Z become an S (Mendez - Mendes, Fernandez - Fernandes, Gomez - Gomes)

And of course the Spanish ñ is the equivalent of the nh in Portuguese (for those who didn't know this most obvious part of the Portuguese language).

 

[Elta]

My examples were bad because I gave some the spanish sound spelling and not the english soud of both words

Your right about the Rs begining of word a doubles (but to be honest I can't think any words with a single r not at the begining of the word - I first figured it our when I heard Zorra and Rosa which both threw me of so I guess I put two and two together and was wrong

and on the keys I meant like hard J in spanish like Ja (instead of ya) which insidently sounds like ch but on all the computer programs I've used they spell
keys with a J (i'll post some pics later ..cheap program I suppose my speaking is good thou)






One more thing on portuguse allthou you may think it is Camisinha is not camisa in portuguse someone asked me something like that and I was like I am wearing one right now arn't I of course I have one



The spanish accents thing (my mom says this so who knows if it;s true) Spainards don't move there tounge past the middle of there mouth when they speak ... not to mention they all have a very strong Lisp

 

[willemvanoranje]

Your right about the Rs begining of word a doubles (but to be honest I can't think any words with a single r not at the begining of the word - I first figured it our when I heard Zorra and Rosa which both threw me of so I guess I put two and two together and was wrong

Caro
Curitiba
Senhor(a)
Paraná
Pará
para (pronounced pra )
aracajú
maracujá
maracanã

Hehe, of course these R's aren't like the Mexican one, where the R seems to be RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Perrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrro.

and on the keys I meant like hard J in spanish like Ja (instead of ya) which insidently sounds like ch but on all the computer programs I've used they spell
keys with a J (i'll post some pics later ..cheap program I suppose my speaking is good thou)

Well, Brazilians aren known to not even know their own spelling..and that's self-proclaimed even.

One more thing on portuguse allthou you may think it is Camisinha is not camisa in portuguse someone asked me something like that and I was like I am wearing one right now arn't I of course I have one

Well..there is the word camisa, but indeed camisinha has another meaning than a little shirt hehe.

The spanish accents thing (my mom says this so who knows if it;s true) Spainards don't move there tounge past the middle of there mouth when they speak ... not to mention they all have a very strong Lisp

could be true haha. It's like they don't want the word to actually get beyond their their lips. As if the should stay inside the mouth.