The 10 most spoken languages in the world

[Rossiya]

So you're telling me that I would understand more Spanish than you, even though the only language I really know anything of is English.

Please understand this. I speak English, German and Italian. As an Italian-speaker, I find it very hard to understand spoken Spanish. I do not know what you are talking about. I hope you understand.

Now, Spanish spoken fast is almost impossible to understand, but that's not what this is about, is it?

I thought it was...

I can follow some Italian with my limited Spanish, so I'm not sure what your difficulty is. If anything, I would think the reverse would be easier.

My difficulty is the fact that I have never studied Spanish.

 

[gangleri2001]

Please understand this. I speak English, German and Italian. As an Italian-speaker, I find it very hard to understand spoken Spanish. I do not know what you are talking about. I hope you understand.

Do you speak Italian as your mother tongue or as a learned foreign language? If you are a native speaker, what kind of native speaker are you that can't understand Spanish? Damn! Portuguese, Catalans and Spaniards travel to Italy without changing the language and we have no problems at all.

 

[Rossiya]

Do you speak Italian as your mother tongue or as a learned foreign language? If you are a native speaker, what kind of native speaker are you that can't understand Spanish? Damn! Portuguese, Catalans and Spaniards travel to Italy without changing the language and we have no problems at all.

I'm not sure. I don't really qualify as a native speaker, and yet I don't qualify as a foreign speaker...

I don't believe for a second that you have "no problems at all".

 

[Mirc]

I'm not sure. I don't really qualify as a native speaker, and yet I don't qualify as a foreign speaker...

I don't believe for a second that you have "no problems at all".

I've seen with my own eyes in Italy conversations between Italians and Mexicans or Argentinians without having any trouble at all understanding each other. As long as none of them speaks crazily fast, they simply are easily understandable.

 

[Rossiya]

I've seen with my own eyes in Italy conversations between Italians and Mexicans or Argentinians without having any trouble at all understanding each other. As long as none of them speaks crazily fast, they simply are easily understandable.

I refute the claim "without any trouble at all". I understand that it is possible, but nowhere near as easy as some of you are making out.

 

[Masquerouge]

I've seen with my own eyes in Italy conversations between Italians and Mexicans or Argentinians without having any trouble at all understanding each other. As long as none of them speaks crazily fast, they simply are easily understandable.

Mexicans for sure speak a lot slower than Spanish people. Maybe that helped.

But yeah, if an Italian or a Spanish guy speak slowly, I can understand them, save for the random freak word that does not have a common root...

 

[Mirc]

I refute the claim "without any trouble at all". I understand that it is possible, but nowhere near as easy as some of you are making out.

Can it really be any easier than "I talk in my language, you talk in yours, and we understand each other"?

From the moment I arrived in Italy, I did not have the slightest trouble in finding my way around, talking to people by Italianizing my words, etc. Had my language been symmetrically mutually intelligible, which it's not (ie it is much easier for us to understand Italian than viceversa), I would have been able to do just the same as those Latin American guys I know have been doing all the time there. And Spanish is closer to Italian than my language (from my experience being something like this: ES -- IT --- RO).

 

[LuckyAC]

It's surprising seeing Romanian is so close written, it sounds quite different spoken.

 

[Huayna Capac357]

I can understand my Spanish-taking friends pretty much when they speak Spanish and they can usually understand me when I speak French. We all only have attained a basic level, but it still is rather amazing when we can carry a conversation half in French and half in Spanish.

 

[Ace of Gold]

French should be higher up.

 

[Bast]

I know mainly Portuguese and also English. I can understand parts of Spanish and one time, I read something written in Italian and understood part of it. I read the Scots wikipedia and I understood most of it, but it is a really weird language. Scots = Orkish.

Spanish is pretty much portuguese, except its spoken by fags. Same for French.




Yes, I know I offended a good part of the world's population at the same time. FEEL OFFENDED, DAMNIT.

You do know that Portuguese and French are more similar as far as the phonemes are concerned? Spanish actually sounds very macho and romantic.

 

[Mirc]

It's surprising seeing Romanian is so close written, it sounds quite different spoken.

Maybe, but it's still very phonetic (and has exactly the same reading rules as Italian, with some 3-4 exceptions), French is anyway the champion in sounding completely different to its written form.

 

[almeida]

i can understand a italian if he talk slowly