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For those who speak Italian…
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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 RE: For those who speak Italian… (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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Larisa is fluent in Italian. She lived in Italy for several years, and is quick to pick up languages. She understands Spanish quite well, but is a bit hesitant speaking.
Years ago I had a girlfriend whose father was Italian. She looked the part, green eyes, wavy brown hair, fair complexion. I was startled the first time I heard her speak Spanish. She told me her mother was Mexican, from Tampico. When we went to Italy, she spoke rapid and fluent Italian. The Italians smiled indulgently when, upon rare occasions, a Spanish word slipped out.
As a result of a visit to some of her relatives in Nuevo Laredo, I had reason to visit some of my family in far South Texas. As a go-berween for Mexican friends her relative had transmitted a proposal to settle a long simmering cross border dispute. Fourth generation gringo landowners, most of my cousins were prejudiced against Mexicans. I asked Toni if she would go with me. She roundly demurred. I pointed out that with her looks, my cousins would never suspect her ancestry.
“Maybe so,” she said, “but those South Texas gringos would get to talking, and I would say something.”
Though she had a convincing little angel demeanor most of the time, when Toni “said something” it was likely to be memorable, so I took the 300-mile detour to drop her off back in Austin.
RNJ
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Date Dec. 20 2018 16:12:11
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Marchito
Posts: 16
Joined: Aug. 12 2018
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RE: For those who speak Italian… (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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Well, as an genuine Italian married to a foreigner and having friends and colleagues from all over the world, I witness all kind of mispronounced words and bold, funny mistakes, but what everyone really struggles with are double consonants. For the rest, proper grammar looks like an optional also for most Italians. All the rest is just in the art of gestures. ;) Spanish and French are pretty close to italian. I speak English, Czech and Slovak only, but I can easily watch a movie in Spanish and get 80% of its conversation, as well as I can have a brief conversation with French people in their native idiom. Oddly enough, I can understand spoken French, but not written. I can read easily Romanian, but understand nothing if spoken. Beauty of Europe, I guess..
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Date Dec. 20 2018 21:17:02
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: For those who speak Italian… (in reply to Escribano)
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quote:
My wife speaks Spanish and is learning Italian. It helps somewhat. I am also learning and with Spanish and French behind me, it's not too bad but certainly not easy.
Frankly, I am always amused when someone says that a particular language is "easy" to learn. One often hears that Spanish is an "easy" language to learn. But it takes a lot of work if one is going to speak Spanish correctly. Spanish, for example, uses the subjunctive much more than English. Speaking Spanish correctly probably entails using the subjunctive 60 percent of the time. Yet, many people who think they know Spanish well rarely use the subjunctive. They sound fluent to the untrained ear, but they are not speaking Spanish correctly.
Another example is Malay. The language is known as Bahasa Malayu (Bahasa means "language" and is derived from Sanskrit). Malay appears fairly easy at the outset, but, again, to speak it correctly requires a knowledge of the many prefixes and suffixes that can change the meaning of the root word. To the Malays, speaking Malay correctly denotes a refined person. Speaking proper Malay is a sign of refinement and good "breeding." The same holds true for Indonesian, which is just a variation of Malay.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Dec. 21 2018 4:49:52
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: For those who speak Italian… (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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quote:
quote:
Spanish, for example, uses the subjunctive much more than English.
Certainly, but many people (particularly headline-writers and tennis-players) can’t seem to manage it in English either. (I found the original (originally 1935) version of Teach Yourself Spanish by N. Scarlyn Wilson invaluable in this respect. Being old, it pays much more methodical and careful attention to rules of grammar than many more modern courses.)
True enough. But if you have read some research papers prepared by university undergraduates, and some by graduate students as well, they can barely string s couple of sentences together to make a coherent thought, much less master the subjunctive.
As for those who blithely toss off the observation that Spanish is an "easy" language to learn, my response is Spanish is an easy language to learn to speak poorly.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 22 2018 18:32:12
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