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Posts: 1809
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: For those who speak Italian… (in reply to Ricardo)
At Paco Peña’s Festival in Córdoba one year, one of the Italian students had brought his girlfriend with him. She didn’t speak English or Spanish, and I didn’t know any Italian, but we wound up having quite a lengthy conversation, she speaking Italian and I Spanish, and we understood each other perfectly well. We were both cracking up laughing.
Mind you, I wouldn’t guarantee a repeat performance…
Posts: 898
Joined: Dec. 6 2012
From: Lisboa, Portugal
RE: For those who speak Italian… (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
The same has happened to me. I worked this past Spring and Summer as a tour guide here in Lisbon and the majority of Italians I met didn't speak anything but their language. I don't speak Italian, although I know a few dirty proverbs which were always the icebreakers, but somehow I always managed to communicate by speaking in Spanish and listening to them in Italian.
Posts: 6441
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy
RE: For those who speak Italian… (in reply to FredGuitarraOle)
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.
Posts: 3454
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: For those who speak Italian… (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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.
Posts: 1809
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: For those who speak Italian… (in reply to Escribano)
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.
I took a course a few years back. The thing I found hardest was that in Spanish you always know where the stress falls, but with Italian it seems to be guesswork.
I remember having trouble also figuring out whether vowels were long or short. For that reason I found the Harper Collins College Italian Dictionary much better than the Cassell’s, since it gives pronunciations.
RE: For those who speak Italian… (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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..
Posts: 3470
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: For those who speak Italian… (in reply to Escribano)
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."
Posts: 1809
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: For those who speak Italian… (in reply to BarkellWH)
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.)
Posts: 3470
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: For those who speak Italian… (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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."
Posts: 1809
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: For those who speak Italian… (in reply to BarkellWH)
quote:
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.
Business as usual:
“Writers who appear educated enough to know whether a sentence is right or wrong will put down the opposite of what they mean, or something different from what they mean, or what means nothing at all, apparently quite satisfied so long as the reader can be trusted to make a shrewd guess at what they ought to have said instead of taking them at their word; to his possible grammatical sensibilities they pay no heed whatever, having none themselves.”
RE: For those who speak Italian… (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
Hellò everybody,.... as a new Italian flamenco website it is really not bad!... It is seriously done ... not "folkloristic" nor " intellectual"...I really like it. Thank you for your for signaling. By the way: Buon Natale to all of you. ciao - Giambattista