Learning Italian As A Second Language

Italian actually has a grammar, vocabulary and syntax that is closer to French than Spanish. I can translate whole sentences word-for-word from Italian to French and it will make sense, while if I were to translate them directly into Spanish it sounds like well, broken Spanish. Italian and Spanish are more similar in terms of pronunciation.

For example, I have good friend from Milan who was on holiday in Spain and almost got into a fight during lunch one day with a Spanish waiter when he asked for "butter" ("burro" in Italian) and the waiter thought he was calling him a "burro" ("donkey' in Spanish)!!! Note that the French word for "butter" is "beurre" and this closely resembles the Italian while the Spanish word is "mantequilla"!

A donkey in Italian is "asino" while in French, it is "âne" and in Spanish, "burro"! "Asno", is also used in Spanish for "donkey" but not as commonly as "burro".

"Head" is: "testa" in Italian, "tête" in French and "cabeza" in Spanish.
"Table" is : "tavola" in Italian, "table" in French and "mesa" in Spanish
"Dove" is "colomba" in Italian, "colombe" in French and "paloma" in Spanish
 
Ragazzo said:
I am learning Italian as part of my career. I want to graduate as a translator. English isn't my mother tongue either, by the way, so Italian is really my third language and my first is Spanish.

I say, the similarities between Spanish and Italian end up screwing me in Italian, specially with homonyms and such.
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How long have you been studying Italian?
I had the same problem when learning Spanish after Italian. It took me one year before I could separate the two languages... not mentioning French! Every single time I see a "que" in French I start reading in Spanish :oops:
 
kgan said:
Does knowing another similar language make learning Italian easier? I speak and read Spanish pretty well, and I'm thinking it would help in learning Italian. In fact, I can sometimes get the gist of things written in Italian because it seems to be similar to Spanish. Thoughts? It seems like some think this would help? Like chass88, I'm also wondering about negatives.
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I have some knowledge of French and am a native English speaker. Some people say these two things combine to offer an advantage when learning Italian, though I am still in the very early stages so I can't say one way or the other just yet.
 
I can speak and read French and have found that it makes it easier to understand some of the Italian words. I have family members who speak Italian so you end up picking up a few words here and there. I think I would start with the basics, like sentences you would use if you traveled to Italy, and learn from there.
 
Italian is such a smooth and pleasant language, I'll probably want to learn it in a near future, when I find the time to do so!! It'll surely be a very enriching experience!!
 
I have learnt Italian as a second language but only for two years. At that time the professor who taught me was not really good enough and I hated the way he taught the language. Hence I did not continue it for a long time and discontinued the language.
 
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