Should I learn Spanish or Italian?
In conclusion, Italian and Spanish are highly similar. If you learn one, learning the other one will be much easier for you. However, Italian seems to be a little bit trickier than Spanish once you start getting deep into the comparison.
Spanish is a top business language thanks to how widely spoken it is, but if you're working in, say, fashion, it might make much more sense to learn Italian. All in all, deciding Italian vs Spanish might be an easy or tough call once you consider all the factors.
Luckily for you, both Spanish and Italian are ranked among the easiest languages for English speakers to learn, making it a toss-up between the two. According to the U.S. Foreign Service Institute, both Italian and Spanish are ranked in the lowest difficulty category for native English speakers.
One 2011 study from the Université de Lyon looked at 7 languages, which reported the order as Japanese (7.84 syllables per second), Spanish (7.82), French (7.18), Italian (6.99), English (6.19), German (5.97) and Mandarin (5.18).
Given your intermediate level in Italian, the basics of Spanish should not be difficult and your Italian will help you. Once you get to intermediate level... you know it's a tough, hard slog. Get a good Spanish grammar book to help. You can certainly try to learn Spanish through Italian.
- English. It's the most widely spoken language in the world, making practice possible. ...
- French. French has over 100 million native speakers and is – as the official language in 28 countries – spoken on almost every continent. ...
- Spanish. ...
- Italian. ...
- Swahili.
Italian is probably the language most linked to the world of art and culture. You can find Italian influence in all major areas of life and culture: from painting arts to architecture, from literature to music, from design to food and wine…
Ethnologue came up with lexical similarity coefficients for each of the Romance languages, or quantifiable percentages that tell you how similar they are. According to this metric, French and Italian are 89 percent similar, which makes them as similar as Spanish and Portuguese.
To answer the question of whether Spanish speakers can understand Italian or not, the answer is: sometimes! Both languages are similar but different enough for many Italians to take Spanish lessons and vice versa. Speaking slowly and clearly helps a lot, and it's an effective way to better understand a new language.
Spanish - officially, Castellano - traces its origins to the late X century (probably ~1000 AD), when the first known “Spanish” text was written, the Glosas Emilianenses. Italian's first written record also dates from the X century, being slightly older: the Placiti Cassinesi, written in 960–963.
How much harder is Italian than Spanish?
The difficulty of learning a language can vary from person to person based on their native language, learning style, and other factors. However, for many English speakers, Spanish is often considered slightly easier to learn than Italian due to its simpler pronunciation and more straightforward grammar.
Spanish grammar is often considered simpler than Italian grammar due to its relatively straightforward conjugation rules and more consistent verb endings. Spanish verbs tend to follow more predictable patterns, with fewer irregularities compared to Italian.
Italian is seen to be one of the closest Romance Languages to Vulgar Latin and resembles it closely in syntax compared to Classical Latin words. Is Latin closer to Italian or Spanish? - Italian is the closest national language to Latin, followed by Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese, and the most divergent being French.
Proficiency Level | Duration |
---|---|
A1 (Lower Beginner) | 50 - 60 hours |
A2 (Upper Beginner) | 100 - 120 hours |
B1 (Lower Intermediate) | 240 - 300 hours |
B2 (Upper Intermediate) | 320 - 400 hours |
There is no precise answer, but it is estimated that – because of the similarities with Spanish – a Spanish speaker could take between 4 and 8 months of permanent study. However, to achieve true fluency in Italian, a person who speaks Spanish generally needs a year or more and to have undergone a period of immersion.
Coming directly from Latin, Italian has many similarities to other Romance languages such as Spanish, French and Portugues. These four languages are quite similar, so you will be able to learn them easily once you speak Italian.
Easiest (about 600 hours of study)
Of these, Spanish and Italian are the easiest for native English speakers to learn, followed by Portuguese and finally French.
If you are working in the United States, Spanish is a very useful language to learn. If you expect your industry or company will do a lot of international business, learn languages that will be useful in your field. It could be Chinese, Japanese, Italian, or German.
People consider Colombian Spanish one of the clearest and most understandable of all the different Spanish dialects. It has various regional accents, but the one from the capital sounds pretty standard.
Every minute of learning the Italian language and culture will definitely be worth it. If you truly want to live the good life, and if you're looking to learn a language that will serve you well in the years ahead—Italian should be on the top of your list.
Is French or Italian more useful?
Then, with 220 million native speakers in 40 countries worldwide, French is by far the most useful language for travel, business and work. Italian native speakers, on the other end, are just over 60 million.
According to Ethnologue, lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 80% with Portuguese, 78% with Ladin, 77% with Romanian. Estimates may differ according to sources.
As a result, many Italians don't speak English proficiently. Italians are also proud of their language, seeing no need to learn another language. You might hear French and Spanish on the streets of Italy. But only 8% of Italians speak French and less than 7% speak Spanish.
Portuguese. In the north-western part of Spain, Galicia is the mother-land of the Portuguese mother tongue. It's widely considered the closest language to Spanish – the lexical similarity is approximated at 89%.
3. How Similar are Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian? Where lexical similarity of Italian and Spanish is around 80%, Spanish and Portuguese is around 90%. In other words, these Latin languages are cousins.
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