# Mutual intelligibility of Spanish and Italian? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 17, 2020, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-spanish-and-italian/851988 "2020-04-17T16:10:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2020, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-spanish-and-italian/851988/41 "2020-04-20T17:46:44Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I hope **Frodo** will forgive me for repeating this, but it’s a joke Argentinians tell on themselves: An Argentinian is an Italian who speaks Spanish, acts like he’s French, and wishes he were British.😉 I love that joke, there is a lot of truth in it, the version I heard was “thinks he is British” but the meaning is the same. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2020, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-spanish-and-italian/851988/42 "2020-04-20T17:54:42Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I was excited a few years ago when I was on vacation, I was finally going to visit a place in Spain and use my abysmal high school Spanish. Then we got to Barcelona (about a year before the riots) only to find they delighted in avoiding Spanish in favor of Catalan. Seemed about the same thing, except some (many?) different words, some more French-ish, and verb forms different too. [Catalan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_language) is definitely a distinct language from Spanish, and is actually closer to languages spoken in France and Italy. > [@](#): > > However, despite being spoken mostly on the Iberian Peninsula, Catalan has marked differences with the Iberian Romance group (Spanish and Portuguese) in terms of pronunciation, grammar, and especially vocabulary; showing instead its closest affinity with languages native to France and northern Italy, particularly Occitan[34][35][36] and to a lesser extent Gallo-Romance (Franco-Provençal, French, Gallo-Italian).[37][38][39][40][34][35][36] ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2020, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-spanish-and-italian/851988/43 "2020-04-20T18:17:49Z")
I’ve had formal training in Portuguese, French and Spanish. While there are a lot of cognates, they don’t sound much alike to my ears, but then I’m not fluent in any of them. Talking to our Portuguese employees about understanding Spanish speaking tourists, they said that while they could sometimes catch the drift of conversations (depending on how rapidly someone was speaking), the languages are different enough to where communication is a problem. Hell, even the differences between Iberian Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese can cause problems between speakers. For that matter, I have a really difficult time understanding my Scouser (Liverpool area) daughter in law. If she’s just returned from a visit home, she may as well be speaking Urdu. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2020, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-spanish-and-italian/851988/44 "2020-04-20T23:40:45Z")
TV shows and movies using Quebec French are often re-dubbed or subtitled for the France French audience, due to accents and often vocabulary. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-spanish-and-italian/851988/45 "2020-04-21T02:16:42Z")
> [@Frodo](#): > > Not exactly, Portuñol is the blend of Portuguese and Spanish spoken in the Brazil-AnyoneElseInSouthAmerica border regions. Sorry, you’re right! I was thinking of Cocoliche or Lunfardo. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-spanish-and-italian/851988/46 "2020-04-21T04:15:31Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Apparently in cases where Spanish and Italian speakers (with no fluency in the other language) are in a situation where they have to communicate for an extended period, they spontaneously develop a sort of intermediate pidgin language that has come to be known as Itagnolo You can expand this into Universal Mediterranean, a pidgin in which you can draw indiscriminately on your meagre resources of Spanish, Catalan, French and Italian. It will get you by for simple transactions and conversations pretty well anywhere between Venice and Cadiz. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-spanish-and-italian/851988/47 "2020-04-21T05:29:17Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > You can expand this into Universal Mediterranean, a pidgin in which you can draw indiscriminately on your meagre resources of Spanish, Catalan, French and Italian. It will get you by for simple transactions and conversations pretty well anywhere between Venice and Cadiz. Se ti sabir, Ti respondir; Se non sabir, Tazir, tazir. Mi star Mufti: Ti qui star ti? Non intendir: Tazir, tazir. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-spanish-and-italian/851988/48 "2020-04-21T05:36:30Z")
I was always told that the “romance” languages were easier to learn once you learned a first one … since they were all interconnected ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-spanish-and-italian/851988/49 "2020-04-21T07:12:04Z")
I studied French in high school, Italian in college (with a background of hearing ItalIn, though never learning it, at home). I’m now more comfortable in French, though I was once fluent enough in Italian to be mistaken for a native. In Spanish I got a basic acquaintance from, no joke, reading subway ads in NYC and doing a rough translation based on my other languages as well as context clues. I can’t do much more than restaurant/doggerel Spanish, but using Google translate to aid conversations with my housekeeper has expanded my vocab a bit. I’ve heard Portuñol spoken by an Argentinian colleague, but it sounded to my ear mostly like Spanish that the Brazilians could understand. Portuguese is more of a mystery to me but there are times when I can grasp a phrase or two–this is useful when your Brazilian film crew is trying to complain behind your back. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-spanish-and-italian/851988/50 "2020-04-21T07:31:36Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > But are all Itagnolos the same? That is, if I lock one group of Spaniards and Italians in one room, and lock a different group of Spaniards and Italians in another room, will they end up making the same compromises? I suspect not, but it’d be quite interesting if they do. Apparently they do end up pretty similar even when arising independently - I think it probably works out this way because the two languages are not as ‘sloppy’ in terms of grammar and pronunciation as, say, English. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-spanish-and-italian/851988/51 "2020-04-21T10:16:18Z")
> [@TSBG](#): > > I studied French in high school, Italian in college (with a background of hearing ItalIn, though never learning it, at home). I’m now more comfortable in French, though I was once fluent enough in Italian to be mistaken for a native. I’ll probably never attempt to speak it, but I found that I could read a substantial amount of French, as a Spanish speaker. With practice, I might be able to understand it as spoken, but current I cannot. > [@](#): > > Portuguese is more of a mystery to me but there are times when I can grasp a phrase or two–this is useful when your Brazilian film crew is trying to complain behind your back. Pretty easy to read. I can understand spoken European Portuguese with minimal struggle, but Brazilian? Nope, no clue. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-spanish-and-italian/851988/52 "2020-04-21T12:45:09Z")
Of the major Romance languages (Spanish, Italian, French, Romanian, Latin), French is definitely the outlier. There are a lot of words that are cognate in the other four, but not in French, and the pronunciation/spelling rules are definitely very different (I think that French is the only one that can have non-homograph homophones). ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-spanish-and-italian/851988/53 "2020-04-21T18:11:57Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > I read an anecdote about an old Jewish lady in Sarajevo who overhead a diplomat from Spain speaking Spanish and thought he was a rabbi. The Jews of Sarajevo came there from Spain in Ottoman times and brought the Ladino language with them. Over centuries of no contact with Spain, they’d come to think of Spanish as an exclusively Jewish language. \*overheard ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-spanish-and-italian/851988/54 "2020-04-21T18:15:37Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Se ti sabir, > Ti respondir; > Se non sabir, > Tazir, tazir. > > Mi star Mufti: > Ti qui star ti? > Non intendir: > Tazir, tazir. Lingua franca, old-school. I understood this via Italian, though I can imagine it being understood through Occitan, Catalan, or Spanish just as well. Edit: Or Ladino _también_. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-spanish-and-italian/851988/55 "2020-04-21T18:32:14Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Lingua franca, old-school. I understood this via Italian, though I can imagine it being understood through Occitan, Catalan, or Spanish just as well. > > Edit: Or Ladino _también_. I got it in Spanish, except for tazir, which is the one word that is cognate in Italian but not Spanish (where it’s callar). Interesting that it uses the infinitive rather than inflected forms, which are more different between languages. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-spanish-and-italian/851988/56 "2020-04-21T18:36:59Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > I was always told that the “romance” languages were easier to learn once you learned a first one … since they were all interconnected Perhaps. Learning how a language is put together and going through the process of speaking and reading can help with learning a new language. There are similarities to the construction of romance languages. I had a smattering of Spanish when I went into Portuguese training. It didn’t really help much, as I had never been in a formal learning environment. Two years after Portuguese came French, which I did find to be easier to learn, but I tend to think that it was because I knew what to expect as far as learning techniques and structure. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-spanish-and-italian/851988.md?page=2)