Uzma, one of my Pakistani friends, says that Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and French are just dialects of each other, and English straddles the gap between the Latin-based tongues and the northern European ones like German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian variants.
She is in a position to talk, being fluent in Urdu, Arabic, and English--all of which have completely different roots and use different alphabets, so you couldn't even use one of those translator thingys. She also reads and speaks some Farsi/Dari (Persian), Hindi (which she says is just a dialect of Urdu), Pashto, and Punjabi.
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Do you speak any other languages?
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MLE (Emily Cotton)
- Bibliomaniac
- Posts: 3565
- Joined: August 2008
- Interest in HF: started in childhood with the classics, which, IMHO are HF even if they were contemporary when written.
- Favourite HF book: Prince of Foxes, by Samuel Shellabarger
- Preferred HF: Currently prefer 1600 and earlier, but I'll read anything that keeps me turning the page.
- Location: California Bay Area
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whitelady3
- Scribbler
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- Location: Portugal
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[quote=""1lila1""]Also my graduate advisor was from the Azore's (sp?) and she's Portugese and speaks it as well!
Just typing this out I realize how connected to the Portugese language I am without actually speaking a word of it, lol![/quote]
It's Azores.
That's really interesting. I don't know many english speakers outside the ones I know from the internet, but I used to speak a lot while I was working on a museum.
Just typing this out I realize how connected to the Portugese language I am without actually speaking a word of it, lol![/quote]
It's Azores.
That's really interesting. I don't know many english speakers outside the ones I know from the internet, but I used to speak a lot while I was working on a museum.
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whitelady3
- Scribbler
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[quote=""MLE""]Uzma, one of my Pakistani friends, says that Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and French are just dialects of each other, and English straddles the gap between the Latin-based tongues and the northern European ones like German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian variants. [/quote]
Yes. Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Frech all come from Latin, but it doesn't make it easier to understand as there are several words that sound the same but sometimes mean the opposite. Spanish and Portuguese are somewhat more similar than the others, but I do understand some French also. Italian is a lot more difficult for me to understand.
Yes. Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Frech all come from Latin, but it doesn't make it easier to understand as there are several words that sound the same but sometimes mean the opposite. Spanish and Portuguese are somewhat more similar than the others, but I do understand some French also. Italian is a lot more difficult for me to understand.
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princess garnet
- Bibliophile
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- Location: Maryland
[quote=""whitelady3""]Yes. Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Frech all come from Latin, but it doesn't make it easier to understand as there are several words that sound the same but sometimes mean the opposite. Spanish and Portuguese are somewhat more similar than the others, but I do understand some French also. Italian is a lot more difficult for me to understand.[/quote]
Romanian is the 5th romance language.
Romanian is the 5th romance language.
