I hope this gets controversial.

As you know I just came back from Italy. When I first got to Vicenza I stayed with an American couple who are in
the military in Vicenza. They have been in Italy for over two years with one more year to go. Neither one of them
speaks Italian. They live in an all Italian neighborhood. Nobody speaks Englsih. I know the neighbors are friendly
because I spoke to them. They have Italian TV and radio. The wife claims she doesn't really want to learn Italian
and the husband says he wants to learn and has been trying to learn but just can't seem to learn Italian. They both
mentioned that the Spanish speakers learn Italian while the English speakers are left to flounder. LOL!

(It's comical that the wife claims she knows more Italian than the husband who is trying to learn Italian while the wife isn't.
She actually makes fun of him. Says she can order food in a ristorante while he can't. etc. etc.)

As if all this wasn't bad enough they would at times be very nagative about Italian culture etc. etc. Needless to say I couldn't
get away from them fast enough. That negativity can rub off on you. Don't hang around Americans in Italy. Go total immersion. I did.

In my case I lived in Italy for two years, learned Italian and then came back to California and learned Spanish eventually getting my master's
degree in Spanish. All because of my Italian background. It would not have happened if I didn't know Italian. My knowledge
of Italian made it easy to learn Spanish plus my Italian background gave me the motivation to learn Spanish since there were
no Italian speakers around. When I would speak to Spanish speakers I felt like I was back home in Italy. After many many years
of not speaking Italian I started to study Italian 4 years ago. Because I had the Spanish it was easy to go back to Italian.

Over the years I have met many Italians nationals(not Italian Americans) here in California who learned Spanish. Infatti I have
yet to meet one native Italian speaker here in California that did not learn Spanish. They usually learn Spanish first and then English.

At the Bed and Breakfast place I stayed at in Vicenza the owner who only speaks Italian says he has no trouble understanding
a Mexican friend who stays with him every year. The Mexican friend speaks Spanish to him and he answers in Italian. He has
clients from Spain and says the samething about them. Also one time while I was speaking on the owners phone I spoke in Spanish
thinking he wouldn't understand. After I got off the phone he said he had understood every single thing I said. We laughed and laughed about that.



So if you're an English speaker trying to learn Italian and had the chance to learn Spanish and didn't you really missed the boat.
Or if you have a chance to learn Spanish and aren't learning it you're missing the boat. Not talking about just taking Spanish in
school. I'm talking about getting out and speaking Spanish with Spanish speakers. Also watch Spanish television and listen to Spanish
radio. Here in California we have the oportunity to do this. In many places in the U.S. you have the opportunity to learn Spanish.

English is not a Latin language but even still English vocabulary is about 50 to 60% Latin. So now just imagine Spanish which is a Latin language.

Phonologically, Spanish and Italian are very similar, so that a Spanish speaking person could effortlessly pronounce Italian, while
you cannot say the same for French for example. Italian and Spanish are closer to each other than say Italian and French yet Italian
is closer to French than Spanish is a proposito.

Learning Italian is as much as I can handle thankyou Villa! You are a natural at languages from the sound of it, and that's great, but some of us struggle, whilst being brilliant at other things. Each to their own. Ciao. Liz T

Utter Bullshit Villa!!!

If there is one sound that grates on my ears is spanish, it just sounds completely awful. i was travelling there for 3 weeks a few years ago and could not believe people would chose to learn it.

Any romance language...if you already have it will help you learn another romance language. This includes French and Romanian (the closest to Latin).

Even if English is your first language, if you have a love of English and see the links between words in English and Italian and the old latin, then the process of language learning is really fun.

I think though you are correct that the total immerson method, is the best, if you can afford it and circuimstances allow you to live there. but then if you dont a good language holiday every now and then would be useful.

People if you are learning Itlalian, focus on that, you dont nteed to do beginners Spanish as well (anyway it sounds awful).

Your friends sound like they are there for work and not interested in learning the language and understanding the culture. If the guy wants to learn he should do some private lessons, as doing lessons with others that are ahead can be bad for confidence.

Naughty Villa, I think that is very discourageing advice and not like your normal helpful self!!

What a post! Indeed it is easy to learn spanish if you know italian and vice versa A couple of my insights:

I am currently have been underway to basically study ALL 20 regional "dialects". They range from Piedmontese, which is a mix of french and Italian, Veneto, which is a mix of french, spanish, and italian to my dialetto Lucano which has hints of greek, albanian in a very napoletano way.

It is very interesting to note that some say that spanish and italian are the same when to me and my ears I do not agree. Now naturally this is different if we are talking about the spanish from spain and south america. My wife is Puerto Rican and they speak spanish in a similiar way to the way napoletano is(by cutting off words or having different words all together)

Also it has been my experience that when I have heard a spanish person trying to speak italian, they forget the simple rules of pronouncing. One of them that is clear is that vowels are at the end of most words, while spanish has constants...

I don't agree with you, MB, Spanish does not sound awful at all in my opinion.
It is very vital and passionate as a language, especially the Standard Spanish. I don't particularly like Latin American Spanish though.

Giuvà, you're right, Neapolitan is very close to Spanish (I speak them both quite well and I can tell), due to the centuries of colonization of Spain in Naples.


My theory is that it is easier to learn a language when you know a similar one, but especially when you love languages and you have a "linguistic" brain, by which I mean a tendency to understand easily the ways in which a language works and its structure.
Also, if you're very good at general linguistics, every language is a whole lot easier for you.

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Ciao a tutti, your posts have been helpful as I try to figure out the path I need to take to learn Spanish and Italian. I can't seem to let one go to study the other. I want both. Perhaps it is the latin American Spanish sound that puts me off a bit and not the Spanish language as a whole. It is helpful to hear that said. My son in law has ordered for me both Spanish and Italian in Rossetta Stone. We will see. I hope this thread stays alive, it is helpful to hear your comments and experiences as I work my way through this language fog.

Ciao/Hola nora. I learned Italian first and then Spanish. Now I'm dealing with both languages here in California.
Spanish is more of a language I actually need here in California and Italian is some what more of a hobby
for me. You can learn both at the sametime. I am.

Each Rossetta Stone program costs $500 dollars. I hope you son in law is paying for them.

Spanish a proposito is the language most spoken in the world after Chinese. It is spoken in some 21 countries including
the U.S. There are more native speakers of Spanish than there are native English speakers. Ironcially of those 21 Spanish
speaking countries the U.S. is the 4th largest Spanish speaking country in the world.

If you speak Italian or learn to speak Italian it will be relativamente facile per te imparare lo spagnolo.

I would suggest going to Language Learning with Livemocha | Learn a Language Online - Free! and learning there! Check it out!

Grazie Giuva, I have been playing around with livemocha and babbel.com. (Waiting to see if my son in law truly is going to send me rossetta stone.) Anyways,babbel holds my interest better. I'm not sure how many days these sights let you play with them before you have to purchase ? But both are giving me a great introductory start to new languages !

I purchased two helpful books yesterday. Italian and Spanish for Dummies by Berlitz. Both books follow similar formats which is helpful as I stubbornly want to learn both languages at the same time. I also like the pronucition helps that are provided in the books (It also includes a CD). The books along with livemocha and babbel are very helpful. Italian continues to be easier for me to learn.

I am curious to check out babbel. Grazie a te, Nora!