Native Spanish speakers and Italian

[Roloman4]

Hello, I have recently become very interested in learning other Italic Languages. One that has caught my particular attention is Italian. I was born in Ecuador and lived there until I was 13, two years ago, therefore I am perfectly fluent in Spanish. I have also taken three years of French and I feel fairly comfortable in it. I was just wondering, given my background, how easy -or difficult- would learning Italian turn out to be?


Thank you, Gracias, Merci.

Juan.

[poli]

For Spanish speakers, Italian will be much easier for you than French. Much Italian translates directly or nearly directly to Spanish. All Spanish speakers know some Italian(whether they are aware of it or not)

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

Italian will be easier for you to learn. Grammar is more similar to French than to Spanish, and despite the differences, it's not too hard to learn. Exercising and writing are good enough to remember it. And one has to be very careful with false friends in vocabulary.

[Awaken]

I agree with everyone else. Learning Italian for a trip has been MUCH easier to me than it was learning French. The pronunciation will come very easy for a Spanish speaker.

[irmamar]

L'italiano é molto facile e divertente.

I think I'll take up my Italian books next year, I hope I haven't forgotten a lot.

Bella lingua.

[serendipity]

I can't really answer your question, I just wanted to say that I envy your ability to speak that many languages! Especially THOSE languages. I want to learn spanish... REALLY learn it, not just be able to order food in a restaurant, but actually read books and stuff. I find the grammar extremely difficult, and it feels like it only gets harder the more I learn.. I don't think I'll ever get the hang of it! Lucky you

[Caballero]

I'll help you learn to read it. Spanish is the easiest language to read for English speakers, or at least in the top 3. Because English has borrowed heavily from Latin, and Spanish evolved from Latin (at one time it was Latin, but has changed a lot over the years.) The part of the vocabulary that English that is borrowed from Latin is scientific, technical, and refined language. You can look up an article on the history of English if you want to find out why that is. So, what that means is that your vocabulary in Spanish is already in the thousands of words--you just don't realize it yet. This also means that you will be able to read certain things more easily than others in Spanish. It also means that you aren't stuck with just reading books for niñitos, which you would be for a long time if you were taking Chinese, or even German.

So, let's begin.
Go to www.wikipedia.org and select Español, read a few articles (without a dictionary or translator), and then come back here and tell me on a scale from 1-10 how easy it was to read the articles. Then I can get an idea of your level.

[pinosilano]

And one has to be very careful with false friends in vocabulary

They are terribly treacherous.
Some people as me have created a new form of expression with both languages: spanish and italian, called "itagnolo"

[poli]

Originally Posted by pinosilano

They are terribly treacherous.
Some people like me have created a new form of expression with both languages: Spanish and Italian, called "itagnolo"

People from Argentina have been doing this for over a century. Are you from Italy?

[pinosilano]

Originally Posted by poli

People from Argentina have been doing this for over a century. Are you from Italy?

I just said somewhere in these forums that my mother language is spanish and my stepmother language italian. Every day I used both of them and not always one at the time, but mixed.

BTW: as...like
Thanks.