Is Spanish, Italian and French roughly the same

[AdamDavis14]

Do you think that Spanish, Italian and French are roughly the same? I was sitting in Bella Italia the other day looking at their menu and of course it is in Italian but I was reading spanish off it like pollo for chicken. Also I noticed french words that are similar to spanish, sort of, so I started wondering, would it be easy for me to learn French or Italian from Spanish? I know that there are different pronunciations and stuff but it would be easier wouldn't it?

[viciosomundial]

No, French is like a whole different thing. Spanish and Italian are more related though. I feel that if you were already speaking Spanish, learning Italian would be a piece of cake. You would be having normal conversations in about 3 months. In my personal life, I have heard Italians speak and can understand (or at least know) what their conversation is all about. It is still different though, but they do use similar language roots that make it all easier.

But yeah, French is like...completely different hahaha.

[GearZ]

All three are Romance languages, but in my limited experience in studying French, it is very different than the other two.

[Trellum]

The main difference between spanish and french is the pronunciation!  The french pronunciation is so different!  Actually french and spanish are really different from each other, but italian and spanish seem to be more alike. 

Those 3 languages are romance ones; they belong to the same language family.  That's why they seem to be a bit similar. It's also easier to learn a romance language if your mother language is a romance language as well.  But I think an italian guy wouldn't have such a hard time learning spanish, but a spanish speaker would have a hard time learning french.

[bonniea]

There are a lot of similarities but each language is different. I went to Italy, knowing no Italian, but knowing some Spanish. When in doubt I tried Spanish and had zero success. My husband who speaks Spanish says he does not understand Italian or Portuguese (another close language). We have friends who speak Portuguese and they say they struggle with Spanish. So even though the languages are close, they are not interchangeable. Once we had an exchange student from Australia and we had a real hard time understanding him and it is the same language. Accent and terms used was the biggest reason.

[jodiann12]

Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese are examples of romantic languages. They are all derived from Latin, so some of the words may sound or look the same in writing; but, of course, each language has its different set of rules. 

[rgaz83]

I have an Italian friend who says that Spanish is fairly close to Italian, as Romance languages tend to be. French, although a Romance language, has quite a few differences. I don't remember where it is, but there used to be a site/page that showed approximate percentage similarities between various languages to help you decide which language would be "easiest" for you to learn next. I thought it was at Omniglot, but apparently not or else they've removed the page.

I'm not sure how accurate it was, exactly, but it was still interesting. From what I recall, Italian and Spanish were something like 75-80% similar to each other, while French was something like 65-75% similar to the other two. English was like 45-60% to each of French, Spanish, Italian and German.

[Czarownica]

Just like everybody said, despite being similar, they are actually different languages. They have a lot of vocabulary in common and their grammar is similar - so if you know one of those languages, it'll be way easier for you to learn the other two, and also you might understand a bit of those languages even before you learn them

[BWL]

The grammar of all three are very similar. I must say that Spanish and Italian are closer in pronunciation and accent than French, so it will be easier for Spaniards and Italians to understand each other compared with trying to understand a French-speaker. On the other hand, the choice of words and grammar between French and Italian are closer than in Spanish. Italians who speak Spanish using pure Italian grammar sound like they're speaking broken Spanish!

[Gregor]

Although they have a lot of commonality they went off in different directions. Some words mean one thing in French but totally different in Italian - watch what you're ordering from that menu!

[mackie]

While no two languages are ever the same some similarities always tend to exist especially those within Europe as they all derived from one language. Also, aside from being derived from one language, languages also have the tendency to borrow from other languages. This is evident as in English we have borrowed term deja vu among others.

[leahcim132]

I would say yes. They are somewhat the same. I haven't studied Italian yet. However, I can tell you that Spanish and French are very similar. For example, the verb structures. They are pretty much the same.

[JoeDirt]

I don't speak Italian, but I understand most of it thanks to Spanish, but French? I don't think so, there's more commonality between French and English than French and Italian, I actually learned French thanks to my experience in English.

[AdamDavis14]

I don't speak Italian, but I understand most of it thanks to Spanish, but French? I don't think so, there's more commonality between French and English than French and Italian, I actually learned French thanks to my experience in English.

That's what I was thinking. Italian and Spanish kind of the same and then french just somewhere by itself.

[wholesaleblogger]

Do you think that Spanish, Italian and French are roughly the same? I was sitting in Bella Italia the other day looking at their menu and of course it is in Italian but I was reading spanish off it like pollo for chicken. Also I noticed french words that are similar to spanish, sort of, so I started wondering, would it be easy for me to learn French or Italian from Spanish? I know that there are different pronunciations and stuff but it would be easier wouldn't it?

There are very similar words in all of those languages and you could add in English also. I think this is down to the proximity of each country to each other along with the history of those countries way back and the wars, invasions that happened.

I have friends form each of these countries, as well as Turkey and they all have words that are the same, sound the same and indeed have the same meaning.

[JackBracken]

Italian and Spanish are way more similar too each other than French. A Spanish could read some of Italian while the same couldn't be said for French.

[JessiFox]

Well they are all romance languages, so it stands to reason that there will be many similarities. However, I wouldn't go so far as to say they're "roughly the same"...there are key and crucial differences between the three. I would say that Italian and Spanish are far more closely related than French by comparison.