Learning Italian

[serenade]

How difficult is it to learn Italian compared to other romance languages? I've had 4 semesters of Latin and 5 semesters of Spanish (and 1 of French). How would you say Italian compares to French in terms of difficulty? 

I'm asking mainly in terms of reading knowledge, though I would need enough speaking ability to function in Italy if I ever did archival work there. 

[knp]

I found that French and Spanish have a little more overlap, grammatically (verbs), than they do with Italian. So if you have a Spanish background, I'd guess French will be the easiest other Romance language to read. Reading Italian might not be quite as quick a process as reading French, but we're still only talking levels of simplicity: Italian's grammar is a little more different, but it's still very easy. (Also, Italian sounds more like Spanish, so speaking Italian with a Spanish background might be easier than speaking French.) At the end of third-semester, non-accelerated, no-background-in-Romance-languages-assumed college Italian, they had us reading a full, literary novel. Since you asked about other Romance languages, I will also say I've found Portuguese to be a little bit more difficult than the first three, but that's because the pronunciation isn't intuitive to me (even less so than French). Then there's Romanian, which is weirder, but yes: I've found that French, Italian, and Spanish are all at about the same difficulty level.

Although the one thing I did find is that it's very difficult to take two Romance languages simultaneously, unless (maybe?) you're at really high, literary levels in both. The time I tried to take lower-intermediate French and high-intermediate Italian is the one time in college I was failing things right and left. I just kept using this word salad of "romance language," with bits of grammar and vocabulary from both French and Italian, and it was awful. So I dropped Italian and then it cleared up.

[ExponentialDecay]

Basic Italian is extremely easy to learn (and to pronounce, compared to French). However, the literary language has a lot of tenses that are barely distinguishable between each other, other grammar woes that you also encounter in French, and very exact constructions. Italian is more regular grammatically than French is, but it also has more nuances, many of which people who don't read at a very high level have no idea about. I've been doing it for 10 years and my Italian friends still make fun of me. For reading knowledge, that depends on what kind of documents and what era (there are different styles, and the further back you go, the weirder it gets - try reading Dante in the original). I don't do scholarly work in any romance languages, but I don't anticipate it being any more difficult than French.

Edited October 22, 2015 by ExponentialDecay

[serenade]

At the end of third-semester, non-accelerated, no-background-in-Romance-languages-assumed college Italian, they had us reading a full, literary novel.

This is encouraging to hear. Was this a grad school course geared toward reading knowledge? We don't have an "Italian for Reading Knowledge" course at my university so if I took Italian, I would be starting at the undergraduate entry level. Is that what you mean by "college Italian" or do you mean you took a grad reading course? It would be great if I could get to that level by the end of third semester. 

[dr. t]

How difficult is it to learn Italian compared to other romance languages? I've had 4 semesters of Latin and 5 semesters of Spanish (and 1 of French). How would you say Italian compares to French in terms of difficulty? 

I'm asking mainly in terms of reading knowledge, though I would need enough speaking ability to function in Italy if I ever did archival work there. 

So I have about 10 years of Latin, 4 years of French, and 1 year of Spanish. I have found that I am able to read just fine without any additional coursework. Working in the archive is trickier, but I managed to get by. I found I could usually understand the gist of what was being said if I asked them to speak slowly, and they could understand me OK as I used my two months on Duolinguo to great effect.

[serenade]

So I have about 10 years of Latin, 4 years of French, and 1 year of Spanish. I have found that I am able to read just fine without any additional coursework. 

Are you referring to reading Italian or reading the above languages? 

[knp]

This is encouraging to hear. Was this a grad school course geared toward reading knowledge? We don't have an "Italian for Reading Knowledge" course at my university so if I took Italian, I would be starting at the undergraduate entry level. Is that what you mean by "college Italian" or do you mean you took a grad reading course? It would be great if I could get to that level by the end of third semester. 

No, it was the third-semester undergraduate course. I placed in, although I'd taken enough Italian that the first year undergraduate course must have been decently quick. Other people seemed to get the novel OK, but honestly, it was kind of beyond me! I managed to get the gist but reading that particular novel well was not something I could have managed until fourth- or fifth-semester. (E.g. I misunderstood what actually happened in the climax until we discussed it in class.) But I still thought that was a pretty fast language-learning trajectory in comparison with most harder languages.

[kotov]

Then there's Romanian, which is weirder, but yes: I've found that French, Italian, and Spanish are all at about the same difficulty level.

 

Romanian isn't all that difficult if you've studied French, since the language borrowed extensively from France during the period from statehood to the Second World War. The only trouble comes from the loanwords from Slavic languages, Hungarian, German, and Turkish. And the grammar is a lot more complicated since there are still three genders and case declensions, etc. But one could develop a reading knowledge of it reasonably easily if one knows French.

 

Sorry, I know the thread was about Italian, but when my romance language of choice comes up, I can't resist the temptation to chime in.

[dr. t]

Are you referring to reading Italian or reading the above languages? 

Sorry, Italian.

[serenade]

Sorry, Italian.

Ah, very interesting. When you went to the archives, did anyone speak (limited) English? Or were you totally reliant on knowing Italian? 

[dr. t]

There was one woman who could "speak", by which I mean she sometimes could give me an English word. Otherwise, I was forced to rely on my Generic Romance Pidgin.

I had made sure to contact the relevant department head at the archive (this was the Laurentian Library in Florence) well beforehand to obtain permission to see the document I wanted. She was not there when I was at the archive, but our correspondence was on file which made the whole process easier.