Understanding ALL the romance languages?

[drp9341]

If you spoke, (or in the case of Latin could read & write,) the 6 most common Romance Languages at a C1-C2 level (Italian, Latin, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Catalan) and were well versed in Linguistics, could you theoretically understand and read all of the Romance Languages, (like Occitan, Ladin, Lombard, or Neapolitan) with the exception of Romanian, (and the other eastern romance languages,) without ever studying them?

Would you be able to understand them within a few minutes of exposure, or would it require a couple of weeks?

I am talking about passive skills. Obviously, someone cannot learn to produce a language they had, just 5 minutes ago, heard for the first time.

If one wished to be capable of something like this, what would be the best approach to take? Which languages give you the most bang for your buck, and in what depth should you focus on learning each of the individual languages?

[nexus]

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[Marah]

I have knowledge of 5 Romance languages my passive skills are probably in the C range for these languages but I still struggle to understand other Romance languages. I was watching Gomorra for instance, it's an Italian tv-series in which the characters speak Napolitan, I could understand words here and there like how "ho fernut" was "I've finished" but it was still mostly unintelligible to me, even after 10 hours of exposure.

[Ogrim]

I majored in comparative Romance linguistics and have learnt most of the major languages and some "minor ones". It certainly helps knowing Spanish, French, Italian and Latin when embarking upon another Romance language, but I would not go so far as to say that you could understand all the other without putting in a minimum of study. You could even misunderstand certain things. There are plenty of "false friends" between the different Romance languages. Grammar contructions can also lead to misunderstandings, for example, Catalan uses the periphrastic verb construction anar + infinitive (equivalent to French aller+infinitive or Spanish ir+infinitive) to express the past tense, while the equivalent in Spanish and French expresses the immediate future.

Some other languages, like Romansh or Friuli, are also quite distinctive with their own peculiarities, in the case of Romansh a strong Germanic influence on both vocabulary and syntax.

So yes, all the Romance languages have enough common features to facilitate understanding, but enough differences to make it necessary to do a minimum of active study in order to ensure that you understand correctly.

[Serpent]

I'm aiming to do that, with the big caveat that I'm not interested in spoken French (and in pronouncing French correctly). I'm interested in Romanian though
See this thread for a bit of an experiment. Reineke's explained his thought process when figuring out Sardinian.
@Marah do you have any experience with Latin and/or linguistics? Would you say it was comprehensible input for you?

A few major points:

• I bet all languages/dialects have words that are unique to them.
• However, most words that appear unique when you compare 2-3 languages will reoccur if you add more languages to the mix.
• There are texts that require you to understand almost every single word.
• But even in L1 we don't always understand what we read/hear.
• Texts become predictable through repeated exposure. Unpredictable texts (humour, experimental fiction etc) rely on your knowledge of the predictable too.
• Reading is easier than listening because you can reread and decipher, and if you figure out a word from the context it's easier to go back and reread the paragraph where you saw it before, possibly creating the context for figuring out more words.
• Etymology gives you a sense of security even when you don't really understand.
• If you want to understand specific minority languages, get exposure.

[Marah]

@Marah do you have any experience with Latin and/or linguistics? Would you say it was comprehensible input for you?

I only studied Latin at school for a year when I was 13 but I gave up after that, I've forgotten everything since! And I don't have a background in linguistics, I only picked up a few things by browsing forums like Unilang!
I don't know what you're referring to with comprehensible input?

[Montmorency]

Catalan uses the periphrastic verb construction anar + infinitive (equivalent to French aller+infinitive or Spanish ir+infinitive) to express the past tense, while the equivalent in Spanish and French expresses the immediate future.

What does "anar" mean literally? I only ask because Welsh (obviously not a Romance language) can do something similar (using the verb "to do"). However, in Welsh I think it acts as a true auxiliary (as it is conjugated into the past tense, and can do a similar job in the future tense), whereas I don't think "aller + infinitive" usage is quite an auxiliary in the same sense; Welsh (and indeed English) can also use "going to" as a way of forming the future).

[Serpent]

@Marah do you have any experience with Latin and/or linguistics? Would you say it was comprehensible input for you?

I only studied Latin at school for a year when I was 13 but I gave up after that, I've forgotten everything since! And I don't have a background in linguistics, I only picked up a few things by browsing forums like Unilang!
I don't know what you're referring to with comprehensible input?

Comprehensible input is basically when you understand enough from the beginning to keep learning by reading and/or listening. See this post by emk. Some people say you need a 98% comprehension for this, others start as early as 30-40%.

@Monty anar means go. No idea if this feature can be a trace of Celtic influence in Catalan

[Ogrim]

Catalan uses the periphrastic verb construction anar + infinitive (equivalent to French aller+infinitive or Spanish ir+infinitive) to express the past tense, while the equivalent in Spanish and French expresses the immediate future.

What does "anar" mean literally? I only ask because Welsh (obviously not a Romance language) can do something similar (using the verb "to do"). However, in Welsh I think it acts as a true auxiliary (as it is conjugated into the past tense, and can do a similar job in the future tense), whereas I don't think "aller + infinitive" usage is quite an auxiliary in the same sense; Welsh (and indeed English) can also use "going to" as a way of forming the future).

Anar is the Catalan verb meaning "to go", equivalent to Italian "andare", French "aller" etc. The root is obviously the same as in Italian (and Spanish "andar", wich means to walk), but in Catalan it has lost the "d" sound. It took me some time to get used to reading sentences with this construction and mentally translate it into something that happened in the past tense rather than something that will happen in the future.

Edit: I should add that in Catalan, in this particular construction anar is certainly an auxiliary which has lost all semantic meaning of "to go" and has become just a marker of past tense. So if you say vaig anar, you would translate it to English as "I went".

[Tomás]

There is a book is aimed at precisely the goal of linking understanding across Romance languages: "EuroRomCom: The Seven Sieves".