I can only pick up a few words in a sentence, but I can’t deduce what is being said.
Yes and no.
Yes, if you speak slowly, with mundane vocabulary, yes.
If you speak too fast or use words that you wouldn’t normally use for day-to-day activities, like ordering coffee or food, or buying groceries…probably not.
​
That being said, most Portuguese people barely know how to speak AND write “properly” (notice that’s not an OR it’s an AND), and to be fair, you only need to know what, 5% of the words in a language to have a proper conversational level anyway? It is estimated that the Portuguese language has about a quarter million words, so 5% would be 12.500 words. That’s enough for your day-to-day needs and I assume the Italian language would be similar, since it also derived from Latin.
​
source: I’m Portuguese, I speak 4 languages, I don’t consider myself to be fluent in any of them, apart from Portuguese that is(I would hope…), and I still make mistakes in pretty much every single sentence when I’m speaking or writing in Portuguese.
I’ve lived with Italians for a while and it’s possible to understand a few things. By also knowing some 50 key words in Italian you can almost double what can be understood.
That being said, it’s still very impractical and most of the time I didn’t understand anything they were saying.
Still much different than Spanish, which I believe any Portuguese and Spanish person could communicate in their own language and understand each other most of the time.
Portuguese (and Spanish and French) are romantic languages that derive from Italian(Latin, technically), what this means is that we all share (mostly) the same structures when forming phrases and such, which makes it easier to assume what is being said, given you have enough context/knows a few keywords
I think it’s generally easier for a Portuguese speaker to understand (spoken) Italian/Spanish, than the other way around, as the phonetics of those languages are much simpler than Portuguese.
before starting to learn italian I couldn’t understant jack shit, but now I understand most of what they say, the learning curve is not so steep
If they speak slowly, yes.
​
When they speak fast between each other, no sorry can’t do.
I live in switzerland, huge communities of both portuguese and italians. Most employers here can speak italian. The portuguese that come here never learn german, because they can get along with just not knowing it. They’ll understand italian pretty much right away though.
I can understand most written Italian. Understanding spoken Italian is a bit more difficult but because many words are similar, if I can catch the main words in a sentence I will probably understand what it is being said.
Un po.
I never had much contact with Italian language but I liked very much so I started learning the basics in Duolingo. It has many similar words and the construction is very similar to Portuguese. The are many words completely different some false friends, which make it kind of difficult. But I watched the whole serie “Viola come il mare” without subtitles and could understand all of it. Of course the are a few words I did not know but I could understand the what they meant.
If spoken slowly it easier, like any foreign language.
19 comments
oui
Some words are similar which helps for a Portuguese to be able to more easily understand Italian.
Same goes for Latin from where both Portuguese and Italian originated.
si caralhoooool
Easier to read than to listen, but some words are similar
Can An American English Speaker understand German Language Even If It’s Different Similarities
Italian is just spicy spanish. So yeah, we can understand a bit.
Tb do OP:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ShemalesOnFemales/comments/wmdq6w/marriage_to_shemales_if_your_a_shemale_would_it
I can only pick up a few words in a sentence, but I can’t deduce what is being said.
Yes and no.
Yes, if you speak slowly, with mundane vocabulary, yes.
If you speak too fast or use words that you wouldn’t normally use for day-to-day activities, like ordering coffee or food, or buying groceries…probably not.
​
That being said, most Portuguese people barely know how to speak AND write “properly” (notice that’s not an OR it’s an AND), and to be fair, you only need to know what, 5% of the words in a language to have a proper conversational level anyway? It is estimated that the Portuguese language has about a quarter million words, so 5% would be 12.500 words. That’s enough for your day-to-day needs and I assume the Italian language would be similar, since it also derived from Latin.
​
source: I’m Portuguese, I speak 4 languages, I don’t consider myself to be fluent in any of them, apart from Portuguese that is(I would hope…), and I still make mistakes in pretty much every single sentence when I’m speaking or writing in Portuguese.
I’ve lived with Italians for a while and it’s possible to understand a few things. By also knowing some 50 key words in Italian you can almost double what can be understood.
That being said, it’s still very impractical and most of the time I didn’t understand anything they were saying.
Still much different than Spanish, which I believe any Portuguese and Spanish person could communicate in their own language and understand each other most of the time.
Yes, with practice.
I remember watching [La Piovra](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086779/) and eventually realizing I didn’t need the subtitles.
Its not easy but its easy-er
Portuguese (and Spanish and French) are romantic languages that derive from Italian(Latin, technically), what this means is that we all share (mostly) the same structures when forming phrases and such, which makes it easier to assume what is being said, given you have enough context/knows a few keywords
I think it’s generally easier for a Portuguese speaker to understand (spoken) Italian/Spanish, than the other way around, as the phonetics of those languages are much simpler than Portuguese.
before starting to learn italian I couldn’t understant jack shit, but now I understand most of what they say, the learning curve is not so steep
If they speak slowly, yes.
​
When they speak fast between each other, no sorry can’t do.
I live in switzerland, huge communities of both portuguese and italians. Most employers here can speak italian. The portuguese that come here never learn german, because they can get along with just not knowing it. They’ll understand italian pretty much right away though.
I can understand most written Italian. Understanding spoken Italian is a bit more difficult but because many words are similar, if I can catch the main words in a sentence I will probably understand what it is being said.
Un po.
I never had much contact with Italian language but I liked very much so I started learning the basics in Duolingo. It has many similar words and the construction is very similar to Portuguese. The are many words completely different some false friends, which make it kind of difficult. But I watched the whole serie “Viola come il mare” without subtitles and could understand all of it. Of course the are a few words I did not know but I could understand the what they meant.
If spoken slowly it easier, like any foreign language.