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Interesting, I feel like I have the opposite issue. Coming from Portuguese, learning Spanish was a breeze and I can usually surprise French speaking people with

Interesting, I feel like I have the opposite issue. Coming from Portuguese, learning Spanish was a breeze and I can usually surprise French speaking people with “hard” words in my basic French sentences — just because I reached out to a Portuguese word and “frenchyfied” it.

wwweston 7y ago
Spanish and Portuguese seem to be unusually close. Studying one helps me with the other. Portuguese and Japanese on the other hand...
- pushpop 7y ago
  The OP wasn’t talking about Japanese. They were talking about European languages- many of which share a common heritage
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Not all of them do, but the ones mentioned were all very similar Romance languages.
    - pushpop 7y ago
      I’m aware not al of them do. This is why I said “many” and not “all”. There are roughly 3 main groups of European languages: Italic (or Romance as you described it) for Western Europe, Germanic which is predominantly Central Europe, Scandinavian countries and the UK; and Balto-Slavic for Eastern Europe. Generally speaking of course. However there is still a fair amount of cross pollination even with the Germanic and Italic languages, not to mention shared characteristics (not least of all a shared alphabet) that doesn’t exist with Japonic languages such as, well, Japanese.
digaozao 7y ago
I think this dyslexia happens more with non native languages. Like when I was trying to speak german, after just some time in France. My native language is Portuguese
- saagarjha 7y ago
  German and Portuguese differ significantly more than French and Portuguese, so that might be affecting your experience…
marcosdumay 7y ago
Going from native Portuguese, then French, and only then Spanish (yep, I've gone to a crazy school), I got much of the problem the GP was talking about. I don't think I've ever spoken so much French as the time when I was leaning Spanish. There's something with those two languages in that they interfere badly.

wwweston 7y ago

Spanish and Portuguese seem to be unusually close. Studying one helps me with the other. Portuguese and Japanese on the other hand...

pushpop 7y ago
The OP wasn’t talking about Japanese. They were talking about European languages- many of which share a common heritage
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Not all of them do, but the ones mentioned were all very similar Romance languages.
  - pushpop 7y ago
    I’m aware not al of them do. This is why I said “many” and not “all”. There are roughly 3 main groups of European languages: Italic (or Romance as you described it) for Western Europe, Germanic which is predominantly Central Europe, Scandinavian countries and the UK; and Balto-Slavic for Eastern Europe. Generally speaking of course. However there is still a fair amount of cross pollination even with the Germanic and Italic languages, not to mention shared characteristics (not least of all a shared alphabet) that doesn’t exist with Japonic languages such as, well, Japanese.

digaozao 7y ago

I think this dyslexia happens more with non native languages. Like when I was trying to speak german, after just some time in France. My native language is Portuguese

saagarjha 7y ago
German and Portuguese differ significantly more than French and Portuguese, so that might be affecting your experience…

marcosdumay 7y ago

Going from native Portuguese, then French, and only then Spanish (yep, I've gone to a crazy school), I got much of the problem the GP was talking about. I don't think I've ever spoken so much French as the time when I was leaning Spanish. There's something with those two languages in that they interfere badly.