I speak Spanish as foreign language, and once spoke a whole intercontinental flight with a Portuguese
This is my personal experience and observation: My mother tongue is German, but I lived 1 year in Spain's capital Madrid, where people speak the official Spanish language, Castellano.
I went to university there, and it is the local custom that at the end of the year, students do a trip together. We went to Cartagena de las Indias, a town from Spanish colonial times in Colombia.
On the way back, at the airport, we met a guy from Portugal. My Spanish friends tried to talk with him, but it did not work all that well. Both languages are Romantic languages, so have Latin as the origin, and they are closer than any other 2 as far as I can see, at least when it comes to the written language. Pronunciation can be quite different.
I happened to be seated next to the guy on the plane. It was a long, intercontinental flight, so I also attempted to speak to him.
I was VERY surprised: It worked actually as good, if not better, as for my Spanish friends.
How could I, with my less then perfect Spanish, speak more easily with the Portuguese?
It made me think a lot. I am not sure if my theory is right, but I concluded the following:
As foreigner, my brain was accustomed to receive "strange" words every day, not understanding parts of sentences etc. So I was trained to fill in gaps, deduce from context, be tolerant of unexpected pronunciation etc.
While the native speakers were much better at Spanish of course, this must have been the part they were missing. They could not tolerated a high "noise to signal" ratio. They needed "near perfect" Spanish, or it would not work for them.
My wife is half Spanish, and we always do like that if we go to Portugal: We speak Spanish, slowly, and it usually works if both sides try.
The written language is so similar that I can almost read a newspaper. I will get the main points.
The pronunciation is the main difference. Of course there are many other differences as well, but as to assuring basic communication, this is my experience. |