David

I am interested to know what languages is used in Europe, and how
close these languages are to each other in terms of being understood.

I'm thinking (High German) can usually be understood by most Swiss
(East of Fribourg anyway), and Austrians. Certainly many Dutch people
seem to have no problem with German.

Is this info described on a map somewhere ?
Any help appreciated
Dave

Deep Frayed Morgues

On 24 Nov 2004 06:01:43 -0800, [email protected] (David)
wrote:

    >I am interested to know what languages is used in Europe, and how
    >close these languages are to each other in terms of being understood.
    >I'm thinking (High German) can usually be understood by most Swiss
    >(East of Fribourg anyway), and Austrians. Certainly many Dutch people
    >seem to have no problem with German.
    >Is this info described on a map somewhere ?
    >Any help appreciated

I believe Estonian is considered the most difficult, but that is just
from what I have read. It has a spectacular 14 cases (Latin has 5, and
German has 4), no articles, no future tense, double infinitives
(however that works), and no gender.

Apparently it's related to Finnish, although the two are a long way
from being interchangeable. It also sounds quite interesting too, with
quite a few 'muted' tones, and the 'L' sound is kind of rolls around
in the mouth.

Here's more info:
http://muhu.www.ee/By_Subject/Language/lang-faq.html
---
DFM

B Vaughan

On 24 Nov 2004 06:01:43 -0800, [email protected] (David)
wrote:

    >I am interested to know what languages is used in Europe, and how
    >close these languages are to each other in terms of being understood.
    >I'm thinking (High German) can usually be understood by most Swiss
    >(East of Fribourg anyway), and Austrians. Certainly many Dutch people
    >seem to have no problem with German.

Dutch is an entirely different language from German, and if Dutch
people can understand it a little, it's because they have at least
some understanding of the differences.

Italians can usually understand a bit of Spanish, but the reverse
doesn't seem to be true. I would imagine that there's also a certain
amount of comprehension between Spanish and Portuguese.

The Scandanavian languages (Swedish, Danish and Norwegian) can be
mutually understood to a certain extent.

In most countries a lot of people understand some English, but this is
because they've studied it. Probably the second language for
widespread understanding because of study is French, especially by
older people.
--
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup

Trish

"David" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected] m...
    >I am interested to know what languages is used in Europe, and how
    > close these languages are to each other in terms of being understood.
    > I'm thinking (High German) can usually be understood by most Swiss
    > (East of Fribourg anyway), and Austrians. Certainly many Dutch people
    > seem to have no problem with German.


Italians seem to understand Romanian and vice versa.

--
Trish
Dublin, Ireland

_merlinO_

"Trish" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

[...]
    > Italians seem to understand Romanian and vice versa.

I'm not so sure ;-) (I'm italian)
Italians can understand a bit of Spanish, and maybe the reverse is true (are
similar languages but many words are very different). Portuguese is similar
to Brazilian, not Italian or Spanish.s

    > Trish
    > Dublin, Ireland

merlinO

nitram

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 17:32:58 +0100, B Vaughan<[email protected]> wrote:

    >On 24 Nov 2004 06:01:43 -0800, [email protected] (David)
    >wrote:
    >>I am interested to know what languages is used in Europe, and how
    >>close these languages are to each other in terms of being understood.
    >>I'm thinking (High German) can usually be understood by most Swiss
    >>(East of Fribourg anyway), and Austrians. Certainly many Dutch people
    >>seem to have no problem with German.
    >Dutch is an entirely different language from German, and if Dutch
    >people can understand it a little, it's because they have at least
    >some understanding of the differences.

It's because they have the same roots.
--
Martin

Magda

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 17:44:02 +0100, in rec.travel.europe, "_merlinO_"
<[email protected]> arranged some electrons, so they looked like this :

...
... "Trish" <[email protected]> wrote in message
... news:[email protected]...
...
... [...]
... > Italians seem to understand Romanian and vice versa.
...
... I'm not so sure ;-) (I'm italian)
... Italians can understand a bit of Spanish, and maybe the reverse is true (are
... similar languages but many words are very different). Portuguese is similar
... to Brazilian, not Italian or Spanish.s

The Brazilian language DOES NOT exist. It's called Portuguese over there.

Gerald Oliver Swift

"_merlinO_" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > "Trish" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    > news:[email protected]...
    > [...]
    >> Italians seem to understand Romanian and vice versa.
    > I'm not so sure ;-) (I'm italian)
    > Italians can understand a bit of Spanish, and maybe the reverse is true
    > (are similar languages but many words are very different). Portuguese is
    > similar to Brazilian, not Italian or Spanish.s

Portuguese similar to Brazilian?

Like English is similar to Australian?

Gerry

Trish

"_merlinO_" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > "Trish" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    > news:[email protected]...
    > [...]
    >> Italians seem to understand Romanian and vice versa.
    > I'm not so sure ;-) (I'm italian)
    > Italians can understand a bit of Spanish, and maybe the reverse is true
    > (are similar languages but many words are very different). Portuguese is
    > similar to Brazilian, not Italian or Spanish.s

Perhaps I am wrong. I can only go on what I see in our school.
The Romanian children can easily make themselves understood to our Italian
classroom assistants, even before they start classes in Italian.

--
Trish
Dublin, Ireland

nitram

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 17:25:35 -0000, "Trish" <[email protected]>
wrote:

    >"_merlinO_" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    >news:[email protected]...
    >> "Trish" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    >> news:[email protected]...
    >> [...]
    >>> Italians seem to understand Romanian and vice versa.
    >> I'm not so sure ;-) (I'm italian)
    >> Italians can understand a bit of Spanish, and maybe the reverse is true
    >> (are similar languages but many words are very different). Portuguese is
    >> similar to Brazilian, not Italian or Spanish.s
    >Perhaps I am wrong. I can only go on what I see in our school.
    >The Romanian children can easily make themselves understood to our Italian
    >classroom assistants, even before they start classes in Italian.

Kids pick up languages very quickly at that age. Our two could cope
with English, Dutch, French and Italian at that the age of seven.
--
Martin

Gunter Herrmann

Hi!

Deep Frayed Morgues wrote:

    > I believe Estonian is considered the most difficult

    > Apparently it's related to Finnish, although the two are a long way
    > from being interchangeable.

Hungarian is a third language belonging to the same group, and
there are other similar languages in Western Siberia.

brgds

--
Gunter Herrmann
Naples, Florida, USA

barney

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (B
Vaughan) wrote:

    > Italians can usually understand a bit of Spanish, but the reverse
    > doesn't seem to be true.

I've sometimes fallen back on Italian when I can't recall - or just never
knew - a Spanish word, and it's usually worked. That's not the same as
understanding the language fully, of course: it may just be a matter of
sharing so many roots.

    > Dutch is an entirely different language from German, and if Dutch
    > people can understand it a little, it's because they have at least
    > some understanding of the differences.

If you know English and a little German (or maybe also German and a little
English), you can get a surprising amount of sense out of a Dutch
newspaper without knowing a word of Dutch!

Tim

"_merlinO_" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > "Trish" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    > news:[email protected]...
    > [...]
    >> Italians seem to understand Romanian and vice versa.
    > I'm not so sure ;-) (I'm italian)

Have you tried?
Been to a couple of web pages and it really does look like
it's a page full of italian.
CNN recently had a profile of Romanian children being sold to
the west. I could understand about 30% of what they said,
my Italian colleage in excess of 60%

tim

Deep Frayed Morgues

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 17:32:58 +0100, B Vaughan<[email protected]> wrote:

    >The Scandanavian languages (Swedish, Danish and Norwegian) can be
    >mutually understood to a certain extent.

I think Danish differs quite markedly from the other two in a spoken
sense, even if it's similar when written.
---
DFM

Gunter Herrmann

[email protected] wrote:

    > If you know English and a little German (or maybe also German and a little
    > English), you can get a surprising amount of sense out of a Dutch
    > newspaper without knowing a word of Dutch!

see:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...&output=gplain

In my experience (a German native living in the USA) you have to
read it out loud to understand the meaning. But by this
technique I was quite able to understand written Dutch.
But I was totally lost with spoken Dutch.

brgds

--
Gunter Herrmann
Naples, Florida, USA