A quick glance at the Catalán language

Do you speak Catalan?

I'm sure you have seen or heard, as I have, recent news reports of the independence movement in Catalonia, Spain.  How little I know about this autonomous region of Spain, and how little I know about the Catalan language!

A previous spark of interest in this language hit me several years ago during a family trip to Barcelona, the capital city of Catalonia (see "So many languages, so little time" in this blog, 2/10/16).

Barcelona

But as usually happens with me, I visit a country, get super-hyped about learning the local language, and then let my fickle language learning self put it to one side when I return home.

Now Catalan is calling to me again, although I am realistic enough to know I will never be a Catalan speaker.  But I would like to become better acquainted with this language that plays such a large part in cultural identity.

First, some basic facts about Catalan.  It is a Romance language, descended from Latin, like its sister languages French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, among others.  Nine to ten million persons currently speak Catalan.

Romance Languages Family Tree

Catalan is spoken in the small country of Andorra, where it is the national and official language, and in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, Valencia (called valenciano), and even a town in Italy and some regions in France.

Catalan-speaking regions

Beware of calling Catalan a dialect of Spanish!  It is a separate language. Monolingual Spanish and Catalan speakers cannot readily understand each other. Also, Catalan itself has six different dialects, evidence that it is a separate language. The written versions, however, of both Spanish and Catalan may appear similar enough for the reader to make an educated guess at meaning.

Because Catalan sounds like a mixture of Spanish, French and Italian (closer to French and Italian than Spanish), and I study those Romance languages, I am lulled into thinking that I should be able to at least understand Catalan.  Not! So I turn to my favorite online language learning program, Duolingo, to investigate Catalan.  It is available as a language for Spanish speakers to study.

Duolingo Catalan Lesson One

I tried out the first Catalan lesson on Duolingo. If you are acquainted with Spanish, see if you can guess the meaning of these Catalan words and expressions that I encountered.

un home
una nena
una dona
un nen
Sóc un home.
Jo sóc un nen.
Jo sóc una nena.

Some words look comfortingly familiar.  Un and Una are indefinite articles (a or an in English). Home looks like a shortened form of hombre (man), nena is close to niña (girl), and nen is fairly close to niño (boy).  Jo looks like yo (I), so  jo sóc  probably means yo soy (I am).

The spoken language may be more of a challenge, however.  A web search revealed some letters that  take special attention.  The letter combination "nya" is equivalent to the Spanish ñ, which is why you will often see the province name of Cataluña (in Spanish) written in Catalan as Catalunya. 

The "x" is a distinctive letter.  Can you guess the meaning of xocolata, one of my favorite comfort foods? The ç is an "ss" sound, as in the Catalan word for "to begin," començar. The "ny" is like a Spanish ñ, but with no vowel sound afterward, so baño (bath) becomes bany in Catalan.  And I also discovered that the "ll" is a different, harder sound than  the "y" sound those letters make in Spanish.

I'm going to leave Catalan on my list of Duolingo languages to study daily. The allure of using knowledge from other Romance languages to make quick progress in Catalan is too strong to pass up.  What an enjoyable way to learn about another culture!

 

Learning Multiple Languages—Help or Hindrance?

I have always believed that you can't be too thin, too rich, or know too many languages.  So it was a shock to me recently when my Italian instructor advised me otherwise.  Here is what happened.

It was the first day of Italian class, a mixed level class, so the instructor asked how many of us were Italian language beginners.  I raised my hand and added that I already spoke Spanish and Portuguese, which I thought would move me out of the novice category.  Imagine my surprise when she said, "Forget everything you know about those languages for this class." What??? Not only was my ego bruised, but I think she was dead wrong!

One of the reasons I chose to enroll in Italian class is that Italian is a member of the Romance family of languages, that is, languages derived from Latin.

Italian was the only major Romance language that I haven't studied yet. Surely I had somewhat of a head start with this new language?

The first challenge was to attune my ear to three of the unique sounds of Italian.  One of the main sound differences between Italian and Spanish is the Italian "c" in "ce" and "ci," which is pronounced like the English "ch" sound. In Spanish, the same "c" has an English "s" sound. For example, the word "cena" (supper) means "supper" in both languages, but the beginning sound is slightly different. Try saying it!  Not hard, just hard to remember at times.  Also, Italian "s" between vowels is an English "z" sound, which is different from Spanish, but the same as Portuguese.  Try saying "casa" in Italian.

Another major sound difference in Italian and Spanish is the frequent use of double consonants in Italian, which require a longer sound.  My cat, Bitsy, is a "gata" in Spanish, but in Italian, she is a "gatta."  I think those double consonants give Italian a special rhythm.  But the other Italian consonants and vowels are familiar to me from other Romance languages. (I'm contrasting my struggles to understand and speak Irish Gaelic, which I have been studying for about two years now!)

On to Italian vocabulary. Over 80% of words in Italian and Spanish are similar.  What a blessing.  I should be able to read and at least make a good guess at the majority of Italian words right now.  If you know Spanish, see if you can guess the meaning of these Italian words:  uno, spagnola, amico, macchina, musica, farmacia, contenta, importante, bene, casa.  (Uno, española, amigo, máquina, música, farmacia, contenta, importante, bien, casa.)  Fàcile, no?

My enthusiasm  may diminish when I hit Italian morphology and syntax (in other words, GRAMMAR). Italian has three possible words for "the" before masculine nouns — "il," "lo," and "l'," depending on the following sound.  Spanish has basically one word— "el."  Italian words change from singular to plural by changing the ending vowel sounds, for example, "il libro" (the book), "i libri" (the books).  Spanish makes plurals by adding "s" or "es." Italian verbs follow a typical verb paradigm for conjugation, but of course the endings for each subject must be memorized.

So does studying multiple languages act as a help or hindrance in language acquisition?  I  vote for help.  But I can see that I am going to have to assign a portion of my brain solely to Italian so that I won't mix up the Romance languages.

Maybe I'll just dream about renting a villa in the Italian countryside to enjoy with friends and family, and Italian will find a permanent place in my soul.

Why is language learning so slow?

Have you ever started language study with great enthusiasm and then dropped it?  I'll bet most of us have, with resulting guilt feelings .  Starting on the journey to learn a new language is one of my life's greatest pleasures.  I dream of a new system of communication, a fascinating vocabulary, and even the possibility of traveling to an unknown country.  But it doesn't take long for euphoria to disappear and reality to set in.

I recently enrolled in a once a week, twelve-week Italian class at a local learning institute.

Italian wasn't on my bucket list of languages to learn, but it was the only foreign language course offered this term.  Having a solid background in other Romance languages, I hoped that Italian would come fairly easily and that I could make quick progress.  Wrong!

Today's class is mid-way in the course, a good time to take stock in what I have learned in the Italian language so far. 

 I am becoming acquainted with the Italian sound system.  It took a while to remember that "ce" and "ci" require a beginning sound like "church."  Similarly, "g' takes on the beginning sound of  "judge" before "e" and "i."  Italian has double consonants that have a longer sound than a single consonant (compare Italian for "cup," tazza  with Spanish tasa).  The rhythm and intonation of Italian are also starting to become distinctive to me.

The structure of Italian gives me a comfortable feeling. It is an SVO (subject, verb, object) language, with verbs requiring agreement with subjects and adjectives requiring agreement with nouns. I'm sure some idiosyncratic grammatical features will pop up with time, but they will be intriguing rather than incomprehensible.  I can read simple Italian already.  

The vocabulary of Italian is proving to be more elusive than I would have imagined.  I forgot to take into account the confusion that studying several Romance languages at the same time may bring.  Am I saying a word in Italian, or is it Spanish or Portuguese or even French?  My Italian language study has not progressed enough to say with confidence!

And can I understand spoken Italian?  Not very much!  My husband, Wayne, and I were watching an old WWII movie recently where the action took place in Italy.  A Walk in the Sun was the title. Quite a bit of Italian was spoken (with no subtitles), and I know Wayne expected me to be able to translate.  All I could understand was a random word or two. (I guess I should have lied and made up a credible translation!)

Language acquisition is a relic in the modern world of lightning fast knowledge through technology. So much of the world comes to us so quickly.  We expect language learning to happen overnight. After all, if we need to know how to do almost anything, can't we just google it? 

Barring the unlikely circumstances that I will be spending a year in Italy or becoming best friends with a chatty Italian, I had better resign myself to the slow road to Italian.  Maybe I should stop worrying and just enjoy the journey?