{"id":9239,"date":"2023-08-31T05:30:57","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T09:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/?p=9239"},"modified":"2025-02-22T03:39:31","modified_gmt":"2025-02-22T08:39:31","slug":"learning-romance-languages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/learn\/learning-romance-languages\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dos and Don’ts of Learning Romance Languages"},"content":{"rendered":"

While it’s true that Romance languages like Italian and French<\/a> have reputations for being a bit seductive, they actually don’t earn their name from romantic connotations.<\/p>\n

Instead, they all derive from the language of the Roman Empire: Latin. The Empire’s influence still holds today as almost a billion people<\/a> speak a Romance language as their native language, and 300 million more speak a Romance language as their second language.<\/p>\n

If you’re ready to learn a romance language, consider these 10 dos and don’ts so you can avoid the most common rookie mistakes, and set the right priorities from the start.<\/p>\n

[fluentu-toc]<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Dos of Learning Romance Languages<\/h2>\n

1. Do pay attention to gender<\/h3>\n

Unlike English, nouns in Romance languages have a grammatical “gender.” A word’s gender determines what articles you use with it and how it agrees with other words. For example, an adjective that describes a feminine noun gets a feminine ending. Think of the gender as part of the actual word when learning nouns.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For example, if you’re planning to label objects around your house to build your everyday vocabulary, use color coding for different genders. Or to make it even easier on yourself, check out VocabularyStickers, which are pre-made, durable labels that already come with color coding<\/a> for gender (as well as for plurals). VocabularyStickers come with more than 130 labels for everything from utensils to office supplies to your clothes and much more.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the ending of a word will help signal its gender or plurality status. Spanish nouns, for example, often end with an –o<\/em> or\u00a0–or<\/em> for masculine nouns, and\u00a0–a<\/em> or\u00a0–ora<\/em> for feminine ones.<\/p>\n

Not all nouns follow this rule in each Romance language, though! Some words either give no indication of gender, or may even have an ending that doesn’t properly correlate with the general gender rules of that language.<\/p>\n

2. Do learn the regular verb endings<\/h3>\n

There are three verb types in most Romance languages (Romanian has four), depending on how the infinitive of the verb is spelled. For example, French regular verbs end in either -er, -ir\u00a0<\/em>or -re<\/em>;\u00a0Spanish regular verbs end in either –ar<\/em>, –er<\/em> or –ir<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Identifying the type of regular verb is crucial to understanding how to conjugate it.<\/strong> You’ll need to take off the verb ending to get the verb “stem,” and add the appropriate ending depending on conjugation rules for that type of verb.<\/p>\n

Verb conjugation is one of the first concepts you’ll encounter in your Romance language studies and it can be one of the most frustrating to master. Making a habit of finding the infinitive ending will make the complicated concept of verb conjugation that much easier as you move forward.<\/p>\n

Pro-tip: One easy way to find the infinitive ending for any regular verb in French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese is to search for the last\u00a0-r<\/em>\u00a0in the word.<\/strong>\u00a0Then it’s just a matter of dropping that letter along with the vowel that comes immediately before it (and the one afterward if it applies).<\/p>\n

3. Do study some Latin and the IPA<\/h3>\n

If you plan on learning all the Romance languages, adding yet another language may seem daunting. However, learning a bit of Latin will prove worthwhile. Since Latin forms the base for all the Romance languages, it’s a great way to find the patterns that exist throughout each.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Furthermore, learning a bit of the International Phonetic Alphabet<\/a>, or IPA, will improve your ability to comprehend and correctly pronounce any Romance language. IPA is a standardized set of symbols that represent syllable and word sounds.<\/p>\n

Many dictionaries write the IPA next to its definition\u2014even English dictionaries. They’re often more accurate than the phonetic guides in phrasebooks as well. Plus, the sounds for IPA cover all Romance languages with the same symbols.<\/p>\n

So, as with Latin, if you learn IPA, you’ll have tips that apply to all the Romance languages<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

4. Do pronounce vowels the same (almost) every time<\/h3>\n

One of the reasons Romance languages are considered so beautiful is due to their pure vowels<\/strong>, also known as monophthongs.<\/p>\n

English speakers, and American ones in particular, don’t really use pure vowels. Nearly every Romance language does though. To identify this, take a listen<\/a> to some native speakers, then compare it to non-native speakers reading a similar text. Maybe even read a text out loud yourself. What differences can you hear in the pronunciation of vowels?<\/p>\n

You can also watch native speakers to see how they form their vowels. Often they’ll have much rounder lips than the average English speaker, for example.<\/p>\n

One resource for this is FluentU<\/a>. Each clip comes with interactive subtitles that provide on-screen definitions, audio pronunciations and other videos that use the given word.

FluentU<\/strong> takes authentic videos\u2014like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks\u2014and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.<\/p>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n

You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app<\/a> or Android app.<\/a><\/p>\r\n

P.S. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)<\/a><\/i>\r\n<\/p> \r\n \"FluentU\r\n

\r\n