Learn Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French at the same time. Lesson #1

I want to become fluent in 4 languages. I invite you to join me. Let’s learn Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French.

Working at Strommen I come into a lot of contact with different languages and cultures.

Over the last 7 years of teaching Italian, studying Spanish and practicing my broken French, I began noticing that Portuguese was also starting to make sense. I noticed a sort of snow-ball effect with all 4 languages. The reason for this can surely be attributed to the fact that they are all romantic languages; they share the common ancestry of Latin.

Let’s start with a nice example of this.
The verb “to love” in English is conjugated like so:

To Love

I love
you love
he, she or it Loves
we love
you plural (or as I like to say ya’ll) love
they love

Many English speakers don’t even think of verb conjugation, as verbs don’t really change in English. Note that for 6 conjugations there are only two forms “Love” and “Loves”

 

Let’s take a look at Latin:

Amare
Amo – I love
Amas – You love
Amat – He loves
Amamus – We love
Amatis – Ya’ll love
Amant – They love 

Italian:

Amare
Amo – I love
Ami – you love
Ama – He, she, it loves
Amiamo – We love
Amate – Ya’ll love
Amano – They love

Portuguese:

Amar
amo – I Love
amas – you love
ama – he, she it, loves
amamos – We love
amais – Ya’ll love
amam – They love

Spanish (including the Vosotros used in Spain)

Amar
amo – I Love
amas – you love
ama – he, she it, loves
amamos – We love
amáis – Ya’ll love
aman – They love

French: (the personal pronouns “I” “you” “he” etc. are required unlike in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese) Note that to love also means to like in French.

Aimer
j’ aime – I love /  like 
tu aimes – You love /  like
il / elle / on aime – he she or one loves / likes
nous aimons – we love / like 
vous aimez – you love / like 
ils aiment – they love/ like

Lets compare those in a chart (the blue text shows exact matches across all four languages)

Latin: Amare Italian: Amare Spanish: Amar Portuguese: Amar French: Am English
Amo Amo Amo Amo j’ aime I love
Amas Ami Amas Amas tu aimes You love
Amat Ama Ama Ama il aime He loves
Amamus Amiamo Amamos Amamos nous aimons We love
Amatis Amate Amais Amais vous aimez You (pl) love
Amant Amano Aman Amam ils aiment They love

 

Looking at this chart it would male sense that as my Italian and Spanish improve so would my portuguese.

If you’re like me the idea of tackling these languages at the same time sounds fun. Try to memorize these verb conjugations. I will post a video soon, but in the mean time feel free to use the videos below to practice your pronunciation. A lesson on pronunciation will be in episode #2.

Italian:

Spanish:

Portuguese:

French:

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