Why Italy

Learning Italian and continuing to learn Spanish, whilst learning Japanese?

At college (university) my degree is in Japanese (language) which i have never done before, i learnt spanish at school but never put much work into (i am a native french speaker, and they are very similar). I am thinking of take a spanish to improve my level, and take another clas to learn italian (which i have never done in my life), all this on top of my main degree (japanese). I asked my friend how is a native italian english french speaker and he said i would confuse italian and spanish, and he thouht i was best to concentrate solely on spanish to obtain a pretty good/high level. What do you think? Could i confuse them?

Public Comments

1. There is a probability that you will confused them since your not native to spanish or italian. Im a native english/spanish spanish/english and im learning Italian ... sometimes I do mix them up cuz they have some similtarities ... I think it depends. overall .. I would/have mix them up like 1/10 times .. but still could happen ... depends how your level of spanish is ... I think is also probably cuz I have been studying French for almost 3 years ... Italian verly 1 year and then Portuguese for 1 month hahaha... They are all latin base so .. I think they have ALOT of similarities ...
2. most people worry about that...but to tell you the truth that does not happen. nope doesn't happen. You should be able to see the difference anyway. all the languages are different in a way...I am learning Japanese and I am learning french and Spanish and I am taking Chinese next year. It is not that hard...as long as you do not take them right after each other...go for it...languages are fun by the way. If you enjoy languages like I do, then it won't be a problem. yay Japanese is cool.. It also helps if you have a native language other than English or are really good at english. I am native to Arabic so I guess it gets easier knowing a second language. konnichiwa lol
3. Yes. Italian and spanish are very similar. For ex. gatto is italian for cat and gato is spanish for cat. I'm sure there are more but I don't want to try and find them. Unless you are like a super genius (and have people you can speak to in the languages constantly) i would suggest not taking more than one language at a time. Gokouun o inorimasu!
4. I took French, Spanish, German and Russian all at once in my first year.... it went ok, but I still confuse things at times. Spelling especially is hard, since spellings in Spanish are close to English and/or French, and vice versa. Of course, they are all pretty similar languages, so I am not sure how Japanese would interact with them for you. I am taking Chinese now, and it is a lot easier than any of the European languages, but this is some years later for me. I would be cautious, especially if you are doing this to up your grades - it could backfire. Good luck!
5. It sounds like your languages are all at different levels, so I don't think it will be a problem. It's when you start more than one language at the same time that you get mixed up. I'm actually Learning Japanese and continuing to learn Chinese whilst learning Korean, I think we're in a similar situation! If you're interested in Spanish, try http://www.spanishpod101.com . I listen to their lessons, but since I've been concentrating on other things it hasn't really sunk in... you mentioned that you've learnt Spanish before so maybe it will be more useful for you.