16 Mar 2022 12:11, you wrote to me:

 CN>> Italian and Portuguese are closer to Spanish.

 SB> Really? I mean, Portugese, sure...but Italian? That's closer to
 SB> Spanish than French? I find that a little hard to believe. However, I
 SB> am only barely able to hold a conversation in French, and don't speak
 SB> any of the others...so what do I know?

From my own experience, I find it easier to understand Italian than French. Spanish and Italian pronunciation are similar. I suppose that helps.

I don't know if they are closer from a linguistic POV, but I've found this:
https://thelanguagedoctors.org/languages-similar-to-spanish/
According to this article, Italian and Spanish have a lexical similarity of 85%, but French-Spanish is 75%

Carlos

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