Originally posted by: Bossk
All "romance" languages tend to have similarities that allow you to functionally understand them all if you have a very strong grasp of another. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to imply that fluency in one is fluency in all. But you can pick out words here and there and, on occasion, figure out what is being said based on context.

I'm not fluent in Spanish, but I do have a strong grasp of it. As a result, I've found myself able to piece together stuff being said in Portuguese, French, and Italian. Enough to get by, at least.

I grew up in a town with a heavy Portuguese population (about 30%) and had many Port. friends. I also have many latino friends. The way I understand it, many hispanics have a great deal of difficulty with Portuguese, because of the sounds that are made during pronunciation, and some of the inflections. The reverse seems to be true about Portuguese people: they seem to understand Spanish quite well. A lot also depends on dialect. That is where the weirdness creeps in: most people who speak a particular language, like French, can understand eachother without a lot of work regardless of where they come from. There may be subtle differences, but it's not a huge problem. Canadian French can understand people from France and vise versa. However, Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese Chinese seem to be diametrically different.

I love studying languages. For me it's fascinating. I picked up more french in one semester in college than my wife did in 3 years of high school and a year of college. Just have an ear for it, I guess.