Well, it's not that much of a difference, there's the accent stuff, we portuguese talk faster than brazillians (i think it the same between mexican and spanish), some words are different (autocarro = Onibus) and the big difference is what was changed recently in our orthography ( (and we portuguese didn't really like it), we use some extra characters in some words, for example "facto" (it means fact) was changed for brazillian portuguese, they removed the "c" and now is "fato" (same word that we use for suit), these symbols ` ´ ^ (i don't know the english word for it, i think it's accent) was also removed, where we said "pêlo" now is "pelo" or "jóia" now is "joia".

It's stuff that you passed most of your life writting and reading like that and now they (government) want to force people to change it so that we share the same spelling/orthography (not sure what's the english for this) as Brasil. Uhm, tricky question since i don't interact much with spanish or italians, there was one time where i could undestand the guy (spanish) but he couldn't understand me, not sure if was just him or something more global.

See, some words are similar:

entiendo = entendo (understand)
Hablar = Falar (talk)
Cómo estás = Como estás (How are you)

Others are not:

Perro = cão (dog)
Padre = Pai (notice, Padre in spanish means dad but Padre in portuguese means priest)
Coche = Carro (car)

So, you see, it's easy to understand spanish (at least for me), as for italian, well, it's almost the same, there are some words that are also simillar but it's much MUCH different than our language, maybe i could understand some words but i don't think that i could fully understand sentences, perhaps spanish understand them better, i don't know. Romanian? Honestly i've never heard that language before so i've checked a video on youtube and from what i heard it sounds a mixture of itallian and... russian (?), some of the words i could understand but i think i would understand better italian than romanian.

So, i would say that i would understand (and this is me taking numbers from my ass, pardon the expression):

Spanish = 90% (there are still some words that i wouldn't know what it means)
Italian = 20~30%
Romanian = 5%

Note: Understanding, i would have bigger problems actually trying to speak those language and even worse, trying to write it.

I'm Brazilian and I can safely say that it's easier to understand some Spanish accents than the version of Portuguese spoken in Portugal, lol. They seem to talk way too fast - I think we put more emphasis on vowels than them, even on weak syllables with tonic vowels - and some common words have different meanings, as Cyraxpt pointed out. The newest spelling reform aimed at correcting quite a few inconsistencies on the language and create a single Portuguese language for every Portuguese-speaking country. Portugal took a bigger hit with this agreement because they had to change the spelling of more words than Brazil.

It's still fun trying to strike up a conversation with a Portuguese, though ;)

Romanian is using a lot of borrowed words: slavic, turkish, greek, german,, hungarian, french and italian(for neologisms) and some reallly old words from the vulgar latin used by the roman colonists. The language spoken by the inhabitants of Dacia was mostly lost with only an handful of worlds remaining (around 200 identified as such).

Romanian can be difficult, but the grammar structure is relatively similar to the french one. Spanish is probably a bit closer to the Italian, but not that much. I think french had more influence over the italian language and the italian language over the french. So those two might be closer than you think.

Here is a link for the romanic languages, just explore it thoroughly and you will understand better the differences between them, that appeared to the various historical conditions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages

As for romanian, i will put a few words:

Biserica in romanian (derived from the latin basilica), eglise in french, chiesa in italian, iglesia in spanish, igreja in portuguese - that's church in english.

Caine in romanian (derives from the latin canem), chien in french, cão in portuguese, cane in itlaian, perro in spanish - that's dog in english

But there are plenty of words in romanian that can't be traced to the surrounding neighbours or to the nations that influenced the area. We also have quite a few words that are closer to the old latin. I could probably break it in percentages, but i'm too lazy right now:p

It is 15 years ago for me now, but the 1870/71 war was part of the history lessons, so I assume that you just had bad teachers. Germany has many statues, monuments, places and signs for politicians and military guys from this era, so it is not "banned" oder "hidden". The most notable example is the Siegessäule(Victory Column) in Berlin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Victory_Column

Same here. History was one of my main courses in school (20 years ago) and we spent a lot of time on the German-French War in 1870/1871. Maybe we spent the same time on the failed revolution in 1848, but that's just logical as you have to know about it to understand what happened afterwards (and finally lead to 1871).

No, it's not hidden, but those are essentially part of the "background noise" of everyday life nowadays. When a historic military monument does get brought up in public discussion, it's rarely in a positive context. Specifically about the Siegessäule, surely you remember Heiner Geißler's (for those outside Germany: a once quite prominent aging politician who still has a lot of media presence) claim that the only proper way to deal with it would be to blow it to pieces as - no surprise here - "a symbol of nationalism and militarism"?

(And that guy is a member of a nominally conservative party!)

actually i am wondering how that heart murmur thing is going for you

GOG is based in Europe. So doesn't that make you the foreigner (respectfully)?

I believe it is relative to the person reading the title.

Thanks for your responses regarding the romance languages everyone.

If you want to experience something bizarre, linguistically, hang out with Finns in Hungary. Lots of double-takes walking down the street because it's like Hungarians can *almost* understand...

I do love language. :)

Thanks for remembering! I really didn't expect that!

The cardiologist says it doesn't sound as bad as my endocrinologist described it, but that there is something going on. I'm scheduled for a stress test and an EKG on the 15th.

Nice informative thread in a nice worldwide community as always here.

But a respectful advice ChaunceyK:
If you get into trouble at stresstest or EKG say it out loud and early - friend of mine had a heartattack at his test
and got two stents... age 37.... hes fine now but life has changed - also to us friends we live more aware now that everyday is a gift.

No worries, but dont try to be a hero!

Oh, that makes me feel so much better...lol. But your advice is duly noted.

I'm a history teacher in the States. We teach world history in 9th and 10th grades (ages 13-15, give or take). No U.S. history is taught during this time. Rome gets plenty of attention in world history classes.

Oops, I didn't realize how old this thread is. I've probably even responded to this question already. I guess I don't know my own posting history that well!