Disclaimer: I’m aware of the fact that these are not the only Romance languages in existence. Despite that, I thought it’d be much more helpful to focus uniquely on Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese and, to a lesser degree, Romanian.
- Italian, Spanish and Portuguese have a more phonemic orthography than French. In French, numerous letters are silent and multiple words are pronounced identically despite having a different spelling
- to my knowledge, French is the only (official) Romance language where personal pronouns cannot be omitted
- Italian words ending in -zione correspond to Spanish -ción, French -tion Portuguese -ção
- both Italian no and non translate to Spanish no, Portuguese não and French non and ne .. pas
- the sound [t͡ʃ] is represented by the digraphs ci- and ce- in Italian and ch- in Spanish, e.g.
It. Cina
Sp. China
- in Italian the combination qu- is pronounced /kw/, whereas it’s pronounced /k/ in Spanish and French, and /k/ and /kw/ in Portuguese depending on the following vowel. Consider this:
It. quando [kw-]
Fr. quand [kɑ̃]
Sp. cuando [kw-]
It. chi [k-]
Fr. qui [k-]
Sp. quien [k-]
Port. quando [kw-]
Port. quem [k-]
- in Italian the sounds /ge/, /gɛ/* and /gi/ are spelt ghe- and ghi-, whereas they’re spelt gue- and gui- in Spanish, e.g.
It. ghepardo [ge-]
Sp. guepardo [ge-]
It. ghirlanda [gi-]
Sp. guirlanda [gi-]
* Standard Castilian does not present the sound /ɛ/.
- in Italian the sounds /gwe/, /gwɛ/* and /gwi/ are spelt gue- and gui-, and güe- and güi- in Spanish. On the other hand, French gue- and -gue are pronounced /gɛ/ and /ɡ/, whereas gui- is pronounced either /gwi-/ or /ɡɥi/.
It. guelfo [gwɛ-]
Sp. güelfo [gue-]
Fr. guerre [gɛ-]
Fr. langue [-g]
It. linguistica [-gwi-]
Sp. lingüistica [-gwi-]
Fr. linguistique [-gwi-] or [-ɡɥi-]
* Standard Castilian does not present the sound /ɛ/.
- Italian and Romanian do not form their plurals by adding -s or -es at the end of a word like in the rest of the Romance languages, e.g.
It. buono, buoni
Rom. bun, buni
Sp. bueno, buenos
Fr. bon, bons
Port. bom, bons
- Italian is the only (official) Romance Language to have derived two distinct prepositions from the Latin preposition de, e.g.
Di: from Lat. de “of”
It. sono di Napoli
Sp. soy de Nápoles
Fr. je suis de Naples
Port. eu sou de Nápoles
Da: from Lat. de ab > *da(b) > da “from”
It. vengo da Napoli
Sp. vengo de Nápoles
Fr. je viens de Naples
Port. eu venho de Nápoles
- Italian, like French, has direct and indirect as well as stressed and unstressed personal pronouns
- in Italian and Portuguese, unlike in Spanish and French, possessive adjectives are always* preceded by an article, e.g.
It. il mio libro (cf. Cat. el meu llibre)
Port. o meu livro**
Sp. mi libro
Fr. mon livre
* in Italian, possessive adjectives are not preceded by an article when the following noun refer to a family member, e.g. mia madre (not la mia madre).
** posessive adjectives proceeded by articles are more common in European Portuguese.
- in Italian the word perché means both why and because, whereas they change based on their function in Spanish, Portuguese and French
- Italian per and French pour translate to both Spanish and Portuguese por and para
- in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, unlike in French, object personal pronouns are usually appended to infinitives and gerunds, e.g.
It. posso farlo (lo posso fare)
Sp. puedo hacerlo (lo puedo hacer)
Port. posso faze-lo
Fr. je peux le faire
- in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French, the subjunctive mood works similarly but not identically
- there are more cognates between Italian and French, and Italian and Spanish than there are between Spanish and French, e.g.
It. casa
Fr. maison
Sp. casa
It. testa / capo
Fr. tête
Sp. cabeza
It. mangiare
Fr. manger
Sp. comer
- in Italian, graphic accents are only limited to oxytones, that is to say words having the stress on the last syllable, e.g. papà, città, caffè, etc
- Italian is the only (official) Romance language that phonetically distinguishes single and double consonants, e.g. caro/carro, copia/coppia, papa/pappa, etc. are all pronounced differently (with the exception of the double -rr- in Spanish and Portuguese)
- in Italian and French two vowels next to each other undergo elision and an apostrophe is used, but not in Spanish and Portuguese*, which do not make use of apostrophe. This usually happens with the Italian definite articles lo/la/le and French le/la, e.g.
It. la + energia = l'energia
Fr. la + énergie = l'énergie
Sp. la + energía = la energía
* Portuguese uses the apostrophe almost exclusively in poetry, e.g. de + agua = d’agua.
- Spanish and Portuguese are notable amongst Romance languages for not having specific pronouns referring to place and quantity
It. ci vado
Fr. j’y vais
Sp. voy
Port. vou
It. bevo dell’acqua
Fr. je bois de l’eau
Sp. bebo agua
Port. bebo água
It. ne ho quattro
Fr. j’en ai quatre
Sp. tengo cuatro
Port. tenho quatro
- Italian and French use both essere/être and avere/avoir to form compound verbs, but not Modern Spanish and Portuguese, which only use haber/ter (or haver)
It. ero venuto
Fr. je suis venu
Sp. he venido
Port. tenho vindo
- unlike French, Spanish and Portuguese, during its slow evolution Italian dropped the etymological initial h- (silent in all Romance language) in words which originally started with said mute consonant, e.g. Lat. honore(m)
Old It. honore > It. onore
Fr. honneur
Sp. honor*
Port. honra
* it should be noted that not all Spanish words starting with h- etymologically carried it, e.g. Lat. ovu[m] > Sp. huevo.
