French - Les langues romanes comme le français, l'italien, l'espagnol, le portugais et le roumain sont toutes des langues qui viennent du Latin vulgaire, parlé par les romains il y a 2000 ans. Comprenez-vous cette phrase?
Italian - Le lingue romanze come francese, italiano, spagnolo, portoghese e rumeno sono tutte lingue che derivano dal latino volgare, parlato dai romani 2000 anni fa. Capisci questa frase?
Spanish - Las lenguas romances como el francés, el italiano, el español, el portugués y el rumano son todas lenguas que provienen del latín vulgar, hablado por los romanos hace 2000 años. ¿Comprendes esta oración?
Portuguese - Línguas românicas como francês, italiano, espanhol, português e romeno são todas línguas provindas do latim vulgar, falado pelos romanos há 2000 anos. Entende esta frase?
Catalan - Les llengües romàniques com el francès, l'italià, l'espanyol, el portuguès o el romanès són totes les llengües que provenen del llatí vulgar, que els romans van parlar fa 2000 anys. Coneixes aquesta frase?
Corsican - E lingue rumani cum'è Francese, Italianu, Spagnolu, Portu è Rumeno, sò tutti l'lingue chì venenu da u latinu vulgari, parlatu da i Rumani 2000 anni fa. Chì capete ssa frase?
Romanian - Limbile romanice precum franceza, italiana, spaniola, portugheza și româna sunt toate limbile care provin din latina vulgară, vorbită de romani cu 2000 de ani în urmă. Înțelegeți această frază?
In English : Romance languages such as French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian are all languages that come from Vulgar Latin, spoken by the Romans 2000 years ago. Do you understand this sentence?
If you read this sentence in all these different languages, don’t you see a pattern? For educational purpose, I highlighted in bold all the words derived directly from Latin, I also highlighted words of latin origin in the english sentence.
As far as written comprehension is concerned, I think that any educated speaker of a romance language with some deduction and analysis skills, and with a bit of imagination, can understand most of the words, and the general meaning of sentences written in a different romance language. Some languages may be easier than others, depending on what your own native language is and where it is placed in the Romance Continuum. For instance, if I had to rate romances languages from the one I find the easiest to understand to the most difficult, given that my native language is French, I would say that : first would be Italian, it shares most of its vocabulary with french anyway, corsican would be on the same spot as italian, being closely related languages (both derived from Tuscan dialects), then would come Catalan/Occitan which are both at the crossroads between French and Spanish, then Spanish, then Portuguese, then Romanian, which I find to be the hardest of all romance languages to read, and understand in written form, mostly because of its heavy slavic influence.
As for oral comprehension, that’s another story. The problem is that 2,000 years ago, most of today’s romance countries were provinces of the Roman Empire, and they all spoke dialects of Vulgar Latin, influenced by their native tongues. Over the last 2,000 years, the lack of direct contact between these major languages made them evolve in ways that make them hardly intelligible with one another. If speakers from every village between Madrid and Paris spoke to one another (village A speaks to village B who speaks to village C who speaks to village D etc, from Madrid until Paris) in their own native dialect, it is likely that the message would come across from Madrid to Paris relatively intact. They would understand one another. But if a speaker of Spanish from Madrid tries to converse with a French from Paris, they will likely not understand each other at all, except for a few odd words here and there, mainly because of pronunciation shifts in all romance languages over the last 2,000 years. At a local level, from village to village, the pronunciation difference in different dialect is small enough so that they are still mutually intelligible, but this difference is much wider between dialects separated by thousands of kilometers, which unfortunately makes them much harder to understand, without prior knowledge; this is what is called the Romance Continuum.
Obviously, depending on where one is in the continuum, some languages may be easier or harder to understand when spoken, as is the same with written comprehension. For instance, as a native French speaker, I find Italian and Spanish to be the easiest major romance languages to understand when spoken. I had Spanish classes in high-school, so perhaps I am biased towards it, but both Spanish and Italian seem to be close enough to French for me to understand spoken sentences if they are spoken clearly, slowly, and in a distinct manner. Catalan, Occitan, Corsican and other languages closely related to French, Spanish and Italian are just as “easy” to understand given the right circumstances.
Portuguese? I can’t understand it, except a few odd words here and there. While in written form it looks very similar to Spanish, for historical reasons, in spoken form, it sounds very different, also for historical reasons. Portuguese, throughout its history, went through a number of pronunciation shifts which makes it sound very different from other romance languages. For instance, Portuguese uses nasal vowels, like French, but unlike Spanish, however, I still can’t understand much of anything in that language.
Romanian? I can’t understand it either, mainly because of its strange pronunciation, and its slavic influences. The whole thing sounds like an italo-romance dialect spoken by russians. No offense Romanian folks, I think your language is really beautiful, I just don’t understand any of it in spoken form, except for odd words here and there.
Finally, I should point out that when speakers of a romance language find another romance language to be fairly easy to understand, the reverse may not always be true. For instance, most French speakers who like to study foreign languages may say, as I did, that Italian, followed by Spanish, are the easiest romance languages to understand when spoken orally, without any specific knowledge of these languages, however, Italians may certainly not find French to the be the easiest foreign romance language to understand. In its written form, maybe, but when spoken, definitely not. Instead it seems that many Italians find Spanish to be the easiest spoken foreign romance language to understand. Portuguese speakers, on the one hand, find spoken Spanish pretty easy to understand, however, while Spanish speakers may certainly understand written Portuguese, most of them have no clue about spoken Portuguese, unless they get educated in that language.
I hope that I answered your question as you were expecting!