"personal" in seven languages
Meaningpersonal
Spanish
personal
/peɾsoˈnal/
learned
Also a noun: el personal, 'the staff'.
French
personnel
/pɛʁsɔnɛl/
learned
Also a noun: le personnel, 'the staff'.
Italian
personale
/persoˈnale/
learned
Also a noun: il personale, 'the staff'.
Portuguese
pessoal
/peˈsoaw/
inherited
Shaped like pessoa 'person' (PERSŌNAM): rs became ss and the intervocalic n fell away.
Romanian
personal
/persoˈnal/
learned
Catalan
personal
/pəɾsuˈnal/
learned
English
personal
/ˈpɝsənəl/
from Latin/French · Old French personal, from Latin persōnālis
English → ItalianpersonalpersonaleCognateSame source — inherited, learned or borrowed. You can recognize it.What English and Italian share
The Latin ancestor
PERSŌNĀLEM‘of a person’
All six sisters descend from it, unless marked otherwise below.
The story
Learned in all four. The French spelling personnel came into English as a separate word for 'staff', so English has two words from one Latin adjective.
English relatives: person, personnel, personality
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In a sentence
- esEs una pregunta personal.
- frC'est une question personnelle.
- itÈ una domanda personale.
- ptÉ uma pergunta pessoal.
- roE o întrebare personală.
- caÉs una pregunta personal.
- enIt's a personal question.