Not to take away from this, but from my experience as a non-advanced* Spanish speaker, there is some overlap in the Romantic Languages. If you speak slowly enough, you might figure out what you each are saying.

*Spanish was my second language, spoke it only to family growing up. I probably have a low grade school understanding of it. Enough to be dangerous and get around when I went to Madrid, not enough to not sound like an idiot.

Edit: When I wrote this comment, I was thinking of Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. While French is a romantic language, it can be its own beast.