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It's very possible!!

Think about it. In English (Spanish, too, in your case) there are lots of words that when you hear you understand, but wouldn't think to use (like really big, multi syllable words!). It's kind of similar

In a situation where there are a lot of sound differences and grammatical differences it's hard to learn a language different from your native one.

Lots of times when a family moves to a different country, the parents will speak to the children in their native language, but the children might answer in the new country's language (because they'll learn it in school and speak it everywhere). Because the language they speak outside the home is easier and they get an education in the mechanics of it, the children warm up to the new language.

Your friend probably can say a few words for you in Italian, but constructing a sentence or even translating one into English might be difficult because he doesn't know the exact grammar. He probably knows the idea of the sentence.

Even in your native language you understand more than you can speak. Think about it

=D

I have a friend who's grown up in a house where most of his family speaks Italian to him but, he himself can't speak it. One thing is that he was never taught Italian grammar so although he knows many words, he has no idea what order to put them in or how to conjugate everything correctly. So a simple sentence like "Is he coming?" might come out like "He are come" if he were to try to say it; although I'm sure he could do something that simple but, you get my point. Also if you have never tried to speak the language properly, you become worried about your pronunciation.

I also can understand about 70% of what I hear on German TV and put together the rest of the meanings through context. I studied German for 5 years so I was taught the grammar (although I never really understood it). Still, I have tried holding conversations with friends in Germany in German and while I understand their end, they normally get very confused as to what I'm trying to say.

Its a lot easier to understand another language when you base it off your knowledge of English but, grammar, slang, and the natural flow of a language can be a lot harder to mimic. Also languages with a common origin as English makes them easier for us to understand. For someone who has learned Korean or Japanese from their family, it becomes a lot harder to put meanings or sentences together correctly.

Is it 'Can't' or 'Won't' ?

For most people, being shown clumsily breaking out a word here and there, constantly repeating and retracting to correct an error, is very embarrassing and even terrifying .. so, of course it is a lot easier to avoid all that and just listen and nod .. or respond in English ..

To say one 'cannot' is a bit dis-ingenuous. Mostly it is like the little girl scared to death to get on the stage, and simply refuse to speak her lines .. We see this everyday ..

i'm a welsh-speaker, and most of my english-speaking friends say they can understand welsh but not speak it.

i suppose a lot of this comes from confidence (or a lack of), and sometimes the phonetics of a language can play a part. english people struggle to get their tongues around the 'ch' and 'll' noises in welsh, and this puts them off trying. especially if there are some native speakers that readily take the micky out of someone for pronouncing something incorrectly.

It is possible. I understand Hindi but can't speak it because I have never used Hindi in actual conversation. Sometimes it is out of fear because though you know the words you are afraid of using improper grammar or the wrong words and offending someone. There is something called atrophy. If you don't use something for a while it becomes harder to use it.

You can have passive vocabulary (you know what words mean when you hear them) and active vocabulary (you can use the words yourself). For example when you read something in a foreign language you can deduct the meaning from the context or you can understand a certain word, but if you were to translate from your own language to the foreign language you might not know or recall what that word is.

So yes, people can understand a language, but not speak it. Especially if the langages are similar (for example Spanish and Italian).

I speak German as a second language and from that I can understand and read Afrikaans and Dutch perfectly well. The problem is, that I cannot answer or have a conversation with a Dutch or Afrikaans speaker because my answer will always contain German pronunciation, grammar and words.

Dutch, English, French, German, and rather slightly of Spanish. Dutch is my major language French and German I discovered in secondary tuition and English got here whilst I moved to America for university. I'm operating on Spanish however you cannot be fluent in the whole thing I bet

Part of it is familiarity with the language, if you've studied it but forgotten much of it, you may recall it as you hear it, but not be able to speak it. Also, if a language is similar to English, such as Frisian, it's not unreasonable to expect someone to understand Frisian without knowing any of it, possibly even assuming it's a dialect of English a strange accent.

I can speak German, and because of that, I can understand some Dutch, because they're from the same family of languages, and they're very similar. I can't actually speak Dutch, though.