Should I study Spanish and Portuguese at the same time?
I am currently studying Spanish at a university, and this fall I will be in Spanish 301. I have a pretty good grasp of the Spanish language and was wondering whether it would be smart for me to begin learning Portuguese. I definitely want to learn Portuguese at some point in my life, but starting to learn it now would open up opportunities for me to study abroad in Portugal in the near future. This is a dream of mine because Portugal is a beautiful country and I love the language. I want to continue my studies in Spanish, as I live in the U.S. and Spanish is a useful language to know here. So, giving up Spanish in order to start studying Portuguese is not an option. Because Spanish and Portuguese are similar, I am afraid that I would start getting them mixed up. Do you think this is a valid fear? Or do I have enough experience with Spanish that I would have little trouble keeping them separate?
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Maybe it’ll confuse you… If I were you, I’d finish Spanish first and then learn Portuguese.
I recommend not to mix Portuguese with Brazilian Portuguese, because they are different (I’m not exagerating, very simple sentences change from one country to another, and if you say something in a Brazilian way in Portugal or something in a Portuguese way in Brazil, it is wrong, for example "I love you", the correct way to say it in Brazil is "te amo" and the correct way to say it in Portugal is "amo-te"). It might not seem much, but this is just one example. I’m saying this because there are many universities were they say they teach Portuguese when it’s actually Brazilian Portuguese.
You can see the differences here: http://www.necco.ca/faq_no_longer_camoes.htm
You can learn Portuguese here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/portuguese/index.shtml
http://eurotalk.com/pt/store/learn/portuguese
http://cvc.instituto-camoes.pt/guiadebolso/index.html
http://www.byki.com/fls/free-portuguese-software-download.html?l=portuguese%20european
http://www.youtube.com/user/PortugalForYou?blend=2&ob=1
http://www.portugueselearning.com/
http://www.travlang.com/languages/cgi-bin/langchoice.cgi
http://sites.google.com/site/afalarportugues/
http://avaxhome.ws/software/software_type/linguistic_tools/eLearning/rosetta_stone_portugueseurope_level_12.html
By the way, if I get thumbs down they are probably from a troll that keeps doing that to me…
I think you should try it for a semester and see how you do. The first semester of Portuguese will be fascinating enough to keep you thinking and talking about the differences, so there is little danger at least in the first semester. I actually think it would be fine to keep going with both.
I don’t know, I had a buddy who was studying both Spanish and Portuguese, he was confused and frustrated with both the languages that he dropped them. I would recommend to study Spanish first (since it is fairly easy compared to Portuguese). When your done with the Spanish Class, jump into Portuguese.
Boa Sorte!
I see 3 important words-want,dream and love.In order to learn a language you must have a passion for it and you do.I use Spanish every day and I have no desire to learn Portuguese.You are differentso go for it.
If you want to lear many languages as possible, I suggest you the LingQ method:
http://www.lingq.com/?referral=tarcnux