Learn to Speak and Understand Spanish
I would like to learn both of these languages. I heard that a Portugese speaking person can understand Spanish but a Spanish speaking person can't understand Portuguese that well. Should I study Portuguese first? Will it be easy to learn Spanish from there? I don't want to learn both at the same time, I think I would become confused.
Home | Contact | About | Privacy Policy | Sitemap
Filed under: Spanish Lessons
|
|
Fully Conjugated Verbs Spanish Language Flashcards All Tenses FREE BONUS US $14.95 --> Ends in : 44m <-- |
|
|
SPANISH LANGUAGE COURSE LEARN TO SPEAK SPANISH THE SIMPLY AND EASY WAY US $4.34 --> Ends in : 1h 5m <-- |
|
|
1966 Pan American Whiskey Spanish Language Print Ad US $9.99 --> Ends in : 1h 11m <-- |
|
|
Vintage Linguaphone Spanish Language Set Records Good Condition US $35.00 --> Ends in : 1h 19m <-- |
|
|
Littlest Pet Shop Se mia Spanish language edition of Littlest Pet Shop Be Mi US $4.98 --> Ends in : 1h 37m <-- |
|
|
Vamos a Mexico Forrester Loly Spanish language textbook hc 1936 US $6.99 --> Ends in : 1h 44m <-- |
Hey, I’m having a lazy Saturday morning, so here goes one of my long answers:
From a learning standpoint, I would start with Spanish. It is an easier language to get started with. It is almost 100% phonetic (almost all sounds can only be spelled one way with just a few exceptions). Also, most of the sounds exist in English, even if you have to retrain your mouth to form a good accent. The first year grammar is pretty easy, but beware that the second year is a big hump for a lot of people because Spanish has more verb conjugations than any other romance language. The good thing is that there are plenty of opportunities to practice it, particularly in the U.S. Once you have the Romance language grammar down with Spanish, it will be easier to take up Portuguese.
Portuguese is one of the harder languages I’ve ever studied. There are lots of sounds that do not exist in English (all those nasalizations) and the grammar is so complicated that even native speakers ignore some of the rules. There is definitely a bigger difference between spoken Portuguese and written Portuguese.
I don’t know where you are in your education, but whatever you do, I would recommend spending at least 4-5 years getting one down before attempting the other. They do get muddled up, and "Portunhol" is only good enough to get by as a tourist. If you want to use the language for work, living, or love, you’ll want to know it well.
I’ve always heard that Portuguese speakers understand Spanish but not vice versa. Knowing Spanish, you may be able to understand European Portuguese, but Brazilian Portuguese, particularly Bahiano or Carioca Portuguese is definitely another thing.
If you do want to learn a language for work, knowing Spanish and Portuguese is a 1-2 punch. Like others have said here, there are lots of Spanish speakers in the world, particularly in the U.S., so being a gringo who speaks Spanish as a foreign language is not particularly special anymore. However, being able to speak Spanish and Portuguese is really helpful if you want to do business in Latin America.
Boa sorte!
Honestly, I think Portuguese is a more interesting language. A good friend of mine is fluent in Portuguese, and he passed college Spanish with flying colors. He said it would not have been so easy if it were the other way around.
Study Spanish. there are more people who speak spanish wideworld than portuguese…. and Spanish is very useful.
i’m spanish and i can understand a portuguese person. if i don’t be wrong, theportuguese is from the galician-portuguese(a dialect of the spanish). the both languages are very similar like all the romanic languages. the portuguese was a dialect of the latin that changed. the spanish was the same. so you can stand a portuguese if you speak spanish and vice versa.
I am somebody who can be deemed as fluent in Spanish since I speak the language quite well.
Yesterday, I decided that I would start learning Portuguese aswell and have already started using various websites to aid me. I would suggest that you learn Spanish first because in my opinion (not necessarily true), I think that it can be deemed as the ‘centre language’ to all romance languages since once you know it, you’d be able to understand and possibly read others, including Portuguese quite well.
Also, with Spanish and Portugese, there are many linguistic links so it shouldn’t be much of a problem in learning the two.
Hope that helped!
=]
There is no technical reason why it would be easier or harder to study one before the other. Portuguese speaking people tend to understand Spanish more than the other way around because they are forced to more frequently since they are outnumbered. Spanish speaking people might never have to deal with Portuguese speaking people or Portuguese literature. That is not so for Portuguese speaking people.
You heard wrong. A Spanish-speaking person can certainly understand Portuguese!
Spanish is not only more widely spoken than Portuguese, but it is also more of a core language for learning other romance languages such as French and Italian.
Spanish would be much more effeciant with regards to your career, however, portuguese might sound more romantic.!
I think that you should speak Portuguese becuause there are alot of ppl that know spanish so they got you covered. Portuguese sounds rlly cool anyways!!
If learning a language is easy for you it probably makes no big difference which of these you learn first. I suggest, from reading the answers, that it boils down to what you feel like doing.
Since you plan to do both, start with the language that has the most verb forms.
In case you missed it; you might enjoy this non-profit site http://www.verbix.com
Spanish is mostly used in many parts of the world than Portugese. I suggest Spanish it is easier.
umm NO, im spanish and i can understand portuguese very well really, and i dont speak it
learn spanish, only cuz its mostly spoken than portuguese, honestly
You could study both, but Spanish is more important because in America has more native Spanish speaker than native Portuguese speaker…
“a big hump for a lot of people because Spanish has more verb conjugations than any other romance language”
That’s not true. Portuguese has the most. It has the Personal Infinitive, which does not exist in Spanish, and it still employs the Future Subjunctive– necessary in everyday speech and writing– which is archaic and not used in modern spanish. With that said, I am a fluent reader of Portuguese and a good speaker. My Brazilian friends say I have an accent, and I still speak using English sayings– that is, I don’t know the `way`, instinctively, that a native speaker would say something.
With all that said it took me around 6 months to get some conversational fluency, and around 8 months to be comfortable hearing and understanding lectures, reading complicated novels and poetry, and to be able to hold conversations and express myself without having to use a dictionary. It helps that I am an English student, have a huge vocabulary, lots of freetime, and enjoy reading and studying 5-8 hours a day.
For me, reading Spanish with my knowledge of portuguese is easy. It has less verb conjugations, material is more widely available, and the amount of cognates make reading and listening easy. If you learn portuguese first spanish will be easier: portuguese has more verbs, more sounds, and less available learning material. I would recommend a membership to a University library– for grammar books and dictionaries– and a Kindle–because they’re are thousands of free books in portuguese available for download.
In the day to day, Spanish is more useful, and the literature more widely available. You’ll have more chances to hear and practice, and it will be more beneficial in your work (depending on what you do).
I do think Portuguese is prettier, and I enjoy speaking it more, and moreover authors like Machado de Assis, Eça de Queiroz, Eugenio de Andrade, José Cardoso Pirés, Luis de Camões etc. make it worth the trouble to learn. Plus, Brasilian girls are beautiful.