Portuguese

[zuma022]

Has anyone here studied Portuguese after studying Spanish? I'm planning on a big South America trip in about a year and would love to visit Brazil as well and I'm thinking about studying Portuguese. I love the sound of the language.

I'm worried I will confuse the languages. So I thought that my Spanish should be on a pretty good level before I attempt to add another similar language, but I was wondering if anyone else has tried it and if you have any tips or recommendations.

Thanks.

[Rusty]

I briefly studied Portuguese after learning Spanish and had no problem keeping them straight in my head. I've also studied other languages and found that I can keep them all compartmentalized. Practicing all of them is the hard part.

[zuma022]

Thanks Rusty! For some reason I had thought you grew up bilingual. Yeah, putting in the time will be hard. Did you study Portuguese after you were completely fluent in Spanish?

[Premium]

Originally Posted by zuma022

For some reason I had thought you grew up bilingual.

There are many things we didn't know about Rusty.
At least for the average member.

[Rusty]

Originally Posted by zuma022

Did you study Portuguese after you were completely fluent in Spanish?

I studied Portuguese after I learned Spanish (which is what I wrote above).

[Villa]

Originally Posted by zuma022

Has anyone here studied Portuguese after studying Spanish? I'm planning on a big South America trip in about a year and would love to visit Brazil as well and I'm thinking about studying Portuguese. I love the sound of the language.

I'm worried I will confuse the languages. So I thought that my Spanish should be on a pretty good level before I attempt to add another similar language, but I was wondering if anyone else has tried it and if you have any tips or recommendations.

Thanks.

I learned Italian first, then Spanish and then Portuguese. A long the way I also learned French. I lived in Italy for two years and have been to France four times. My point is I see similarities in all these languages. If you speak one Latin language you can learn anyone of the others or all of them as I have.

Portuguese is closest to Spanish of the other Latin based languages. Spanish and Portuguese are some 80% the same.(Italian/Spanish 70 some % the same. However Italian is easier to pronounce because it has the exact same vowel sounds as Spanish. Spanish and Italian have 5 vowel sounds while Portuguese has more than 5. Maybe this is why they say it is even easier for Portuguese speakers to learn Spanish then visa versa. I taught ESL to adult Spanish speakers and then started getting a lot of Brazilian students. They would come in the class speaking no Spanish but then after only a couple of weeks they were speaking Spanish just from being around the Spanish speakers with no studying of Spanish per se.

Just today I was talking to an Ecuadorian friend who speaks fluent Spanish, pretty fluent Italian and is learning Portuguese on her own. She was saying how she sees the similarities in the 3 languages Spanish/Protuguese/Italian and was giving me examples.

Here are just a few examples of Portuguese and Italian similarities:
Posso is both the same
in Portuguese and Italian. Posso=puedo=I can

Hoje=hoy=oggi The letter h is silent in Portuguese, Spanish and Italian. Just another example of the similarities.
In Italian we spell it oggi but it is pronounced the same in Portuguese.

Hoje posso ir o ginásio. Oggi posso andare in palestra. Hoy puedo ir al gimnasio.

[zuma022]

I know you never really finish learning, but I guess what I'm mostly wondering is when is a good time to start studying a similar language. It seems that most people learn one after the other. So at what point can you say, I'm solid in this language, let's try the next. At the end of the day, I suppose there's only one way, try and see how it goes. Thanks for the input.

I wouldn't think think that a native speaker would end up with confusing similar languages, or at least it never happened to me when I studied a bit of Dutch, but with two foreign languages that are similar to each other, it seems like a real danger.

[Premium]

Originally Posted by zuma022

I wouldn't think think that a native speaker would end up with confusing similar languages, or at least it never happened to me when I studied a bit of Dutch, but with two foreign languages that are similar to each other, it seems like a real danger.

Maybe you'd get confused if you pick up Dutch and Afrikaans or Flemish at the same time. I can't really compare those three languages but they must be very similar.
I wanted to learn Portuguese, too, but firstly I barely have time to learn Spanish and secondly the similarities would drive me nuts.
As you mentioned once that your Spanish level should be around B2, I don't really think you'll have any struggle with Portuguese.

It wouldn't take me long if I'd learn Russian, Polish, Slovakian or any other Slavic language as they are all a bit similar, some less some more.

[zuma022]

Originally Posted by Premium

Maybe you'd get confused if you pick up Dutch and Afrikaans or Flemish at the same time. I can't really compare those three languages but they must be very similar.
I wanted to learn Portuguese, too, but firstly I barely have time to learn Spanish and secondly the similarities would drive me nuts.
As you mentioned once that your Spanish level should be around B2, I don't really think you'll have any struggle with Portuguese.

It wouldn't take me long if I'd learn Russian, Polish, Slovakian or any other Slavic language as they are all a bit similar, some less some more.

Yes exactly, Premium. I'm sure that if I had started to learn Portuguese and Spanish at the same time I would have ended up with a 'Kauderwelsch', same as other similar languages. But like you say, there are clear advantages if you speak one language of a language family.
In any case I've signed up for Portuguese lessons and I'll see how I go.
(btw I did pass the DELE, so officially a B2 )

[Liquinn3]

Originally Posted by zuma022

Yes exactly, Premium. I'm sure that if I had started to learn Portuguese and Spanish at the same time I would have ended up with a 'Kauderwelsch', same as other similar languages. But like you say, there are clear advantages if you speak one language of a language family.
In any case I've signed up for Portuguese lessons and I'll see how I go.
(btw I did pass the DELE, so officially a B2 )

I was going to learn a bit of French... but the problem is, is finding the time to speak French. I have a hard enough problem with speaking Spanish (as in, finding the time, I only get to do that about 10 hours a month).