Post: #1

Hey!

I want to learn either of these two languages. For my knowledge and because in the next couple of years I shall travel to both of these countries. Because I am Romanian, I fluently speak French and my language is similar to both of S and P, I don't think I'll have problems in learning.

I have two questions:

1. Does it matter what language do I pick?
2. In both Rosetta Stone and Duolingo I saw that they offer Portuguese (Brazil), but not Portuguese (Portugal). Are there any big differences between these two dialects?

Thanks.

Post: #2

Rosetta Stone is a scam; try Glossika instead.

Post: #3

It doesn't matter which language you pick in theory, but in reality it depends on where you actually end up going and with which language you will end up speaking to more people.

I am currently getting better at Spanish using Rosetta Stone, although I have a background in Spanish from school and I will have to self study a lot after I finish Rosetta Stone. Although I love Brazilians and think Portuguese would be fun and easy to learn one day (once I know Spanish, Portuguese won't be too much trouble), it is not worth the effort for me right now. I have run into a handful of Portuguese speakers in my entire life and they all also spoke English well enough that any other languages I knew didn't matter. On the other hand, in the past two months alone I've run into dozens of hot and single women that barely speak English and basically only speak Spanish. Which language makes sense for me to learn?

About Portuguese from Brazil and from Portugal (by the way there are 5 countries around the world that speak Portuguese if I remember correctly). I have heard from friends that studied Portuguese as a non native speaker and from people from Brazil that it is relatively difficult to understand and communicate in Portuguese between Brazil and Portugal. It certainly isn't as difficult as the difference between English and Spanish, or even as difficult as the difference between Spanish and Portuguese (speakers of these two languages can sometimes tell what the other is saying and be able to communicate without knowing the other language). But it certainly isn't as similar as English spoken in California versus English spoken in London. From what I've been told if a Brazilian went to Portugal or vice versa it would take a month or two to get comfortable with the dialect, although they would be able to perform their day to day functions and communicate immediately.

Feel free to ask me any other questions you may have as I am already learning Spanish and in the future Portuguese may be on my list. I plan to continue to learn languages moving forward and after my Spanish gets to basic fluency I will begin studying French and German at the same time while continuing to try to improve my Spanish. I'm just saying this because I have done a bit of research on language learning myself.

Post: #4

^
There are currently 8 countries who have the Portuguese as an official language (Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, East-Timor, Cape Verde and Sao Tomé and Principe), it also is spoken by some natives in some regions of the former empire like Goa or Macau.

As for the difference between Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, only a retarded Brazilian would need a month to get used to the Portugal version. It is the same language but with a different accent, slight variations in phrase construction (the biggest is that brazilians use the personal pronoun "você/vocês", meaning "you" in english, while in Portugal this form is considered formal, and we use "tu" instead.)

ex:
Eng: What are you doing?
PT: O que estás a fazer?
BR: O que vocé está fazendo?

Both Brazilian and Portuguese mutually understand both forms, but Brazilian abuses of the gerund of the verb of action, and uses what we consider in Portugal the formal pronoun.

Many words are also only existing in Brazilian or Portuguese but mostly are also mutually understandable and big majority are nouns of objects/devices, but this is common for every portuguese speaking country. examples:

Eng: Bus
PT: Autocarro
BR: Onibus
Ang/Mozam.: Machimbombo
CV: Toca-toca

Eng: Phone booth
PT: Cabine telefonica (similar to english name)
BR: Orelhão (big ear. because of the shape of the phone booths in Brazil)

Eng: Cell phone or mobile phone
PT: Telemóvel (from mobile phone)
BR: Celular (from Cell phone)

Post: #5

Learn Spanish. It's much more useful.

Post: #6

Dupe.

/thread-48753.html

Post: #7

Where do you want to travel to?

That should contain your answer.

Post: #8

(07-18-2017 02:52 PM)This Is Trouble Wrote:  Where do you want to travel to?

That should contain your answer.

This.

Unless you're obsessed with beach cities (which Brazil has the biggest and seemingly best of), there's really no benefit in learning Portuguese over Spanish.

Post: #9

Thank you, guys, for your answers.

(07-18-2017 02:52 PM)This Is Trouble Wrote:  Where do you want to travel to?

That should contain your answer.

Taking into account this advice and others', I decided to go for Spanish.

Post: #10

Brazilians will understand you speaking Spanish anyway. Spanish is a no brainer (and much easier).