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Portuguese messing up my Spanish! | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Roq71 Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6595 days ago 63 posts - 72 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Haitian Creole | Message 1 of 13 19 July 2007 at 1:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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My goal has always been to learn Spanish, Portuguese, and French. I thought that Portuguese would be the next logical step after Spanish and that I could learn it at a significant discout because of the similarities. After I reached an advanced level in Spanish, I started Portuguese. My experience has been that the Portuguese did come incredibly quickly, but when I tried to speak Spanish, the Portuguese kept coming through. Because of this, I have abandoned Portuguese for the time being, and I've moved on to French instead. I have had little problems since. I hope that a little more time solidifying the Spanish is all I need and that later I can take on Portuguese again.
Has anyone else had to abandon a language because it was sabotaging another? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FSI Senior Member United States Joined 6360 days ago 550 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English* | Message 2 of 13 19 July 2007 at 1:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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I find focusing on the prosody of similar languages helps me keep from confusing them in speech.
Even when languages share words or grammatical patterns, the rhythms - pronunciation, accent, intonation - are unique. As I learn each language to greater levels, they become increasingly easier to distinguish, due to a greater awareness of their distinct prosodies. I also listen to a lot of music in the languages I study. This seems a good way of naturally divining patterns unique to each. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Guanche Hexaglot Senior Member Spain danielmarin.blogspot Joined 7047 days ago 168 posts - 178 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanC1, RussianB1, French, Japanese Studies: Greek, Mandarin, Arabic (Written) | Message 3 of 13 19 July 2007 at 2:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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That's the same reason I gave up Ukrainian after studying Russian. I couldn't stop mixing them up!
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gperson000 Newbie United States Joined 6451 days ago 31 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, French | Message 4 of 13 19 July 2007 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I had to make a similar decision. Portuguese was my first episode of wanderlust. I figured that it would be easy to learn Portuguese with my knowledge of Spanish, however I always slipped Spanish into my Portuguese sentences. After more failed attempts at speaking Portuguese, I finally decided to take on French as a third language rather than Spanish. Also, I decided that I should solidify my Spanish before trying to add anything else, so that new languages don't destroy my Spanish, or vice versa.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7147 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 5 of 13 20 July 2007 at 12:32am | IP Logged | ||
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I had the same problem with Dutch and German. Dutch seemed to come half way between German and English. I could understand Dutch fairly well but had trouble speaking it. I would mix up English and German words with my Dutch.
Assimil Dutch With Ease solved my problem. After a lot of passive listening to the Assimil Dutch audio I internalized the correct sentence construction and words. I found I was thinking in Dutch instead of translating and the Dutch sentences came naturally when I needed them. I had previously given up any idea of speaking Dutch well until I saw the Assimil course for sale in Borders for what I still think was a good price. My advice would be to listen to audio books in Spanish to practise your Spanish and in Portuguese to practise your Portuguese. Why I recommend Assimil is because the audio is entirely in the target language. This encourages you to think in the target language. Any other course entirely in the language will do, or audio books that you can easily understand will do the job as well. Have some mini immersion days as well to fill yourself with the language so it just flows. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LilleOSC Senior Member United States lille.theoffside.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6692 days ago 545 posts - 546 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 6 of 13 24 July 2007 at 2:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Would the order that Roq71 learned Portuguese and Spanish have any affect? Would it be easier to learn Spanish first, French second, and then Portuguese instead of Spanish first, Portuguese second, and then French?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LilleOSC Senior Member United States lille.theoffside.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6692 days ago 545 posts - 546 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 8 of 13 26 July 2007 at 10:17pm | IP Logged | ||
Roq71, I hope this quote from Ardaschir helps you:
Edited by LilleOSC on 26 July 2007 at 10:17pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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