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Studying Spanish and Port. Simultaneously | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Cheshire Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4586 days ago 23 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese | Message 1 of 15 18 April 2012 at 9:37am | IP Logged |
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I was seeking some advice on whether or not it would be wise to study Spanish and
Portuguese simultaneously, in a classroom setting. I'm very good with languages and I have one semester of Spanish under my belt but am wondering if it might get too confusing if I took an advanced Spanish class and added beginning Portuguese. Has anyone else ever studied these languages simultaneously? And if you did, were there many problems? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lapislazuli Tetraglot Senior Member Austria Joined 6967 days ago 146 posts - 170 votes  Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, ItalianB1 Studies: French, Hungarian, Esperanto, Czech | Message 2 of 15 18 April 2012 at 10:14am | IP Logged |
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I have done this with Spanish and Italian. On the one hand it has certainly helped me a lot to do those two languages who are quite similar at the same time. I started Spanish after one year of Italian, and within almost no time I was also able to speak it. Though I kept mixing up the two of them all the time, and the fact that after the class was finished I had a long period of not using them, did not exactly help in that. Now (more then 10 years later) I decided to work more on my Italian, with the result that I hardly use any Spanish anymore when I want to speak it. But Spanish has remained a bit of a problem for me, I can still understand it passively, but I don't dare to really pick it up again right now, as I fear it will mess up with Italian.
At the time of studying them, I was not very experienced in language learning, and just had the opportunity to attend classes for both of those languages. I don't regret having done so. Though if I was in your place, I'd probably wait with adding Portugues, based on the experiences I had. But there are also people who did well learning them at the same time, and I am actually curious to see what other advise you will get regarding this question. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5193 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 3 of 15 18 April 2012 at 12:23pm | IP Logged |
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No, I don't think it's a good idea. Get one language under your belt first. Pick one, devote your energy to it and get good at it, really good. The time you'll spend in the beginning stages keeping Portuguese and Spanish separate you could be using to advance a lot farther in one language separately.
5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| en.fr.es Triglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4536 days ago 15 posts - 22 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 4 of 15 18 April 2012 at 4:05pm | IP Logged |
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Hi everyone, my two cents:
I started learning Spanish a year after I started learning French and really struggled at first and hated Spanish for "what it had done" to my French. However after a year or so (was only 2 hours per week at school)it was absolutely fine and I never confused the two languages after that (and Spanish is now my favourite language) I would make sure you have a good level of Spanish before you start Portuguese though (at least B1/2) I have recently started learning Portuguese too and have not noticed any problems with my Spanish so I say go for it :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6528 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 5 of 15 18 April 2012 at 8:04pm | IP Logged |
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See this thread about interference.
It depends on what your plans/goals are. If there's something in Portuguese that you like (books, songs, telenovelas), enjoy the native materials and don't worry. Works for me (Portuguese is more important to me but there's just so much stuff in Spanish!). If you want to get some active skills, better wait till your Spanish is better. Ie if you plan to take classes, I don't recommend taking both yet. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5660 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 6 of 15 18 April 2012 at 10:44pm | IP Logged |
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I read a book in which the author suggests learning them both simultaneously only if you want to learn how to read them.
He didn't suggest learning to speak them both at the same time. Edit: If anyone's interested, the book's called "How to Learn Languages and What Languages to Learn" by Mario Pei. Edited by Michael K. on 19 April 2012 at 12:07am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6528 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 7 of 15 18 April 2012 at 11:48pm | IP Logged |
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There are two separate questions:
-why do you want to learn Portuguese? -why do you want to take Portuguese classes? If you like the language and want to understand it, learn to understand but don't take classes. Learn it on your own and focus on the passive skills until your Spanish is better. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4646 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 8 of 15 19 April 2012 at 12:59am | IP Logged |
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I wouldn't recommend that.
2 persons have voted this message useful |
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