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Studying Spanish and Port. Simultaneously

 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
15 messages over 2 pages: 1
Cheshire
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 4586 days ago

23 posts - 26 votes
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese

 
 Message 9 of 15
19 April 2012 at 4:59am | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
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.


Thanks for the replies everyone. I think I still need to consider it but am weighing my
options. I can understand the reality of me getting better at Spanish before adding
such a similar language but at the same time I am really interested in Portuguese as
well.

@ Serpent: I want to learn Portuguese because I have a really good friend who is
Brazilian and I plan on visiting him soon and would like to communicate somewhat okay.
Also, I have a long term goal of learning the main romance languages and Portuguese is
one of them. As for your second question, I'm interested in a Portuguese class because
there are no native Portuguese speakers that I know of where I live and it would give
me a chance to do conversational Portuguese in class. Also, the college credit would be
helpful too.
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 10 of 15
19 April 2012 at 5:37pm | IP Logged 
If you're more interested in Portuguese than in Spanish, go for it. your Spanish might suffer a bit but it shouldn't be too bad. I know it would just upset me if I found myself using Spanish words in Portuguese, so I'm not working on my active skills in Spanish...but I'm sure native speakers would understand me anyway. Seems like we're both more interested in Portuguese but I started it first and you started Spanish first. (BTW here in Russia Spanish is not really studied much...it's even less common than Italian)

As for the college credit... do beginner and advanced classes count the same? perhaps it's a good idea to just drop Spanish and focus on Portuguese for now. You have a lot of exposure so you won't lose what you already have, and chances are you'll even improve slowly.

You almost seem to be in the same situation where I was some 7-8 years ago. I fell in love with Finnish long ago but I was studying German at school. I always kept on telling myself I'd start Finnish when my German was better... but when in 2005 I made up my mind and started learning Finnish, it was the best decision of my language learning life. I've spent countless hours and I've become fluent...and I still don't speak German :D it won't necessarily happen to you though :D
2 persons have voted this message useful



Gallo1801
Diglot
Senior Member
Spain
Joined 4833 days ago

164 posts - 248 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Arabic (Written), Croatian, German, French

 
 Message 11 of 15
20 April 2012 at 3:08am | IP Logged 
Get proficient in Spanish, then learn Portuguese from a Spanish speaker's perspective.
There are tons of resources for Spanish speakers (non-native as well as native) that
teach you the 'short cuts' to guessing Portuguese words and structure, and when you just
have to know differences, like the dizzying number of false friends. For example, words
in Spanish like horno, hablar, hierro, and hacer change to forno, falar, ferro, and
fazer. It's fun too, because you really get to know some historical linguistics of how
iberian romance deviated and grew from Latin (if that sort of thing is interesting to you
haha)

Check out the Ta Falado podcasts from UT-A. Google it, and it'll show up.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Cheshire
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 4586 days ago

23 posts - 26 votes
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese

 
 Message 12 of 15
20 April 2012 at 11:32am | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
If you're more interested in Portuguese than in Spanish, go for it.
your Spanish might suffer a bit but it shouldn't be too bad. I know it would just
upset me if I found myself using Spanish words in Portuguese, so I'm not working
on my active skills in Spanish...but I'm sure native speakers would understand me
anyway. Seems like we're both more interested in Portuguese but I started it first and
you started Spanish first. (BTW here in Russia Spanish is not really studied
much...it's even less common than Italian)

As for the college credit... do beginner and advanced classes count the same? perhaps
it's a good idea to just drop Spanish and focus on Portuguese for now. You have a lot
of exposure so you won't lose what you already have, and chances are you'll even
improve slowly.

You almost seem to be in the same situation where I was some 7-8 years ago. I fell in
love with Finnish long ago but I was studying German at school. I always kept on
telling myself I'd start Finnish when my German was better... but when in 2005 I made
up my mind and started learning Finnish, it was the best decision of my language
learning life. I've spent countless hours and I've become fluent...and I still don't
speak German :D it won't necessarily happen to you though :D


As far as college credits go, all language classes are the same number of credits
regardless of the level you're at. So yes, beginner and advanced are the same credits.
I had no idea how uncommon Spanish was in Russia, but I guess it makes sense. It's all
too common here in the US, especially in the Southwest where I live. I appreciate the
advice. At the moment I'm more interested in Portuguese so maybe I'll go ahead and just
try that and then continue with my Spanish later on.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Kyrie
Senior Member
United States
clandestein.deviantaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5660 days ago

207 posts - 231 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Portuguese

 
 Message 13 of 15
03 May 2012 at 8:16pm | IP Logged 
Not a good idea. Trust me, I've done it and failed a major Spanish test because I kept
accidentally throwing Portuguese words in.
2 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 14 of 15
03 May 2012 at 11:43pm | IP Logged 
Wow, in your secondary native language? :/
1 person has voted this message useful



JiriT
Triglot
Groupie
Czech Republic
Joined 4728 days ago

60 posts - 95 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, English, German

 
 Message 15 of 15
04 May 2012 at 4:16pm | IP Logged 
Cheshire wrote:
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?

Generally, I would not recommend to begin studying two language simultaneously. But I
am not against studying two languages at the same time. It would meand that one can
learn just one foreign language. Or s/he must stop with the first language and then to
start with the second one.
Language learning has some stages. A beginner has to learn the phonetics of the
language, then memorise some basic vocabulary and basic grammar, also memorise some
conversational phrases. It is a lot of drill, especially memory drill. But it is
possible to learn one language and at the same time to improve or just to maintain the
knowledge of the language I know pretty well. I can combine hard memory work and drill
on one language with causual activities on or in the second one.
Or one can learn one language intensively and begin flirting with the next language. To
be an intermediate student in one language and a beginner in the new one.
Possible problems: When the languages are different, there should be no problem. For
instance, I will not have problem in German with Russian word, but maybe with English
words. I had problems in Russian with Czech or Slovak words. It may be difficult to
separate similar languages.


1 person has voted this message useful



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