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Why is Portuguese harder than Spanish? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Sprachgenie Decaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5710 days ago 128 posts - 165 votes  Speaks: German*, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic, Flemish, Persian, Swiss-German Studies: English, Belarusian | Message 1 of 25 01 November 2009 at 12:02am | IP Logged |
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Two of my colleagues were arguing about the reasons that Portuguese is more difficult than Spanish. Since I don't have experience with these languages, I would like to know your opinions about whether this is true, and if so, why.
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| rggg Heptaglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 6326 days ago 373 posts - 426 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Indonesian, Malay Studies: Romanian, Catalan, Greek, German, Swedish | Message 2 of 25 01 November 2009 at 12:38am | IP Logged |
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Some people say that it is because Portuguese has more vowel sounds (e.g.: 9 oral and 5 nasalized for European Portuguese) than Spanish, Portuguese also uses nasal sounds more often, although I don't particularly think this a difficult feature.
For Spanish speakers, spoken European Portuguese is usually a little bit harder to understand because its pronunciation's too close, but after a little exposure this obstacle fades quickly. About grammar? ... No big problems, maybe just the "infinitivo pessoal", but you get the feeling about its use real fast with some practice (as you do with any "special features" in other languages). On the other hand, my Brazilian friend told me that she didn't find the Spanish language to be that easy to learn for Portuguese speakers, but that's not for me to say. Edited by rggg on 01 November 2009 at 12:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Romullo Newbie Brazil Joined 6048 days ago 20 posts - 30 votes Studies: English | Message 3 of 25 01 November 2009 at 2:46am | IP Logged |
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Most people say the same, and blame it on the vowels, maybe they're right. But for those who already speak Spanish, Portuguese is really easy, in fact I often hold conversations with Spanish speakers without having ever studied this language, and they have little trouble understanding my mixed language.
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 25 01 November 2009 at 3:05am | IP Logged |
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There is two simple reasons: the first is that it is easier to find study materials in Spanish in most places on this planet, the second is the pronunciation. However now that I have learnt both languages I don't feel that Portuguese is more difficult to maintain than Spanish
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| lancemanion Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5573 days ago 150 posts - 166 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Thai Studies: French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 5 of 25 01 November 2009 at 4:32am | IP Logged |
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Probably not true, unless the exposure to Spanish was much higher. Otherwise, it's a toss-up.
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| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5586 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 6 of 25 02 November 2009 at 2:34am | IP Logged |
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I think portuguese is very straight forward and easy to learn, it is very very close to Spanish. If you learn Spanish first, learning portuguese is much easier.
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| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5568 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 7 of 25 02 November 2009 at 3:09am | IP Logged |
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I have to concur with others who say Portuguese is really easy if you already know Spanish. I can understand the majority of written Portuguese, and to a certain degree I can understand clearly spoken Portuguese, such as in a newscast, but I've never studied Portuguese in my life (I've read a good deal about the language though, in my general linguistics studies). Same goes for Italian. I have been thinking about studying both languages just because I understand so much already and I don't think it would take me much effort at all.
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| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5586 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 8 of 25 02 November 2009 at 5:19pm | IP Logged |
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I completely agree with Levi. I've barely studied it, but for the most part I can comprehend a major part of what is thrown at me :) Spanish is a great first foreign language if you would like to master other romance languages.
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