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Why is Portuguese harder than Spanish? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6663 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 9 of 25 03 November 2009 at 3:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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I learned Spanish years before trying to tackle Portuguese, and I find that when I try to write or speak Portuguese, Spanish comes out.
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| Sprachgenie Decaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5713 days ago 128 posts - 165 votes Speaks: German*, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic, Flemish, Persian, Swiss-German Studies: English, Belarusian | Message 10 of 25 04 November 2009 at 12:16am | IP Logged | ||
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It seems like the consensus here is that, excluding the fact that Spanish learning materials are more abundant, the Spanish and Portuguese languages are either equally difficult or that Portuguese is slightly more difficult due to pronounciation issues. Does anyone disagree with this?
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| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6146 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 11 of 25 04 November 2009 at 2:04am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, Portuguese does have a couple features that don't exist in modern Spanish (personal infinitive, future subjunctive) and the pronunciation is more difficult at first, especially continental Portuguese.
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| bporcher Newbie Canada Joined 6562 days ago 20 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Spanish, German | Message 12 of 25 05 November 2009 at 3:50am | IP Logged | ||
Great point. I wonder though... certainly, Portuguese learning materials in the English speaking world are less abundant than Spanish learning materials, but adding to the fact that learning Spanish first makes Portuguese easier, do you think there are many more Portuguese learning materials in Spanish rather than English, given the proximity of Spain to Portugal and Spanish-speaking countries in the Americas to Brazil that one could use with a good knowledge of Spanish? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gray Parrot Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5600 days ago 41 posts - 44 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Portuguese | Message 13 of 25 09 November 2009 at 2:53am | IP Logged | ||
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I like the sound of Portuguese and don't feel that it's more difficult than Spanish, which I studied years ago. I'm
actually absorbing the language faster than I did Spanish, but that could well be because Spanish was the first foreign language I studied. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alvinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 6238 days ago 828 posts - 832 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish | Message 14 of 25 09 November 2009 at 4:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you're complaining about my mother tongue difficulties, bear it in your mind that it is even difficult to many Brazilians to handle the grammar rules......that's why it's common to spot many mistakes throughout any text written, at least the majority of people here....and it doesn't matter their social class.....from 2012 on things will turn out to be harder thanks to this foolish change that Brazilian government brought up.
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| Olympia Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5985 days ago 195 posts - 244 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Old English, French | Message 15 of 25 12 November 2009 at 4:17am | IP Logged | ||
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I've studied both quite a bit and don't find one more difficult than the other. "Extras" in Portuguese like the
personal infinitive and the future subjunctive are easy to understand once you've heard them used in context a bit. Not to mention they're very easy to conjugate. It has taken me a bit longer to get the Portuguese pronunciations down, with the nasalized vowels and the r's that make "h" sounds in certain cases, just to mention a few. However, the correct pronunciation comes with time, and virtually any native Portuguese speaker can still understand you if you have difficulty remembering the pronunciation differences between Spanish and Portuguese at first. Oh, and I learned Spanish to very advanced (but not native-like) fluency before learning Portuguese, if that makes any difference. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zashikibuta Newbie United States Joined 5487 days ago 11 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Russian, Uyghur | Message 16 of 25 13 December 2009 at 12:38am | IP Logged | ||
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As an intermediate level learner of Spanish, I wanted to attempt Portuguese. But on paper, it "looks like Spanish" but has a completely different pronounciation...made me crazy...hahaha so i quit.. :(
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