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Usefulness: Spanish vs Portuguese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Acut Tetraglot Groupie Brazil Joined 4510 days ago 53 posts - 101 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish, French | Message 17 of 34 27 January 2012 at 4:07am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I stand corrected. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| K2n Newbie United States Joined 4517 days ago 5 posts - 7 votes | Message 18 of 34 27 January 2012 at 5:07am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm surprised so many of you are saying to study the language that 'you like.' What is there to like more about one
language over another? Just the sound of it, or its history I'd guess? Personally that is not at all what I care about when considering learning a language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6407 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 19 of 34 27 January 2012 at 7:54am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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What is there to like? Everything. The sound, the written form (not necessarily a different script... I've always liked the Spanish inverted punctuation (¡¡¡!!! ¿¿¿???) and the letter Ñ), the culture (including things you've experienced in translation and things that don't need translation), the linguistic features it has, the similarities with your native language or the differences from it. And people can make a language 45739457x more special.
What languages are you learning? You posted a few weeks ago about Spanish. Sure, it's possible to learn this one in the USA without *deep epic love*. But you know that many never get fluent. Those who do (despite not having much interest in the culture) tend to enjoy practising it with native speakers, in one's hometown and/or while travelling. But this "usefulness" motivation would not be enough for Japanese, for example. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5072 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 20 of 34 27 January 2012 at 12:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Human beings have emotions. Emotions tend to influence our activities to a much greater extent than pure logic- usefulness. When one is learning a language on one's own without a pressing need, as an option rather than a necessity, then passion for the language, the culture(s) and/or people(s) it represents is critical. That passion is what takes you through the beginning stage when you can't string a coherent sentence together without stumbling. Passion is what gets you through the stumbling blocks of language learning in the intermediate level- the subjunctive and imperfect/preterite tenses in the romance languages, the case system in other languages and everything in Mandarin. Passion is what drives you to improve your accent, idiomatic and colloquial usage in the advanced stage. Passion is what "keeps you keeping on". Without it you will not succeed beyond the basics. As Mark Twain said, "The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter- it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning." That's what passion for learning a language will do for you. "What is there to like more about one language over another?" I couldn't care less about grammatical features or the history of a language. To me a language is a means of communication between peoples. Knowing and speaking a foreign language opens a window to another people, another culture and another way of looking at the world. What I love about Spanish is paella, tostones, jamón serrano, mole poblano, Cuban music- salsa and son, Rubén Blades, Jorge Drexler, Pablo Neruda and Gabriel García Márquez, Almodóvar, the people of Spain and the Americas who speak it. What I love about Portuguese is feijoada, caipirinhas, saudade, fado, bossa nova, Gilberto Gil, João Gilberto, Elis Regina, Mia Couto, Agualusa, Machado de Asis, Luciano Pires and of course the wonderful, beautiful Brazilian people- their warmth and kindness. To me, that's what there is to like about one language more than another- it's not the language it's what the language represents. Your motivation and passion is what will drive you to learn a language. If you don't like the language or the people/culture it represents you will not take the language into your soul no matter how "useful" a language may be, and the soul is where a language lives. Edited by iguanamon on 27 January 2012 at 1:36pm 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| K2n Newbie United States Joined 4517 days ago 5 posts - 7 votes | Message 21 of 34 27 January 2012 at 6:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm a fairly practical person so I guess my disagreement is on where the motivation comes from. It is most sensible
to start from a foundation of what is pragmatically useful, and then immerse oneself with the details. This is exactly what I did when starting my own business as I certainly didn't have an interest in the field before I saw an opportunity. All languages have their own beauty and culture so it is hard to make a mistake on that aspect assuming you are an open-minded person. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5770 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 22 of 34 27 January 2012 at 7:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
This is a good point. However it doesn't preclude someone being twenty times more enamored by one language over another. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Camundonguinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4559 days ago 273 posts - 500 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish Studies: Swedish | Message 23 of 34 28 January 2012 at 5:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Brazilian Portuguese has twice the population of Mexican Spanish (the most numerous dialect of Spanish).
Sooner or later, you have to decide which dialect/variant to focus on, since it's impossible to learn all variations/dialects of Spanish. Saying things like ''un coche guapo'' (common in Spain) would be very odd in Argentina, because guapo means ''full of courage, brave'' and not ''nice''. Likewise, you don't try to ''platicar'' in South America, because platicar is restricted to Mexico and Guatemala. Using bonito or lindo for people in Spain is considered extremely tacky, almost an insult (especially if said to a male) but it's normal in Argentina. One of the most important verbs in any langage ''to get'' is said COGER in Argentina and Colombia, but it means ''to screw'' in Argentina, and it's considered a taboo-ism. Then you have pronouns: TU in Mexico and Spain VOS in Nicaragua and Argentina Informal (!) USTED in Costa Rica and Colombia Different tenses used, completely opposite in this example: In Spain: Ya lo has hecho. Espero que lo hicieras ayer. Me gustaría que lo hicieras ahora. In Argentina: Ya lo hiciste. Espero que lo hayas hecho ayer. Me gustaría que lo hagas ahora. With Brazilian Portuguese, you get a variant with 200 millions of speakers which is very uniform. In Latin American Spanish, there are inumerous standards. Apparently there are three different dub/subtitling versions of Hollywood movies: Mexican, Argentinian, and ''neutral'' (which is artificial, for example it excludes regionalisms like platicar [a Mexicanism] or vos ). Neutral Latin American Spanish is Jack of all trades, master of none . By keeping most colloquialisms off limits, ''neutral Latin American Spanish'' can make you sound more formal than normal, and arrogant. I recommend that you chose a variant (Mexican Spanish or Argentinian Spanish or Colombian etc....) and get a convincing accent/identity (usage) in it. Edited by Camundonguinho on 28 January 2012 at 5:30am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6407 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 24 of 34 28 January 2012 at 8:47am | IP Logged | ||||||||
And saying all languages are beautiful is like saying the same thing about people. Speak as much as you want about inner beauty, but nobody will deny finding some people more good-looking than others. And even most of us, language geeks, admit there are certain languages we consider downright ugly. It's probably next to impossible to reach fluency in such a language if you force youself to study it. Edited by Serpent on 28 January 2012 at 8:48am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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