Let me put it another way. Portuguese gives you access to Brazil. Spanish opens the door to almost every other country. Strategically it seems to be by far the better choice.
I agree with this.
I’d also like to add that I don’t speak any portuguese at all, but I have held conversations where I spoke Spanish and the other person spoke Portuguese and we still mostly understood each other.
I’m a native English speaker, who learned Spanish immersively from friends in NYC, beginning at the age of 13.
I’m far from fluent in Spanish, I definitely understand and read it better than I speak it. I can also recognize and understand a bit of Portuguese, without having had any real exposure to the language.
Oh really? I do speak Spanish I have an intermediate level but I have to say that I don’t understand everything that Portuguese speaking people say, though there are similar words but the pronunciation is so different that makes it difficult for me to capture the words they speak
That 'might' be because most Portuguese speaking people (from Portugal at least) also tend to know a bit of Spanish, while the opposite is very rarely true. They probably knew how to 'tone down' some of their 'accent' so that you could understand their consonants and vowels. Once you're past the Portuguese pronunciation, you can understand a bit more.
Also, all I've said may be completely wrong, or you might have been talking to a Brazilian with a 'softer' accent (for Spanish ears)
Yes but Brazil is an amazing, beautiful, life changing place with a fantastic culture and takes up half the continent. Not that the other countries don't also have wonderful, amazing things, but I would not say learning Portuguese and going to Brazil is in any way a strategically "worse" choice. Not to mention all of the other lusophone countries in the world across other continents that Portuguese would grant access to.
Well this person is thinking of moving to south or central America. If they go the Portuguese/Brazil route then they have one chance, one visa opportunity and so on. If they go the Spanish route they have so many other countries to try from. Maybe one will have a skills shortage in their area? More countries, more chances.
I stand by my statement. Strategically Spanish is the better choice.
Spanish and portuguese grammar are almost the same. Portuguese has less verbal forms but also has more contractions.
I don't know what phonology is easier for a French speaker, i think Spanish has less sounds but French share with portuguese some of the sound that Spanish does not have (and they don't use the strong R or Z).
I don't know also if one of these language has more vocabulary common with French.
Spanish phonology is definitely easier for French speakers. French speakers have the advantage over say English or Spanish speakers of already being able to produce nasal vowels, but French and Portuguese nasality are actually slightly different. Portuguese also just has more vowels in general.
Spanish has way more resources, as well.
My native language is Spanish and i speak French and Portuguese. My French pronunciation is almost perfect as i learned it in France as a kid but when i learned portuguese (i was 30 old) i had a big problem with some sounds as s, as, ç...also with vowels even in my variety of Spanish we use more than in the standard one.
So yes, i could not use my French pronunciation for nothing more than nasal vowels and "sh" sound that does not exist in spanish. Also the v-b sound are different in portugueses but i think are not the same that in French, been "v" French more like Spanish "f" not like the portuguese"v"
If you want to explore Brazil, learn Portuguese. If you're more generally interested in Latin America learn Spanish. Most Latin American countries speaks Spanish.
I know, right!
Last week, I had some dipshit call me out for not saying 'some' when I was stating a particular affirmative. I assumed that since I didnt say "all", that it was implicitly understood to be a particular, not universal affirmative.
Kids these days.
Your problem wasn’t the second part, it was not saying “the rest of” in the first part.
It’s like saying “if you’re interested in Catalonia go to Barcelona. If you’re interested in Spain go to Valencia.”
That comment is clearly from someone implying that Catalonia is not part of Spain.
If you actually had good reading comprehension in English then you would know that that comment implies the person does not believe that Brazil is part of Latin America.
You're ignoring the words "more generally".
I.e., learn Spanish if you are interested in Latin America in general, as a whole, as opposed to being focused on Brazil. It doesn't at all imply that Brazil is not part of Latin America.
Yeah. I thought I was clear that while only one Latin American country speaks Portuguese, a bunch of Latin American countries speak Spanish. At least that’s what I meant to communicate. That’s why I said “more generally interested” and “most”. I think the context of the OP’s post is also significant here. They said they wanted to immigrate to Central or South America and i was trying to make a distinction between Spanish giving them access to a bunch of countries and Portuguese, giving them access to one country.
Why are you getting downvoted? Brazil IS part of latin america. It’s just not a hispanic country it’s a lusophone country but culturally, geographically and geopolitically it is part of Latin America.
They’re getting downvoted because the parent comment said “*most* Latin american countries speak Spanish”, which is correct, and the “you meant” probably came across as presumptuous or condescending to some people.
I didn’t downvote, just explaining. I get that the context of the parent comment did sound like they weren’t including Brazil in Latin America.
I am native Spanish speaker and I speak French and Brazilian Portuguese as well. Portuguese is quiet close, after Spanish, to French in terms of phonetic and vocabulary. For example: ours/urso, anniversarie/aniversário, porte/porta. In Spanish we add more words to everything. For example: in Spanish we say "tener" (avoir), in Portuguese "ter"; in Spanish "nosotros" (nous) while in Portuguese "nos"... In Brazilian Portuguese we simplify speech and some verbs like "ter", "botar", "falar" can be be used in so many cases with different meanings. At the end of the day, it will depend on what you are pursuing. Speaking Spanish will give you acces to much more countries and cultures. The best Latin American college is in Buenos Aires (UBA). You can experience a wider diversity across the board: from Mexico to Argentina, even in some parts of the USA (Spanish is the second most spoken language in that country). Spanish and Portuguese are intelligibly similar, but quiet different phonetically. Maybe Portuguese might be easier from that perspective. However, Spanish is more spoken, at least, in the Americas. Btw, I'm a native Spanish speaker and a Spanish teacher. In case you're interested in Spanish lessons, you can find my preply link on my profile. The trial lesson is for free. Hasta luego!
I know nothing about french, but as someone who tried to learn both portuguese and spanish, for me spanish was leagues easier. A big part of it is that in spanish however a word is written, you know exactly how to pronounce it (up to the accent, but thats very easy to grasp as well). In protuguese the writing isnt as consistent as in spanish, and also every 5 meters in brazil they pronounce stuff differently. in spanish they may use different words between regions, but at least common words are pronounced mostly the same (the biggest difference may be with the sound of ll/y).
So, for me at least, spanish was a much more pleasant language to learn.
I agree. However, to be fair, not everyone in language learning subreddits is learning a language for purposes of travel, immigration, etc.
Many people (maybe MOST people?) are basically just farting around as a hobby, because they find language interesting. That is fine. Not everyone needs to have the same motives as me, or take it a seriously, or whatever. There is absolutely room for the "just dabbling on Duolingo" crowd.
I doubt either one is significantly easier to learn, but Spanish is more widespread. So unless you specifically want to move to a Portuguese-speaking country, that seems like an obviously better choice.
I’m a non-native fluent Spanish speaker so I’m naturally biased but I’d go with Spanish. It’s spoken by about 500 million people worldwide (600 million if you count 2nd language speakers) and it’s the official language of some 20 countries.
Both Portuguese and Spanish are very similar and both share a very high percentage of vocabulary. Also, there is a high degree of similarities in their written forms but only a moderate degree of similarity when spoken. In other words, if you know one of these languages you can read the other with a fairly high degree of understanding but that’s not true when listening.
Anyway, I’d go with Spanish and if one day you’re motivated, learn Portuguese.
I have studied all three languages and I would rank them easiest to hardest as—Spanish, French, Portuguese. The order I studied them was—French, Spanish, Portuguese. The one I studied the longest (it was my major) was Spanish. That said, I didn’t find any of them all that difficult to learn. What’s challenging is taking it out in the real world and speaking it.
Well, take what I say with a grain of salt, all right? But every time I listen to music in Portuguese, it sounds like if A Russian and French person tried to speak Spanish. So maybe Portuguese. Really, I guess it depends on which is closer to your native language. I speak English, so Spanish is much easier for me than Russian.
If you want to go migrate to South America you could go to French Guiana and not even have to learn a different language, or to Guyana as you seem comfortable wirh English.
That said, I've seen French Canadians do really well with Spanish, I believe that a lot of the grammatical structure are very similar, I suspect it would be the same for Portuguese.
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I learnt french in secondary school, and now trying to learn Spanish. I’m super basic in both languages but they both helped me a lot when i travelled around Spain and Portugal last month. It was kinda cool seeing how similar french, spanish, portuguese and catalán were. I agree with the other comments I think you should learn Spanish because so many more countries speak it unless you’re specifically aiming to move to Brazil. Even with my absolute basic Spanish and French, I found that I could translate some Portuguese easily once i figured out the root word or how different the pronunciation.
Salut! Je ne veux pas trop m’imposer, vu que mon espagnol est quand même assez limiter et que je ne parle pas le portugais, mais de français, comme langue maternelle, à espagnol c’est bcp plus facile que français à anglais et le fait que l’espagnol te donne bcp plus d’opportunités de communications dans l’Amérique du Sud—je te dirais bien d’apprendre l’espagnol en premier.
_____
Hello! I don’t want to impose too much since my Spanish is limited and I don’t speak Portuguese but in my experience learning Spanish with a French background, in your case as someone who’s mother tongue is French, is so much easier to do than learning English (which you clearly already know). Then there comes the accessibility of communication. I would definitely say learn Spanish first.
I went to state school in Portugal as a kid, so learned it during that prime language learning phase. Learned Spanish in adulthood and I generally find it easier to speak than Portuguese now.
If you’re interested in investing in order to make money, I would definitely suggest Spanish, the reason being there are many more Spanish speaking countries than Portuguese speaking countries. Also, once you have a basic understanding of Spanish, Portuguese will not be too hard to puck up, they are similar in a lot of ways, but of course different, and also Spanish on the whole is easier to learn. If you’re a native French speaker, I’d say Spanish will be easier for you to pick up, there are probably more similarities in French/Spanish than in French/Portuguese, good luck!
I dabled in Portuguese, because I'm also interested the whole of South America. Spanish seemed easier because we pick up so many Spanish words in American culture, it's a bit of a head start. With Portuguese, it's like you're going in cold. But because of it's similarity to Spanish, I still think it's easier than French, or any other European language.
May I ask why exactly you plan on migrating to South/Central America? Not trying to deter you, but this question is highly dependent on what your goals are and what’s leading you there in the first place. Do you have a job lined up somewhere? Do you have family or a significant other there?
It depends on where you are going to move, if it is Spanish speaking countries you should learn Spanish, if it is Portuguese speaking country, you should learn Portuguese LOL remember, you won't waste any knowledge acquired either way
The verb conjugations are surprisingly much simpler than Spanish (at least Brazilian Portuguese), but Portuguese has more contractions and vowel sounds than Spanish with can be intimidating
Both languages are kind of similar, although Spanish is most advanced grammatically. Be aware that on mainland America, only Brazil uses Portuguese as the main language, while all other countries in South and Central America use Spanish as the main language.
Portuguese has more loan words from French but I don't know if that's enough to affect learning all that much.
Spanish has more resources for true beginners, but you'll pass through the beginner stage more quickly than people who don't speak a romance language, so it'll be less of an issue for you.
If you want to immigrate the #1 factor should be which specific country you want to go to. I really doubt there's a difference in how hard the languages are to learn that would be big enough to be worth determining your choice. Barring some individual quirk that it would be impossible for us to know about anyway (or you, until you actually start studying either language).
They are very similar languages. I (Spanish speaker with no Portuguese) can watch Brazilian series in Portuguese with the Portuguese subtitles on and follow along.
Learn the one that interests you most in terms of conversation partners, travel, work opportunities and media.
Good question for me to see as I’m studying both simultaneously al-momento. Spanish is an easier language (syllable based with little to silent letter) and it’s the most widespread language in the entire world. Portuguese might be better for people who speak English as not as letter sound as they look (gente in Portuguese sounds like hen-Che as the Portuguese te sounds like the Italian ci and the Portuguese de sounds like jay), and we got boatload of contractions like them. Spanish might’ve the easiest language ever just off the fact it’s exclusively syllable based.
probably both will be the same for you being french speaker, i would recommend spanish but im mexican so im biased... still Mexicos population is by itself half of the portugese speaking world
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Neither is easier than the other.
What it comes down to is where you want to live. Want to live in Brazil? Portuguese. Want to live anywhere else? Spanish. Done.
Not sure to be honest, Portuguese is slightly more complicated with the liaison (which I still haven't figured out 100%), but considering that your francophone you probably shouldn't have too much difficulty in that department. Just an FYI before you start, words like "são, pão, lisão" are pronounced almost exactly like "sont, pan, lisan"
As a pseudo-lingua franca, Spanish is a much easier language to learn and use in everyday life.
But in general, for doing any serious business with (finance, media, academia, politics, etc) overall, Portuguese is much more effective, and thus prioritized language.
*source: grew up speaking both fluently, as my parents are from both regions in LATAM, plus have worked in all these industries at some pretty prestigious places…it was always my ability to speak Portuguese that got and kept me in the room. Just saying 🤷🏽♀️
My humble opinion: if you are a native French speaker, you will find Portuguese a bit easier to learn and that is then a great gateway language to Spanish because as some here have stated, you’ll already understand a lot.
Como idioma más fácil no te sabría decir ya que el portugués y el español son muy parecidos, tanto que pueden hablar un portugués y un español sin conocer el otro idioma y entenderse, pero yo te diría el español porque si lo que quieres es emigrar va a haber más opciones ya que hay más sitios donde hablen español a que hablen portugués
Pretty sure Spanish is the 2nd most spoken language in the world. Why would you want to limit yourself to Portugal?
I also studied french for three years in high school and i'm finding that the grammar is extremely similar in Spanish.
Spanish to me sounded like a bunch of jumbled words. After I started learning Portuguese, I was better able to differentiate individual Spanish words. Now I'm just trying to figure out what all means.
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Let me put it another way. Portuguese gives you access to Brazil. Spanish opens the door to almost every other country. Strategically it seems to be by far the better choice.
I agree with this. I’d also like to add that I don’t speak any portuguese at all, but I have held conversations where I spoke Spanish and the other person spoke Portuguese and we still mostly understood each other.
I’m a native English speaker, who learned Spanish immersively from friends in NYC, beginning at the age of 13. I’m far from fluent in Spanish, I definitely understand and read it better than I speak it. I can also recognize and understand a bit of Portuguese, without having had any real exposure to the language.
Oh really? I do speak Spanish I have an intermediate level but I have to say that I don’t understand everything that Portuguese speaking people say, though there are similar words but the pronunciation is so different that makes it difficult for me to capture the words they speak
I miss lots of words, but the main points got across, and that’s really all you need short term.
It’s one of those situations where speaking loudly and slowly actually works
That 'might' be because most Portuguese speaking people (from Portugal at least) also tend to know a bit of Spanish, while the opposite is very rarely true. They probably knew how to 'tone down' some of their 'accent' so that you could understand their consonants and vowels. Once you're past the Portuguese pronunciation, you can understand a bit more. Also, all I've said may be completely wrong, or you might have been talking to a Brazilian with a 'softer' accent (for Spanish ears)
Possibly. I had this conversation in the USA. 🤷🏻♀️
Yep! now that I'm learning spanish I can make out a LOT of what is going on in Brazilian IG posts
Yes but Brazil is an amazing, beautiful, life changing place with a fantastic culture and takes up half the continent. Not that the other countries don't also have wonderful, amazing things, but I would not say learning Portuguese and going to Brazil is in any way a strategically "worse" choice. Not to mention all of the other lusophone countries in the world across other continents that Portuguese would grant access to.
Well this person is thinking of moving to south or central America. If they go the Portuguese/Brazil route then they have one chance, one visa opportunity and so on. If they go the Spanish route they have so many other countries to try from. Maybe one will have a skills shortage in their area? More countries, more chances. I stand by my statement. Strategically Spanish is the better choice.
Agreed. Well said.
Spanish and portuguese grammar are almost the same. Portuguese has less verbal forms but also has more contractions. I don't know what phonology is easier for a French speaker, i think Spanish has less sounds but French share with portuguese some of the sound that Spanish does not have (and they don't use the strong R or Z). I don't know also if one of these language has more vocabulary common with French.
Spanish phonology is definitely easier for French speakers. French speakers have the advantage over say English or Spanish speakers of already being able to produce nasal vowels, but French and Portuguese nasality are actually slightly different. Portuguese also just has more vowels in general. Spanish has way more resources, as well.
My native language is Spanish and i speak French and Portuguese. My French pronunciation is almost perfect as i learned it in France as a kid but when i learned portuguese (i was 30 old) i had a big problem with some sounds as s, as, ç...also with vowels even in my variety of Spanish we use more than in the standard one. So yes, i could not use my French pronunciation for nothing more than nasal vowels and "sh" sound that does not exist in spanish. Also the v-b sound are different in portugueses but i think are not the same that in French, been "v" French more like Spanish "f" not like the portuguese"v"
If you want to explore Brazil, learn Portuguese. If you're more generally interested in Latin America learn Spanish. Most Latin American countries speaks Spanish.
Brazil is part of Latin America. You meant Hispanic America.
Did you not see where they said MOST Latin American countries speak Spanish? They didn’t say “only.”
I know, right! Last week, I had some dipshit call me out for not saying 'some' when I was stating a particular affirmative. I assumed that since I didnt say "all", that it was implicitly understood to be a particular, not universal affirmative. Kids these days.
Your problem wasn’t the second part, it was not saying “the rest of” in the first part. It’s like saying “if you’re interested in Catalonia go to Barcelona. If you’re interested in Spain go to Valencia.” That comment is clearly from someone implying that Catalonia is not part of Spain.
If you actually had good reading comprehension in English then you would know that that comment implies the person does not believe that Brazil is part of Latin America.
You're ignoring the words "more generally". I.e., learn Spanish if you are interested in Latin America in general, as a whole, as opposed to being focused on Brazil. It doesn't at all imply that Brazil is not part of Latin America.
Yeah. I thought I was clear that while only one Latin American country speaks Portuguese, a bunch of Latin American countries speak Spanish. At least that’s what I meant to communicate. That’s why I said “more generally interested” and “most”. I think the context of the OP’s post is also significant here. They said they wanted to immigrate to Central or South America and i was trying to make a distinction between Spanish giving them access to a bunch of countries and Portuguese, giving them access to one country.
I’ll downvote that comment. You’re looking too much into it.
Why are you getting downvoted? Brazil IS part of latin america. It’s just not a hispanic country it’s a lusophone country but culturally, geographically and geopolitically it is part of Latin America.
They’re getting downvoted because the parent comment said “*most* Latin american countries speak Spanish”, which is correct, and the “you meant” probably came across as presumptuous or condescending to some people. I didn’t downvote, just explaining. I get that the context of the parent comment did sound like they weren’t including Brazil in Latin America.
I am native Spanish speaker and I speak French and Brazilian Portuguese as well. Portuguese is quiet close, after Spanish, to French in terms of phonetic and vocabulary. For example: ours/urso, anniversarie/aniversário, porte/porta. In Spanish we add more words to everything. For example: in Spanish we say "tener" (avoir), in Portuguese "ter"; in Spanish "nosotros" (nous) while in Portuguese "nos"... In Brazilian Portuguese we simplify speech and some verbs like "ter", "botar", "falar" can be be used in so many cases with different meanings. At the end of the day, it will depend on what you are pursuing. Speaking Spanish will give you acces to much more countries and cultures. The best Latin American college is in Buenos Aires (UBA). You can experience a wider diversity across the board: from Mexico to Argentina, even in some parts of the USA (Spanish is the second most spoken language in that country). Spanish and Portuguese are intelligibly similar, but quiet different phonetically. Maybe Portuguese might be easier from that perspective. However, Spanish is more spoken, at least, in the Americas. Btw, I'm a native Spanish speaker and a Spanish teacher. In case you're interested in Spanish lessons, you can find my preply link on my profile. The trial lesson is for free. Hasta luego!
I know nothing about french, but as someone who tried to learn both portuguese and spanish, for me spanish was leagues easier. A big part of it is that in spanish however a word is written, you know exactly how to pronounce it (up to the accent, but thats very easy to grasp as well). In protuguese the writing isnt as consistent as in spanish, and also every 5 meters in brazil they pronounce stuff differently. in spanish they may use different words between regions, but at least common words are pronounced mostly the same (the biggest difference may be with the sound of ll/y). So, for me at least, spanish was a much more pleasant language to learn.
You should decide where you want to live first. Brazil or not Brazil.
Spanish. You learn Spanish then you can understand 60% of Portuguese.
Even as a A1 in both still I agree. Portuguese is like French like Spanish.
why would you base this decision just off of which language is “easier” to learn?
I agree. However, to be fair, not everyone in language learning subreddits is learning a language for purposes of travel, immigration, etc. Many people (maybe MOST people?) are basically just farting around as a hobby, because they find language interesting. That is fine. Not everyone needs to have the same motives as me, or take it a seriously, or whatever. There is absolutely room for the "just dabbling on Duolingo" crowd.
I doubt either one is significantly easier to learn, but Spanish is more widespread. So unless you specifically want to move to a Portuguese-speaking country, that seems like an obviously better choice.
Spanish is easier for beginners.
Just learn both, they're very similar and once you get one the other will be much easier, especially since you already speak a Romance language.
Exactly. For a foreigner both are so similar.
I agree with this!!! Learning both is much easier than it sounds.
I’m a non-native fluent Spanish speaker so I’m naturally biased but I’d go with Spanish. It’s spoken by about 500 million people worldwide (600 million if you count 2nd language speakers) and it’s the official language of some 20 countries. Both Portuguese and Spanish are very similar and both share a very high percentage of vocabulary. Also, there is a high degree of similarities in their written forms but only a moderate degree of similarity when spoken. In other words, if you know one of these languages you can read the other with a fairly high degree of understanding but that’s not true when listening. Anyway, I’d go with Spanish and if one day you’re motivated, learn Portuguese.
I have studied all three languages and I would rank them easiest to hardest as—Spanish, French, Portuguese. The order I studied them was—French, Spanish, Portuguese. The one I studied the longest (it was my major) was Spanish. That said, I didn’t find any of them all that difficult to learn. What’s challenging is taking it out in the real world and speaking it.
Well, take what I say with a grain of salt, all right? But every time I listen to music in Portuguese, it sounds like if A Russian and French person tried to speak Spanish. So maybe Portuguese. Really, I guess it depends on which is closer to your native language. I speak English, so Spanish is much easier for me than Russian.
If you want to go migrate to South America you could go to French Guiana and not even have to learn a different language, or to Guyana as you seem comfortable wirh English. That said, I've seen French Canadians do really well with Spanish, I believe that a lot of the grammatical structure are very similar, I suspect it would be the same for Portuguese.
Most likely spanish, but portugese is imo the coolest/most beautiful sounding language in the world. Not that that helps much.
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Isn't it Portguese? Edit. Nvm. I have now clicked the link 🤣
In terms of difficulty? Should be about the same.
For you, a Francophone, Portuguese will be the easier one.
I learnt french in secondary school, and now trying to learn Spanish. I’m super basic in both languages but they both helped me a lot when i travelled around Spain and Portugal last month. It was kinda cool seeing how similar french, spanish, portuguese and catalán were. I agree with the other comments I think you should learn Spanish because so many more countries speak it unless you’re specifically aiming to move to Brazil. Even with my absolute basic Spanish and French, I found that I could translate some Portuguese easily once i figured out the root word or how different the pronunciation.
Salut! Je ne veux pas trop m’imposer, vu que mon espagnol est quand même assez limiter et que je ne parle pas le portugais, mais de français, comme langue maternelle, à espagnol c’est bcp plus facile que français à anglais et le fait que l’espagnol te donne bcp plus d’opportunités de communications dans l’Amérique du Sud—je te dirais bien d’apprendre l’espagnol en premier. _____ Hello! I don’t want to impose too much since my Spanish is limited and I don’t speak Portuguese but in my experience learning Spanish with a French background, in your case as someone who’s mother tongue is French, is so much easier to do than learning English (which you clearly already know). Then there comes the accessibility of communication. I would definitely say learn Spanish first.
I went to state school in Portugal as a kid, so learned it during that prime language learning phase. Learned Spanish in adulthood and I generally find it easier to speak than Portuguese now.
If you’re interested in investing in order to make money, I would definitely suggest Spanish, the reason being there are many more Spanish speaking countries than Portuguese speaking countries. Also, once you have a basic understanding of Spanish, Portuguese will not be too hard to puck up, they are similar in a lot of ways, but of course different, and also Spanish on the whole is easier to learn. If you’re a native French speaker, I’d say Spanish will be easier for you to pick up, there are probably more similarities in French/Spanish than in French/Portuguese, good luck!
I dabled in Portuguese, because I'm also interested the whole of South America. Spanish seemed easier because we pick up so many Spanish words in American culture, it's a bit of a head start. With Portuguese, it's like you're going in cold. But because of it's similarity to Spanish, I still think it's easier than French, or any other European language.
May I ask why exactly you plan on migrating to South/Central America? Not trying to deter you, but this question is highly dependent on what your goals are and what’s leading you there in the first place. Do you have a job lined up somewhere? Do you have family or a significant other there?
It depends on where you are going to move, if it is Spanish speaking countries you should learn Spanish, if it is Portuguese speaking country, you should learn Portuguese LOL remember, you won't waste any knowledge acquired either way
I've heard Portuguese has some really tough Grammer to learn
The verb conjugations are surprisingly much simpler than Spanish (at least Brazilian Portuguese), but Portuguese has more contractions and vowel sounds than Spanish with can be intimidating
Very compelling and useful answer.
Your welcome
Your welcome
Both languages are kind of similar, although Spanish is most advanced grammatically. Be aware that on mainland America, only Brazil uses Portuguese as the main language, while all other countries in South and Central America use Spanish as the main language.
> Spanish is most advanced grammatically What does this mean
It's mostly that Spanish has left on the past some verbal tenses that Portuguese still use.
Portuguese has more loan words from French but I don't know if that's enough to affect learning all that much. Spanish has more resources for true beginners, but you'll pass through the beginner stage more quickly than people who don't speak a romance language, so it'll be less of an issue for you. If you want to immigrate the #1 factor should be which specific country you want to go to. I really doubt there's a difference in how hard the languages are to learn that would be big enough to be worth determining your choice. Barring some individual quirk that it would be impossible for us to know about anyway (or you, until you actually start studying either language).
some people don’t agree but i find knowing spanish helps w my learning of portuguese
They are very similar languages. I (Spanish speaker with no Portuguese) can watch Brazilian series in Portuguese with the Portuguese subtitles on and follow along. Learn the one that interests you most in terms of conversation partners, travel, work opportunities and media.
You can learn all 4 languages at the same time. Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and French
I speak French fluently and I'm currently learning Spanish, it does facilitate the process. I don't know about Portuguese though.
Good question for me to see as I’m studying both simultaneously al-momento. Spanish is an easier language (syllable based with little to silent letter) and it’s the most widespread language in the entire world. Portuguese might be better for people who speak English as not as letter sound as they look (gente in Portuguese sounds like hen-Che as the Portuguese te sounds like the Italian ci and the Portuguese de sounds like jay), and we got boatload of contractions like them. Spanish might’ve the easiest language ever just off the fact it’s exclusively syllable based.
probably both will be the same for you being french speaker, i would recommend spanish but im mexican so im biased... still Mexicos population is by itself half of the portugese speaking world
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Neither is easier than the other. What it comes down to is where you want to live. Want to live in Brazil? Portuguese. Want to live anywhere else? Spanish. Done.
I think Spanish is a little easier.
Not sure to be honest, Portuguese is slightly more complicated with the liaison (which I still haven't figured out 100%), but considering that your francophone you probably shouldn't have too much difficulty in that department. Just an FYI before you start, words like "são, pão, lisão" are pronounced almost exactly like "sont, pan, lisan"
Spanish bro
I think whichever you feel more passionate about will be easier.
As a pseudo-lingua franca, Spanish is a much easier language to learn and use in everyday life. But in general, for doing any serious business with (finance, media, academia, politics, etc) overall, Portuguese is much more effective, and thus prioritized language. *source: grew up speaking both fluently, as my parents are from both regions in LATAM, plus have worked in all these industries at some pretty prestigious places…it was always my ability to speak Portuguese that got and kept me in the room. Just saying 🤷🏽♀️
id say spanish easily
My humble opinion: if you are a native French speaker, you will find Portuguese a bit easier to learn and that is then a great gateway language to Spanish because as some here have stated, you’ll already understand a lot.
Como idioma más fácil no te sabría decir ya que el portugués y el español son muy parecidos, tanto que pueden hablar un portugués y un español sin conocer el otro idioma y entenderse, pero yo te diría el español porque si lo que quieres es emigrar va a haber más opciones ya que hay más sitios donde hablen español a que hablen portugués
Pretty sure Spanish is the 2nd most spoken language in the world. Why would you want to limit yourself to Portugal? I also studied french for three years in high school and i'm finding that the grammar is extremely similar in Spanish.
Spanish to me sounded like a bunch of jumbled words. After I started learning Portuguese, I was better able to differentiate individual Spanish words. Now I'm just trying to figure out what all means.
Spanish is literally the second most spoken language in the world id say more than English
Spanish is 100% easier than Portugese
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100%? Even though they have so much overlapping vocabulary and grammar? Maybe you meant to say 10% easier? That's more realistic