[Lumbre]

Greetings to all and many thanks for this great webspace by men and for men! This is my first topic here and so I would like to begin with a highly practical question:

What do you personally regard as the best language learning investment between Spanish and Portuguese (Brazilian)?

I have always been drawn to the typical Latinamerican physiognomy of a light brown complexion, silky dark hair, slightly indigenous facial features and big round curvacious booties. Latinamerican females suit me both physically and emotionally. I love their superior femininity, their affection and their often cute childlike nature. My first long-term relationship was with a sexy Peruvian girl with a big ass and well-formed boobies. I have not dated any Western girl since I was 15, but I can see that the dynamics of a relationship with a Latina are a lot more exciting and fulfilling.

During my late teenage years I was a huge language geek. My first foreign language was Spanish, an obvious and logical choice given my natural love for beautiful Latinamerican ladies, although Brazilian Portuguese was a close contender. In the end, I opted to learn Spanish, the more popular of the two, and upon reaching fluency I embarked upon my travels to Spain and Latinamerica where I finally began to live life. As for Portuguese, I have only dabbled in the language from time to time and have never reached anywhere near the level of proficiency I have in Spanish. Despite my deep fascination for Brazilian culture, studying the Portuguese language has never been able to hold my attention for any significant length of time due to the close grammatical and lexical similarities with Spanish and the consequent lack of novelty. However, I often find myself hypothesizing how my life would have been different if I had gone with the option of Portuguese.

Let's compare the two Latinamerican options.

Spanish has more native speakers than Portuguese and is spoken in a lot more countries, but it is often said that the lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) population is growing at a faster rate and so Portuguese will become increasingly important in the future.

In Latin America, the hispanophone cultures are very fragmented among many diverse nations whereas lusophone America, in other words Brazil, holds one great monolithic national identity, which means that in reality Portuguese may have greater cultural capital as a language despite having fewer native speakers.

Since hispanophone nations are so diverse, some places such as Bolivia and Peru are cheaper for travel, in contrast to more expensive areas such as Chile, whereas in Brazil things seem to be getting dearer.

In my experience, Brazilian girls seem to be friendlier and more sexualized than the rest of Latinamerica, quite easy to approach, whereas in other countries there seems to be a more conservative outlook on life and a generally unfriendlier atmosphere. This is all relative. Latinamerican nations are generally friendlier and more outgoing than Western cultures, but here the comparison is between Hispanoamericans and Brazilians. Also Brazilians come across as more interested in those who learn and speak their language, afterall Portuguese is their great national pride, whereas in the rest of Latin America speaking Spanish is seen as something obvious for everybody.

Learning Spanish also gives the learner access of the hispanic homeland of Spain, and if you are into Latinas you will find an abundance of diverse South American and Central American girls in major cities. They are usually hotter and more bearable than the local Spanish broads (feminism's poisonous ideology has totally screwed up male-female relationships in Spain) and they also tend to be more open and sexually liberal than their cousins back home who grew up in a more conservative environment. Without doubt, Spain is one of the best places in Europe for those who like Latin beauty.

These are just my personal observations, perceptions and ideas.

Please give your own thoughts on the subject.

Lumbre

[Moto]

Since you already speak Spanish, yup go ahead and learn Portuguese.

I spent a month in Salvador, Brazil. This was right around the time I was introduced to game in the form of listening to some David Deangelo stuff that my brother had. Even with no game at all I went out and "sarged" solo, though I didn't know it by that name at the time. It's great to be there in Brazil during the Sao Juao festival, or Carnival. I was there for Sao Joao, it was beleza!

I was fresh off of 3 years of high school Spanish, and after a month in Brazil my conversational Portuguese exceeded my Spanish, though overall I probably had better grammar in Spanish.

[Nascimento]

As someone who fluently speaks both, I can vouch the value for having these languages.

If you can, learn both. If you must choose one, choose Spanish. It's a no contest.

Portuguese will take you much longer to learn, not only to be able to speak, but also understand. Additionally, the contrast between Portugal's and Brazil's Portuguese is so large it's almost as if you have to learn two different romance languages. You would have to focus on one at a time. With Spanish, even though the Argentines speak very differently as to the Spanish, you can still pick apart the differences and they will both understand you just fine.

The biggest asset though is as you mentioned, Spanish speakers are everywhere. The same cannot be said for Portuguese.

[Lumbre]

Just for the sake of clarity, I am only interested in the Brazilian variety of the Portuguese language, the most important and widely spoken version, and my question is more general and hypothetical. I have already known Spanish for years. Last year, however, I began to dabble in Brazilian Portuguese due to my great love for the awesome femininity of Brazilian girls.

As for the complexities and the effort needed, I don't perceive any significant difference between the two. In fact, according to the Foreign Service Institute and other grading systems, Spanish and Portuguese require roughly the same number of hours of study in order to achieve proficiency. For me, difficulty is not an issue.

If I am completely honest, I personally find Brazilian Portuguese easier to pronounce than Spanish. BP sounds smoother, not like a blazing machine gun like Spanish, and also lacks the harsh consonants of Spanish such as the jota sound and erre. Instead, Portuguese features the soft zh and sh sounds and replaces the violent Spanish erre with a really gentle yet easy r sound which doesn't seem to exist in any other language. The intonation is also a lot more musical and graceful. The nasal vowels are novel, but they are not that hard to get used to.

I often watch Brazilian TV, but the striking similarities with Spanish take away the interest and I can rarely get myself motivated to hit the books and study grammar and vocabulary. If Portuguese was as different to Spanish as Spanish is to say Romanian for example, I would probably be really motivated and would most likely already be proficient in the language. I want to learn Portuguese in the future, I just need to find a good course or textbook that holds my attention. I have also considered taking a language immersion program in Brazil.

[Nascimento]

I 100% recommend you take up Brazilian Portuguese in any case. Portugal's variety is strongly inferior (I am biased of course, but honestly it really is).

If you're truly interested in it, definitely go for it.

To test your current proficiency, here is a cool thing you can do.

In this video, the speaker shows a variety of different Brazilian dialects. I would say your Portuguese is very basic if you can't tell much of a difference (in speech, besides the voice tones alone). Intermediate if you can tell the differences. Advanced if you can understand most of what he is saying.

The subject matter is how different people in Brazil compliment their women.

[456]

removed

[world_nomad]

I would recommend you use the podcast called Ta Falado (http://www.coerll.utexas.edu/brazilpod/tafalado/). You should be able to download it to your phone very easily. It is meant for speakers of Spanish. It has ~10 minutes lessons that focus on the diferences between Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish (both pronunciation and grammar). I'm a native spanish speaker and I've found it very helpful.

[Lumbre]

(07-02-2015 10:24 AM)Nascimento Wrote:  

I 100% recommend you take up Brazilian Portuguese in any case. Portugal's variety is strongly inferior (I am biased of course, but honestly it really is).

I share the same opinion, my friend.

I have encountered a lot of hate by European Portuguese supremacists against Brazilian speakers on the Internet, keyboard warriors who claim that their European Portuguese is somehow vastly superior to Brazilian Portuguese, but the truth is that they are only envious because they know that their small nation has been eclipsed by its former colony. It is often the case that feelings of inferiority often give rise to a token complex of superiority.

Brazilian Portuguese is so smooth, musical and melodious. It is said that its unique intonation was influenced by Italian and African languages throughout the earlier waves of immigration. One can see a stark contrast with the harsh and dull pronunciation and the overly mutated vowels of European Portuguese. Brazilian Portuguese sits at the pinnacle of linguistic evolution and is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful languages in the world.

European Portuguese speakers think that their variety is superior because they say 'tu tens' instead of 'você tem'. Who the hell gives a damn about the -s second person conjugation anyway! If there is ever a war over which variety of Portuguese is the best, I will enlist in the Brazilian army as an honorary Brazilian warrior and fight against the Portuguese for the glory of Brazil!

Amo as deusas brasileiras!

[LouEvilSlugger]

Native Azorean Portuguese speaker here, which sounds like Portuguese spoken with a thick French accent if you didn't know.

Continental Portuguese understand me, Angolans understand me, Brazilians understand me. All this "supremacy" talk is fucking fallacious, nobody cares as long as you your interlocutor understands you. That said, I've always found that Brazilian Portuguese sounded wildy homosexual.

[Nascimento]

^^

Case in point!

[Saga]

(07-02-2015 10:24 AM)Nascimento Wrote:  

In this video, the speaker shows a variety of different Brazilian dialects. I would say your Portuguese is very basic if you can't tell much of a difference (in speech, besides the voice tones alone). Intermediate if you can tell the differences. Advanced if you can understand most of what he is saying.

Which dialect of Brazilian Portuguese do Brasileiras find most attractive in a foreigner?

[Lumbre]

(07-02-2015 07:25 PM)LouEvilSlugger Wrote:  

Continental Portuguese understand me, Angolans understand me, Brazilians understand me. All this "supremacy" talk is fucking fallacious, nobody cares as long as you your interlocutor understands you. That said, I've always found that Brazilian Portuguese sounded wildy homosexual.

I care. For me, languages are like art and I really appreciate the deep beauty and esthetic qualities of a language.

And yes, I do believe in an evolutionary scale of languages and I wholly reject the egalitarian bullshit which is imposed on mainstream linguistic thought. Afterall, you cannot really say that great masterpieces such as Greek and Sanskrit are not superior to underdeveloped tribal languages.

Brazilian Portuguese spoken by a female will give me an instant boner and also force me into a masturbatory frenzy. European Portuguese doesn't do that for me. Therefore, I prefer Brazilian Portuguese and if that pisses off Portuguese people then that's their problem!

I suppose that I'll just have to see you on the battlefield when myself, Nascimento and thousands of other brothers set sail on our ships, swords in hand, Brazilian flag flying, leading the fleet into battle against the Portuguese armies, ready to fight like men with huge colhões for the honor and the glory of Brazilian Portuguese!

[Nascimento]

(07-02-2015 07:54 PM)Saga Wrote:  

(07-02-2015 10:24 AM)Nascimento Wrote:  

In this video, the speaker shows a variety of different Brazilian dialects. I would say your Portuguese is very basic if you can't tell much of a difference (in speech, besides the voice tones alone). Intermediate if you can tell the differences. Advanced if you can understand most of what he is saying.

Which dialect of Brazilian Portuguese do Brasileiras find most attractive in a foreigner?

Not sure. I haven't been around there long enough recently to know.

There are others on this forum that I'm sure would be able to better answer this question.

[JWLZG]

(07-02-2015 06:19 PM)Lumbre Wrote:  

(07-02-2015 10:24 AM)Nascimento Wrote:  

I 100% recommend you take up Brazilian Portuguese in any case. Portugal's variety is strongly inferior (I am biased of course, but honestly it really is).

I share the same opinion, my friend.

Could both of you share empirically why you believe so?

I've studied Spanish to an early intermediate level and have tried to informally teach myself Portuguese from that background.

I've heard both BP and EP spoken enough to tell a difference.
The vowel intonations of EP definitely sound like one is trying to start a fight.
On the other hand, I'm not terribly keen on the squashed "D's" and "T's", and word-final "E's", in BP.

I find it rather interesting that a variety of language that was derived from the lower classes, and influenced via indigenous peoples and African slaves over the centuries, would produce a dialect(s) that would end up by far more melodious and musical to the ear than its mother language.

I've noticed that it ran it much a similar manner as Afrikaans developed from Dutch, with a much similar effect.

[Nascimento]

From a vocabulary perspective, they are similar enough where there really isn't a significant difference between the two.

So when I state my opinion being that Brazilian Portuguese is superior to Portugal's Portuguese , it is strictly based on dialect and tonality (I won't comment on other Portuguese-based regions, such as Azores or Angola, for I'm not familiar with their dialect).

It would be perfectly fair for you to say that I am indeed somewhat a supremacist about our dialect. It's a problem I share with 95% of native Brazilians. Though that also goes both ways.

From our perspective, we believe we have perfected the language, in text and verbally. Portugal's spoken Portuguese just does not sound pleasing to me at all. But, hear the following.

For the record, I get along very well with Portugueses. I recognize them as for the most part, hardworking perfectionists. Where I live at the moment many of them work construction and they always get the job done well, they are known for their competence.

Some of my best friends are Portuguese. I take a crack at their dialect all the time. They do the same to me. When we do it, it's in good fun. Though some take the situation more seriously.

It's really just verbal sparring. You can see it right here on this thread.

I do recognize that when all is said and done, at the end of the day these are all just opinions.

[Cheetah]

How is European Portuguese perceived in Brazil among girls? Could it be an advantage as it must be more exotic to them?

Would European Portuguese pronounciation but with Brazilian Portuguese words/expressions/idioms sound completely daft?

For me European Portuguese would be easier to pronounce and if you some day become fluent it would be harder for Brazilians to tell that you aren't a native speaker if you speak European Portuguese. Still, would learning European Portuguese be stupid if you want to use the language in Brazil?

[Lumbre]

(07-02-2015 09:23 PM)JWLZG Wrote:  

(07-02-2015 06:19 PM)Lumbre Wrote:  

(07-02-2015 10:24 AM)Nascimento Wrote:  

I 100% recommend you take up Brazilian Portuguese in any case. Portugal's variety is strongly inferior (I am biased of course, but honestly it really is).

I share the same opinion, my friend.

Could both of you share empirically why you believe so?

I've studied Spanish to an early intermediate level and have tried to informally teach myself Portuguese from that background.

I've heard both BP and EP spoken enough to tell a difference.
The vowel intonations of EP definitely sound like one is trying to start a fight.
On the other hand, I'm not terribly keen on the squashed "D's" and "T's", and word-final "E's", in BP.

I find it rather interesting that a variety of language that was derived from the lower classes, and influenced via indigenous peoples and African slaves over the centuries, would produce a dialect(s) that would end up by far more melodious and musical to the ear than its mother language.

I've noticed that it ran it much a similar manner as Afrikaans developed from Dutch, with a much similar effect.

My view echoes that of Nascimento. Brazilian Portuguese features a vowel system that is more open and stable, meaning that there is less vowel reduction on the unstressed vowels, and so the Brazilian variety sounds a lot more fluid and somewhat smoother. On the other hand, in European Portuguese the sound quality in recessant vowels is often mutated quite drastically and that gives the language as harsh sound.

For example, compare the respective pronunciations for falar: (Brazilian) faˈlaɾ; (European) fɐˈlaɾ.

Then there is the feature of intonation. As I have already mentioned, Brazilian Portuguese has a much more musical, melodious and vibrant sound. It shares its musicality with Italian. Some people believe that the unique intonation of Brazilian Portuguese might have been influenced by a major influx of Italian speakers into the country during the early waves of immigration. Also there is the possibility that African languages may have played their part too. In contrast, European Portuguese simply doesn't have this phonological quality and actually sounds more like a harsh and flat slaviquesque tongue to a certain extent.

How can a variety of language influenced by the speech of lower classes and dialects of indigenous populations become such a melodious and prestigious dialect?

Welcome to the New World! Independent from the European aristocracy of the Old World, the lower and middle classes were now able to exert more influence on the nascent culture and so the previous notion of aristocratic hegemony became more and more obsolete. Now it doesn't matter that the Portuguese were once the hegemonic speakers of the language, today Brazil is the largest and most influential lusophone nation and Brazilian Portuguese carries a lot of weight and status whether people like it or not.

The Brazilians also innovated some aspects of their grammar thus making Brazilian Portuguese quite flexible.

For example, in Brazilian Portuguese, you can separate the conditional suffix and place it before the basic verb: amaria > ia amar; comeríamos > íamos comer

Pretty cool eh!

Also the palatalized D's and T's make the Brazilian variety sound so smooth. And the exaggerated nasal quality of the N in the middle of words makes the language sound more lively.

[Nascimento]

(07-03-2015 03:51 AM)Cheetah Wrote:  

How is European Portuguese perceived in Brazil among girls? Could it be an advantage as it must be more exotic to them?

Would European Portuguese pronounciation but with Brazilian Portuguese words/expressions/idioms sound completely daft?

For me European Portuguese would be easier to pronounce and if you some day become fluent it would be harder for Brazilians to tell that you aren't a native speaker if you speak European Portuguese. Still, would learning European Portuguese be stupid if you want to use the language in Brazil?

No. It might not be ideal, but of course it would still be greatly useful.

I'm not too sure regarding how you would be perceived. You should ask some of the forum members who have been to Brazil and learned some Portuguese during their time there.

[Lumbre]

Having given more thought to the topic concerning the value of Spanish and Portuguese, I would also like to add that it is wise to take into account your actual location, habitual residence and accustomed places of travel.

I my case, I still live in my hometown which is situated in a region where both Spanish and Portuguese are very rare. Here we have immigrants mainly from Eastern Europe, the Indian subcontinent and to a lesser extent East Asia. My only contact with Spanish and Portuguese is through the Internet and therefore determined by myself. This means that if I were a new learner recently introduced to the Romance languages, I could freely choose any option I want and the level of utility would be roughly the same.

As a personal anecdote, I lived in Japan for about a year when I was studying Japanese. I noted that Japan is a country that has a friendly relationship with Brazil and as a consequence certain regions such as Chûbu and Kansai have large populations of Brazilian immigrants. If I had remained in Japan and pursued permanent residence there, I would definately deem Brazilian Portuguese as the most useful option, despite its fewer speakers on a worldwide scale. I have learned that it is always good to plan our foreign languages in related compounds, electing to study language combinations which have strong mutual connections.

If I lived in the US, where hispanophone populations are almost everywhere, I would definately give priority to Spanish. Some American cities are even hispanophone majority locations such as the vibrant city of Miami, known as the capital of Latin America. In America, if you speak Spanish, you can bypass your typical feminist American broads and pursue recently arrived first-generation Latinamerican girls.

This is another factor which we ought to consider.

[Prince X]

Ok. So I have a question and hopefully someone here can shed some light on it and point me in the right direction here. My only language that I speak fluently (my mother tongue) is English. I am born in the US to English-only speaking parents and family. I have now studied some Spanish a bit but more recently I have gotten wrapped up in Brazil and it's culture, women and language. So I "jumped ship" for now in studying Brazilian Portuguese. However, I have seen a lot of personal testimonies of people who first tackled Spanish and who claimed this helped them in acquiring BR Portuguese more easily. That makes sense as I have heard that once one learns one Latin-based language it is easier to learn others. However, I only see testimonies and even courses for Spanish speakers learning Portuguese. My question is, do you think it would be more advantageous for me to go back to Spanish and get it first then tackle BR Portuguese? Or is it actually easier to learn BR Portuguese first then go and tackle Spanish? Is one approach superior to the other? I have heard that BR Portuguese is more complex than Spanish so it would seem to me that learning it first would make Spanish easier but I'm not sure about that as I'm a novice. Just my thoughts and my questions here if anyone can help me and give me some advice here it will be much appreciated. Gracias e muito obrigado!!!

[atlant]

If your heart isn't in it then there's no point continuing to study Spanish. They are similar enough languages that the most important factor really is motivation and dedication.

[AvidArtisan]

I think Brazilian Portuguese is easier for Americans. A lot of words in Portuguese are similar to English even spelling wise they just have the port suffixes. I just started teaching myself Portuguese these last 6 months with simple iPhone apps and I have a wide English vocabulary and I can make sense of most of the content and context of a Portuguese article(this is also a good practice, of just reading articles in full Portuguese and figuring out the content quickly then rereading in English to see what was wrong).

[Pendejo41]

I'm fluent in Spanish, grew up in NYC, been to Spain, Peru and a few other countries where Spanish is spoken, I've never had a problem communicating with the locals at the host country or getting laid (like a boss). Some countries in South America communicate in Spanish but converse in local languages such as Quechua (Peru), Aymara (Bolivia) as well as others. You should learn Spanish and keep at it, here in the USA there are lots of Spanish periodicals to help you continue to learn and maintain your language proficiency, once attained.

I am currently learning Brazilian Portuguese. To those who like to refer to the "supremacy" of certain languages I find this offensive. British like to ridicule the Americans for their form of speaking, their intonations and accents but I won't go there. Brazil's Portuguese has evolved due to the indigenous population, and later, the mixing of the Africans who came during the colonial era. Other counties that speak Portuguese include: Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guine Bissau, Angola, East Timor and parts of China and India. There are lots of words in Brazil that are not in continental Portuguese. So we should embrace each others languages and analyze them but not infer that one is supreme to the other.

Back to PrinceX, go ahead and learn Brazilian Portuguese, you will notice the similarity to Spanish in no time. If you are in NYC there are a bunch of language schools that you can enroll in. I am currently taking a class that meets once a week and I sometimes go to the Meetups for Brazilian Portuguese speakers, every thing helps, it's great to learn more languages, it helps with the women (that's a given) but it also helps with careers. By learning Brazilian Portuguese I can make a lot more money by catering to an entire community in my field. I will be in Brazil one month from tomorrow.

(08-10-2015 01:50 AM)Prince X Wrote:  

Ok. So I have a question and hopefully someone here can shed some light on it and point me in the right direction here. My only language that I speak fluently (my mother tongue) is English. I am born in the US to English-only speaking parents and family. I have now studied some Spanish a bit but more recently I have gotten wrapped up in Brazil and it's culture, women and language. So I "jumped ship" for now in studying Brazilian Portuguese. However, I have seen a lot of personal testimonies of people who first tackled Spanish and who claimed this helped them in acquiring BR Portuguese more easily. That makes sense as I have heard that once one learns one Latin-based language it is easier to learn others. However, I only see testimonies and even courses for Spanish speakers learning Portuguese. My question is, do you think it would be more advantageous for me to go back to Spanish and get it first then tackle BR Portuguese? Or is it actually easier to learn BR Portuguese first then go and tackle Spanish? Is one approach superior to the other? I have heard that BR Portuguese is more complex than Spanish so it would seem to me that learning it first would make Spanish easier but I'm not sure about that as I'm a novice. Just my thoughts and my questions here if anyone can help me and give me some advice here it will be much appreciated. Gracias e muito obrigado!!!

[mntrsx]

Which is easier for a Russian speaker, Portuguese or Spanish?

[eL-JJ]

(09-12-2015 04:02 PM)mntrsx Wrote:  

Which is easier for a Russian speaker, Portuguese or Spanish?

I saw a video report where they said spanish is the easiest language to learn for russian native speakers, and that after english, its the most studied in russian/ukrainian universities...