Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > World Forums > World
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 02-03-2013, 05:15 PM
 
1,267 posts, read 3,059,306 times
Reputation: 1253

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by juppiter View Post
I think if your first language is English, French is easier. Lots of English words have the exact same spelling/meaning as their French counterparts (though pronunciation is different.) In many cases, once you have expanded your French vocabulary you can guess what a French word means in English when you hear it.

They are both useful in different ways depending on what you intend on using them for.
Yes this is another dilemna. English has alot of french words, while spanish has alot of similarities with portuguese. But it seems, spanish is more similar to portuguese, than english is to french. English is, in essence, a germanic language while french is a romance language. Spanish and portuguese are closely related up to west iberian language family. While french branches off after the gallo-iberian language family(two language families before from the west iberian languages.)
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 02-03-2013, 06:34 PM
 
3,643 posts, read 10,690,947 times
Reputation: 1916
I studied Portuguese for 3 semesters. Spanish helps out a ton, but it can also make it confusing. I think it's impossible to learn Spanish & Portuguese at the same time without confusing them. But if you already have a full grasp of Spanish before you learn Portuguese then it wont be a problem.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 02-03-2013, 08:18 PM
 
Location: San Francisco
1,472 posts, read 3,531,732 times
Reputation: 1583
Between Portugal, Brazil and former Portuguese African colonies who's economies are growing fast (Angola and Mozambique) I think Portuguese might be the wiser choice - especially in the the future. Depends on where your focus is going to be - if I were going to stay in the Americas I'd choose Portuguese for sure. Europe and much of West Africa - French.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 02-16-2013, 10:05 PM
 
Location: Calgary,AB
70 posts, read 106,234 times
Reputation: 45
Spanish, Italian and Portuguese are intelligible and if someone is fluent in any of them learning the other will be a piece of cake; however France is leading (alongside Germany) the EU , also if you are interested in European history , philosophy or culture, French is really helpful (France had a vast influence in Western Europe, in almost every aspect), also there is a culture factor , I love the intellectual approach of Frenchs, like their magazines "Manieres de Voir", “Le Nouvel observateur" or their debates on radio and tv; furthermore,there are master doing films and everything that its “Je ne sais quoi”, which made it almost irresistible; finally, if you speak English you actually speak a little French, around 30% of vocabulary in English has French roots (because the Norman Invasion which made UK being part of France for 3 centuries)
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-30-2016, 09:13 AM
 
49 posts, read 231,823 times
Reputation: 39
I speak Portuguese and would definitely recommend learning it for a few reasons

1. Over 200 Million people speak it
2. Brazil will continue to have business opportunities in the future. It's the leader of South America.
3. Brazilian culture is great. It's a wonderful vacation or even a place to live despite what they show on the news.

I used this online course to learn it.

Semantica Portuguese: The #1 Online Brazilian Portuguese Course
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-31-2016, 04:25 PM
 
Location: Denver
6,625 posts, read 14,392,168 times
Reputation: 4191
I will agree with those who say it's easy to mix up Spanish & Portuguese. I visited Uruguay last year and made an attempt to speak some Spanish...and then when I went back to Sao Paulo (where I was living), I kept on mixing up words for like a week.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 04-01-2016, 07:33 PM
 
Location: Edmonds, WA
8,975 posts, read 10,111,398 times
Reputation: 14245
I say French. Structurally it has some elements of English and Spanish, though it's more akin to Spanish. For example both French and Spanish have the formal tense which doesn't exist in English. However the pronunciation is soooo different from both and English and Spanish so be prepared for that. That said, it's a beautiful, classy language that is still used in many parts of the world.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-30-2018, 12:35 AM
 
1 posts, read 828 times
Reputation: 10
Portuguese is (in my opinion) is easier than french but a bit harder than spanish. The most useful out of all of them is probably french because there is a large francophone population in Africa, Canada, and parts of South America. But because Brazil is an up and coming financial power and who knows maybe one day Portuguese will replace English as the "Lingua Franca" of the world.....
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-30-2018, 10:31 AM
 
Location: DC metropolitan area
631 posts, read 554,779 times
Reputation: 768
1. If you already know Spanish, Portuguese is MUCH easier to learn. They share a common core vocabulary of about 90%. So, just learning the phonetics of Portuguese will get you well into the language. However, because the two are so close it is easy to rely on Spanish to *fill* your Portuguese when speaking. Sometimes this leads to errors. It's just one of the traps.

2. French is also important, but not so much in the Americas. If you know you will be working with Brazilians...

3. In Miami, I would say the following languages are important (in order, from most to least): English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French). But, again, it would all depend on the particular job.

4. Personally, I really identify with French. But that is because I grew up in a bilingual French-Canadian-immigrant-descended community in central Maine and lived in Quebec. I also speak Portuguese and love the sound of it (both the Brazilian and European versions).
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-01-2018, 01:45 AM
 
Location: USA
3,068 posts, read 7,979,675 times
Reputation: 2482
French isn't that hard. I made A's in it. Unfortunately I don't remember much since I've never used it.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > World Forums > World

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top