My son wants to travel to Brazil. He wants to know what language to learn.?

Question

He is homeschooled so we can pick anything for is second language. He is taking BJJ classes and is hoping to travel to Brazil in the next year or two.

Answer 1

Portuguese.  I would say Spanish, but no, even if they are similar, have him learn Portuguese, it's the official language of Brazil.

Answer 2

Portuguese.  And I can say from my friend's experience, it's really nice to have on your resume that you speak it because it's not as common to learn it in school as French or Spanish.

Answer 3

Brazil is the only country in Central and South America  where they speak  Portoguese. Don't try Spanish although we might think it is somewhat similar there are to much differences and the Brazilians speak with an tsjee sound on almost every wordsend. Standard Portuguese is NOT Brazilian for that matter, Portuguese from Brazil is different from Portugal (just like the Spanish is different from the Spanish/Castianos from Central and South America and all the "spanish" speaking countries have some differences) but the differences in pronounciations in the Portuguese language (being in Portugal or Brazil) aren't that big or to difficult to overcome (as well as for the speaker as for those to be spoken to)

Where in Brazil is your son going to? There is a big difference between the south and the north. (South as for a lot of Brazilians living in the south meaning just the first 4 states/provinces starting at the Argentina border Rio Grande do Sul, Parana, Santa Catharina and Sao Paulo, as where we found quite some people speaking English, not so in the North)

Answer 4

They speak Portuguese.

Answer 5

Just keep in mind that Portuguese is very dificult and not of much use in life.

Spanish is much more usefull professionally.

On the other hand, after learning Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and French become quite easy.

As far as a resume, Spanish is much better, specially in the US.

Also, and this is quite important, there is a huge diference between Brazilian Portuguese and the Portuguese spoken in Portugal.

And even though Portugal is where the language originated, there are some 200 million Brazilians and maybe 10 million people in Portugal.

So make sure he gets Brazilian Portuguese, cause its very diferent indeed.

I quite understand why people in the UK and the US are resistant to learning other languages, if you have English, you are pretty much covered.

I was born in Brazil, from Italian/Swiss parents, so I speak a bunch of languages, and have worked most my life abroad, cruise lines, honestly, i can count on one hand the times i needed languages other than English.

If your son is going to be here, then he will need it, the majority of the population do not speak English.

Answer 6

Portuguese, however the portuguese spoken in Portugal is different from the Brazilian Portuguese. Check this web site:  http://www.sci.fi/~huuhilo/portuguese/

if looking for info about brazil : http://www.travelguidebrazil.com/

Answer 7

Hi,

Your son would need to learn the Portuguese language (the Brazilian Portuguese, not the one from Portugal)