Portuguese language education to expand in Castille and Leon

Informer   Sat May 08, 2010 2:58 am GMT
The president of the Council, Juan Vicente Herrera, returned to Valladolid with important agreements on cooperation between Castille and Leon and Portugal, with a special part on education.

The leader of the autonomous executive had an agreement this Wednesday in Lisbon with the Portuguese Minister of Education María de Lurdes Rodrigues on giving a strong boost to the teaching of Portuguese in the nine provinces.

For this, one of the main measures to be taken will be to make Portuguese an optional second language in primary and secondary school, as well as in official language schools and universities.

According to Herrera's explanation today there are around 3,000 children learning Portuguese as a second language, as well as more than 580 in schools of Castille and Leon.

"That is the way forward", signaled the president of the Council when he called the Portuguese language with 240 million speakers in the world at present "a language of future opportunities".
Franco   Sat May 08, 2010 3:01 am GMT
Portuguese is very underrated in Spain but things are changing. I wonder if it will replace French as second foreign language. News like these suggest it is possible.
Matematik   Sat May 08, 2010 9:19 am GMT
Good news.

The languages of the future are English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Portuguese, Hindi and Russian.

I don't know why people study French. German is a little more important but not too much. Both languages are becoming regional ones, out of the top ten languages.
Semanario   Sat May 08, 2010 10:52 am GMT
As a Spaniard, I've never had any difficulties communicating with Portuguese, or Italians for that matter.

I don't even try to speak their language. I use Spanish and they understand me, most of the time. And they reply in Portuguese/Italian and I understand, most of the time.

But that's just me, because I've met many Spaniards in Portugal that are simply unable to grasp their language. My theory is that they are either too lazy, too arrogant, or both, to make the effort to understand.

I also understand chavacano, no problem at all:
http://cbk-zam.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavacano

But many others Spaniards don't. Go figure ...
Matematik   Sat May 08, 2010 11:05 am GMT
Hopefully it will over-take Spanish as the main language. Portuguese has much more depth and complexity that the mind of the Castilian speaker would struggle to comprehend.

Hopefully study of a more complex and deep language like Portuguese will make the Spaniard more intelligent.
Franco   Sat May 08, 2010 1:22 pm GMT
The Portuguese are not intelligent, but poor and backward. Castilians always were more progressive.
Penetra   Sat May 08, 2010 1:49 pm GMT
Portugal: 92 IQ

Spain: 99 IQ


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations


The more archaic a society is, the more intrincate their language is. Take into consideration those African and native American languages which are way much more difficult than European languages.
Matematik   Sun May 09, 2010 6:04 am GMT
Good news.

The International languages of the future are English, French, Russian, Arabic, Portuguese.

I don't know why people study Spanish. Chinese is a little more important but not too much. Both languages are becoming restricted to their respective turfs, out of the top ten languages.
Harman   Sun May 09, 2010 6:42 am GMT
This thread is about portuguese teaching in spain not about other languages...why do you change it?

Please leave French alone.

Time will decide what languages are top and what ones won't be top. You don't need to push them down.

By the way is very easy for a romance speaker to learn other romance languages like portuguese, galego, catala, french, italian... romanian is harder it is too slavic.
Children in Castilla y Leon (CyL) can learn french and portuguese very easily , after English of course.
Semanario   Sun May 09, 2010 7:25 am GMT
Please leave French out of this thread.

French is a completely different animal. Portuguese and Italian can be understood by any considerate Spaniard. French can't be understood, even if you try really hard.

And what's even worse, you can't make yourself understood in French, unless you speak it perfectly, due to so much arrogance and chauvinism embedded into French people (from France I mean, and more specifically from Paris and the North East)

Who else but a Frenchman on vacation?
http://rafaminu.blogspot.com/2006/06/who-else-but-frenchman-on-vacation.html
Mallorquí   Sun May 09, 2010 1:21 pm GMT