Italian or Portuguese, which is more studied in the world?

Studio   Sat Oct 03, 2009 9:08 am GMT
Italian or Portuguese, which is more studied in the world? which is more important or more useful?
Franco   Sat Oct 03, 2009 3:29 pm GMT
I would say Italian but I don't understand why Italian is more studied than Portuguese
Kelly   Sat Oct 03, 2009 5:02 pm GMT
250 million people study Portuguese at schools from their 1st grade...
Harman   Sat Oct 03, 2009 5:49 pm GMT
I think Studio is talking about learning as foreign language.
I bet italian but I think portuguese is more valuable.
userinho   Sat Oct 03, 2009 10:34 pm GMT
italian is not an important language. it's spoken only in Italy and small part of Switzerland. Portuguese, in 5 continents.
re-fried bean   Sat Oct 03, 2009 11:18 pm GMT
Not only Italian is spoken just in Italy but also dialects and languages are well alive in Italy so the role of Italian is weakened.
Studio   Sun Oct 04, 2009 4:27 am GMT
Harman
I think Studio is talking about learning as foreign language.
I bet italian but I think portuguese is more valuable.


Yes, I just meant "foreign" language. Thanks!
Franco 2   Sun Oct 04, 2009 5:16 am GMT
Either Portugal or Brazil is hardly comparable with Italy in many respects, not to mention other Portuguese-speaking countries.
insigne   Sun Oct 04, 2009 6:04 pm GMT
Unless you tell us what you consider to be the usefulness/importance of a language, there's no way to answer that question.

But if you're asking how likely it is to find someone who speaks the language, I think both Italian and Portuguese are nowadays mainly restricted to countries/areas where they are spoken natively, so their usefulness is restricted mainly to Italian/Portuguese-speaking areas (one should remember that there are sizable Brazilian/Portuguese immigrant communities in many countries, not sure about Italians). Italian, however, has the upper hand of having been a classical language and still being considered culturally relevant (though not on the spotlight anymore), so many western educated people (including Brazilians and Portuguese) know it, as to be able to read classical literature and listen to classical music (vocal pieces, like operas). Also Italy is a big tourist destination (don't know the numbers, but I'll bet its larger than all Portuguese-speaking countries together), hence there's probably a lot more people who've studied Italian at least to tourist-level, specially in Europe.
Karioka da Gema   Sun Oct 04, 2009 7:44 pm GMT
Italians going to or living in Cape Verde, Mozambique, Brazil learn Portuguese.
Student   Sun Oct 04, 2009 8:27 pm GMT
Well, the most studied World languages at this moment are:

1. English

2. Spanish

3. French

4. German

5. Chinese

6. Italian


Portuguese is not studied Worldwide. It is a very spoken language as mother tongue, and it will be very important in the future, but not nowadays.
Paul   Sun Oct 04, 2009 8:31 pm GMT
<<Italian, however, has the upper hand of having been a classical language.>>

What do you mean by "classical language"?
re-fried bean   Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:05 pm GMT
Classical languages are Classical Latin and Ancient Greek. Italian has nothing "classical".
--   Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:39 pm GMT
<<Italian, however, has the upper hand of having been a classical language.>>

Classical? How is Italian any more "classical" than Portuguese? What an idiotic statement.
Franco   Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:50 pm GMT
Espero que Lula aproveche la ocasión de los Juegos Olímpicos para limpiar la ciudad de Río de favelas, negros y demás basura.