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Portuguese + Spanish the fastest growing western languages
Portuguese is poorly promoted in the United States as a foreign language to be learned. Most nationalities spend millions of dollars promoting their national languages in the US. Unfortunately Portugual and Brazil spend zero. Yet the language is spoken by over one million Portuguese heritage speakers in the US.
If you considerd that the language has not being maketed and has been left to survive on its own, Portuguese is triving quite well at the secondary level of education and at the university level with thousands of students enrolling to learn Portuguese. Enrollment was been growing steadily.
Kelly
>Spoken Brazilian Portuguese is nothing like Continental Portuguese >.
Unfortunately spoken Brazilian Portuguese is nothing like Continental Portuguese.
Brazilians will pay a price for that. Brazilians have now a language that they themselves don’t understand. There is so much confusion and controversy among Brazilians regarding their own lingo that it will take a civil war to sort it out.
In the mean time European Portuguese stays put as a viable language that you can teach and learn with assurance because it is a mature and organized language with an applicable grammar that actually makes sense.
European Portuguese still is the model for all varieties of Portuguese, because it is the grounded source.
Sorry Kelly, but Brazilians will always have to reach for the root and soul of their lingo if they care to understand each other: European Portuguese.
Find your facts Godot
Due to historical and linguistic factors, the language spoken in the portuguese territories in South America (Brazil) differentiated from the European Portuguese, in all linguistic aspects: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, etc., to the point of some linguists saying that Brazilians are already speaking another language.
Brazil has the largest population in South America and is the fifth most populous country in the world. The people are also diverse in origin, and Brazil often boasts that the new “race” of Brazilians is a successful amalgam of African, European, and indigenous strains, a claim that is truer in the social than the political or economic realm. Portuguese is the official language and nearly universal; English is widely taught as a second language. Most of the estimated 150,000 indigenous peoples (chiefly of Tupí or Guaraní linguistic stock) are found in the rain forests of the Amazon River basin; 12% of Brazil's land has been set aside as indigenous areas. Some 90% of the population is at least nominally Roman Catholic. There are more than 50 universities in the country.
Brazil has one of the world's largest economies, with well-developed agricultural, mining, manufacturing, and service sectors. Vast disparities remain, however, in the country's distribution of land and wealth. Roughly one third of the workforce is involved in agriculture. The major commercial crops are coffee (Brazil is the world's largest producer and exporter), citrus fruit (especially juice oranges, of which Brazil also is the world's largest producer), soybeans, sugarcane, rice, corn, cocoa, cotton, tobacco, and bananas. Cattle, pigs, and sheep are the most numerous livestock. Timber is also important, although much of it is illegally harvested.
Brazil has vast mineral wealth, including iron ore (it is the world's largest producer), quartz, chrome ore, manganese, industrial diamonds, gem stones, gold, nickel, tin, bauxite, uranium, and platinum. The leading manufacturing industries produce textiles, chemicals, shoes, food products, steel, motor vehicles, ships, and machinery. Most of Brazil's electricity comes from water power and it possesses extensive untapped hydroelectric potential, particularly in the Amazon basin.
In addition to coffee, Brazil's exports include iron and steel, concentrated orange juice, soybeans, beef, tropical hardwoods, and footwear. Crude oil, manufactured goods, and chemical products head the imports. Most trade is with the European Union nations, the United States, Argentina, and Japan. Brazil is a member of Mercosur.
When it comes to euphonic degree, I think both Portuguese and Italian sounds more beautiful than Spanish. Compared with Spanish, Italian is more rhythmically and plumply, and Portuguese is more nasally and softly.
Brazil is not the United States of America, therefore it is crap. Only English, Castilian, and Mandarin are important global languages of the 21st century. All others are crap, especially Portuguese, which is just a deformed sibling of Castilian. When writtent the two languages are basically identical.
Mcat
Well, so happy to hear that Mandarin Chinese is all that important and useful. But I don't think "All others are crap", it might be kinda extremely.
>Compared with Spanish, Italian is more rhythmically and plumply, and Portuguese is more nasally and softly<
Wrong answer ! Can you actually make a difference between melody and rhythm?
Italian is one of the most melodic languages, so Italian has melody more than rithm.
Spanish is the one with rhythm with a rhythmic intonation and the percussive high toned “S”
If you want an example…
Spanish is rhythmic language, just like Flamenco.
Italian is a melodic language, just like the Italian opera.
Both languages are melodic and rhythmic, at some point, but the accent is on rhythm (Spanish) and melody on ( Italian)
The language that successfully balanced the rhythm and melody was Classical Latin.
Some Italian accents have 2 tones and one semitone on an acoustic scale !Spanish 1 tone 1 semitone, Northern French 1 tone, while English has just a semitone.
Also Note that many languages are just FLAT.
Italian I would find the harsh latin language of the Latin group.
Brazil is not the United States of America, therefore it is crap.
Talking about crap. What is the largest crapiest country in the world?
Answer: Mcat's country is the crapiest that is why Mcat is a crapean.
BRAZILIAN SPOKEN HERE:
http://www.brazzil.com/p47sep98.htm
''According to many Portuguese people 160 million Brazilians speak the language wrongly. Are all Brazilians illiterate? Would they all be bilingual if they had to learn Portuguese? ''
''It is obvious, therefore, that companies should select as their ideal translator a speaker of the standard variety of the target country. The basic reason being that although reasonably thorough descriptions of each variety exist, it is virtually impossible for a native speaker of one variety of Portuguese to do a good translation into the other. Although there are unfortunately people who may feel, and announce themselves as capable of translating/editing for both varieties, their work usually does not pass the simplest scrutiny of a native speaker. Unless one has lived extensively in both countries, one will not have the native speaker's feel for what is appropriate/inappropriate and this will be evident the translation''
http://www.necco.ca/faq_what_clients_need_to_know.htm
Yara,
You made a good point. Brazilians Portuguese speakers must demand Brazilian interpreter/translators because, indeed, their understanding of European Portuguese is very limited.
However, European Portuguese speakers will be able to do with one or the other because they, indeed, are able to understand both without Brazilian Potuguese and Euroepan Portuguese. European Portuguese also do well undestanding Spanish. Usually they do very well without an interpreter/translator.
TEN TOP REASONS WHY BRAZILIANS DON'T UNDERSTAND PORTUGUESE
1. Portuguese is too difficult and Brazilians have small brains
2. Portuguese is a sophisticated European language
3. Brazilians want a language that only they can speak
4. Portuguese say more with less and fast
5. Brazilians need five minutes to order their coffee
6. Brazilians have short memories and big asses
7. Brazilians need to count syllables while they speak
8. Brazilians need a Portuguese grammar for dummies
9. Brazilians are not good at math either
10. Brazilians have their own language: Brazuguese
''According to many Portuguese people 160 million Brazilians speak the language wrongly. Are all Brazilians illiterate? Would they all be bilingual if they had to learn Portuguese? ''
Definitely not all Brazilians are illiterate. Many Brazilians also think that Brazilians speak wrongly and what Brazilians need is better education. It is necessary to solve this problem as many say in Brazil “poblema”, or “pobrema” is always a “poblema”.
The average vocabulary of the Brazilian with less education is of about three thousand words according to the information of the conference at the “Academia de Letras Brasileira”.
Yara the site you provided is fabulous it means a Brazilian that goes to study Portuguese as a foreign language (in another country) can not learn it. It is what they are doing in a class isn’t it, learning? Otherwise why would they be in a Portuguese class if they already could speak and write Portuguese perfectly.
http://revistaepoca.globo.com/Epoca/0,6993,EPT1022450-2845,00.html
http://www.acontecendoaqui.com.br/at_npo.php
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