Learning Portuguese? Take A Look at These Facts First

Portuguese can be a quite fun and beautiful language to learn. It is a very common language that is spoken in over ten different countries and by millions of people. There is a wrong assumption that Portuguese is just a different dialect of Spanish, but actually the Portuguese language is very different from Spanish.

Most people in South America speak Spanish. However, in Brazil that is not the case. The official language of the country is Portuguese because Portugal colonized Brazil making it the official language. Since Brazil is a huge country and takes up about half of the population of South America, we can easily infer that half of South America is made up of Portuguese speakers.

Though Portugal colonized Brazil, the dialects of the two countries are very different. If you wish to learn Portugal you must keep in mind the fact that European Portuguese is considered the standard dialect and contains a more complex grammar structure. Moreover, the two languages differ in terms of their vocabulary, syntax and phonology.

If you are pursuing the Portuguese language course, you will mostly be learning the European or the classical tongue. The Brazilian Portuguese, although derived from the former, has been affected by many other languages. But the reason Brazilian Portuguese has been there till now is because of its contact with indigenous languages. There were many indigenous tribes in Brazil before the Europeans arrived with all of their African slaves. It is interesting to learn that many African languages impacted Brazilian Portuguese.
Today, the Portuguese language is spoken across four different continents. They are Africa, South America, Europe and Asia. In fact, finding a Latin American language to be the official language of some of the countries in Africa is in fact unexpected. But due to Portugal's vast and widespread colonization, the language is a widely spoken in many parts of United States also such as California, New York and Florida. It is also due to the fact that there are a huge number of immigrants speaking Portuguese.

If you want to learn Portuguese, you will get a large number of benefits because it opens you up to many traveling opportunities. You can decide the country that you want to travel. As a beginner you do not need to be fluent in a language before traveling and some basic words or phrases are enough.

It is always better to get yourself enrolled in a Portuguese language course from a foreign language training institute because to learn it for the purpose of a career, a trainer is required. He or she will technically guide you in mastering the language. On the other hand, if you have already decided on travelling to Brazil, it would be best to learn the Brazilian Portuguese which again can be learnt from your trainer. Lastly, learning the language on your own from a book is generally can be very difficult because the language is a bit different from the other European languages. For additional assistance you can buy an audio or video lesson pack on the language.