Hi guys. I’m having trouble deciding what language to learn. I either want to learn Spanish or Portuguese, but can’t decide which one. I like Spanish because it’s a great language and many people in the U.S. Speak it. It’s mainly love of the language though. I want to learn Portuguese because my wife is Portuguese and my father in law is from Portugal. Her whole side is Portuguese. There are a lot of Portuguese immigrants in my area. So, there is strong Portuguese culture here as well. It’s a,fascinating culture. So,I just can’t decide. What do you guys think?
1 Like
Portuguese seems like the obvious choice from what you’ve written, but only you can make this decision 
7 Likes
This. Also, once you speak it well, you’ll have a huge advantage if you want to learn Spanish, too. I started learning Spanish years ago and Portuguese last year and I can see how that helps a lot.
1 Like
If you really like Spanish and Portuguese, why not learn both of them? I am sure that once you learn either one of them it’ll be oh so easy to learn the next language. You do not have to limit yourself.
I think that makes sense, if you like both and you’re not in a hurry, learn both, it’s what I do with Malay/Indonesian. Read/listen to both and learn to understand them, there are huge areas of overlap, but decide (for the time being) on activating only one of them, otherwise there’ll be a lot of interference. If I were you I’d activate European Portuguese. That is try to speak only the European version of Portuguese, which is what is more relevant for you but do learn to understand Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. Read about the main differences in grammar as you go, without trying to memorize. In a few months you’ll be able to engage in conversation with your in-laws and you’ll be enjoying content in both Spanish and Portuguese at the same time
You can choose both languages to learn.
1 Like
Hey, how are you doing?
FTF, my name’s Igor and I’m from Brazil. So I’d like to tell you about my personal experience of picking up a language to learn. I’d like to learn Italian because of my grand-grand-father but I also would like to learn French because I’m planning to study in Canada. So, I’ve decided to pick up these both languages and give it a try, for at least 3 months and see if I can handle studying 3 languages at once (English, French and Italian). Overall it’s been going well, but obviously some times I mix and messy up french and Italian, but that’s ok. Obviously it’s up to you, but give it a chance and If you see you can’t manage to learn Portuguese and Spanish at the same time, just stick with the one which you really like. By the way, If you need any support for learning Portuguese, I’d be more than happy to help you.
1 Like
Portuguese speakers can understand Spanish, but not so much the other way around. So if you learned Spanish, you would be able to use that to have one-way communication with your wife’s family (not ideal, but I wouldn’t ignore the benefit). Also, written Spanish and Portuguese are very similar, so if you learn one, you can read a fair amount from the other.