Learn to Speak Portuguese

With over 200 million speakers worldwide (180 million of which are in South America), Portuguese is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. As one of the major languages spoken in the Americas, as well as an official language of the European Union, Portuguese has many contemporary practical applications--in both the travel and commerce world. In fact, it ranks 6th in the world in terms of number of native speakers. As Brazil is a major tourist destination, travelers interested in visiting the country will find at least some limited knowledge of the language helpful. However, it should be remembered that the two forms of Portuguese (from Brazil and from Portugal) sound very different to the ear.

Portuguese, along with French, Spanish and Italian, is a Romance language that was derived from Latin. However, mostly due to a strong Moorish influence in Spain, Portuguese also adopted a fair number of words from Arabic. While also fairly closely related to Spanish, Portuguese pronunciation can be a little trickier because of the nasal diphthongs and the very hard L. However, the two languages share a very close vocabulary and sentence structure and those who already known Spanish (or another Romance language) shouldn't have too much trouble picking up Portuguese fairly quickly.

There are many different ways to go about learning Portuguese. A good start could be to check with your local community college and or university to see if they offer courses in the language. If this is not an option or you'd rather have more individualized attention, hiring a private tutor to get you started learning the basics is another good route to go. Programs like Rosetta Stone are also immensely helpful in teaching you the basics of vocabulary and grammar while also helping you with accent and pronunciation. Of course the best way to learn any language is through total immersion (plus a trip to Brazil or Portugal doesn't sound like a bad excuse to work on your language skills). In fact, a few weeks interacting and speaking Portuguese on a daily basis can be worth more than a year in the classroom.