One More Reason To Learn Spanish...

[D.B. Cooper]

There are now more Spanish speakers in the United States than in Spain, according to a study.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/u-s-home-spanish-speakers-spain-study-article-1.2275825

 

[ajoknoblauch]

There are now more Spanish speakers in the United States than in Spain, according to a study.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/u-s-home-spanish-speakers-spain-study-article-1.2275825

Tell that to Donald Trump or any other Republican reactionary (a redundant phrase, I acknowledge).

 

[sleslie23]

For those who don't trust the Daily News:

http://eldiae.es/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/espanol_lengua-viva_20151.pdf

 

[ajoknoblauch]

For those who don't trust the Daily News:

http://eldiae.es/wp-...-viva_20151.pdf

The Daily News is sorta like Página 12 these days. They're not wrong about everything.

 

[Noesdeayer]

Right.But if you were smart and wanted to have a real competitive advantage you would learn Brazilian Potuguese.Dilma,Joaquim Levy and company are in NYC right now.Let's see how many investments they get from " O Goliat do Norte".

 

[sleslie23]

Right.But if you were smart and wanted to have a real competitive advantage you would learn Brazilian Potuguese.Dilma,Joaquim Levy and company are in NYC right now.Let's see how many investments they get from " O Goliat do Norte".

If you were learning a language purely for "competitive advantage," Portuguese would hardly be the smart choice.

The report mentioned above places it number 17 in importance. Above Hindi, but below Italian and Swedish! (See the report for the factors used to make this determination)

 

[camberiu]

Right.But if you were smart and wanted to have a real competitive advantage you would learn Brazilian Potuguese.Dilma,Joaquim Levy and company are in NYC right now.Let's see how many investments they get from " O Goliat do Norte".

They will get nothing. And there are many more relevant languages to learn than Portuguese if your goal is to be competitive. For a Native English speaker, I'd advise learning Spanish over Portuguese any day of the week.

 

[ajoknoblauch]

They will get nothing. And there are many more relevant languages to learn than Portuguese if your goal is to be competitive. For a Native English speaker, I'd advise learning Spanish over Portuguese any day of the week.

I expect they'll get more than Argentina does. At least they're not going out of their way to alienate other countries.

I learned Spanish because it was clearly becoming an important language in the US, and for travel because it's so widely spoken in the Americas (though there are more Portuguese speakers in Brazil than Spanish speakers in the rest of South America). I did take an intensive Portuguese course (the equivalent of one full year in eight weeks of a Berkeley summer session), but I still find I lapse into Spanish when attempting to converse in Portuguese. I can read Portuguese pretty well, and Brazilians understand me, but I can't understand them very well.

 

[camberiu]

I can read Portuguese pretty well, and Brazilians understand me, but I can't understand them very well.

It has always been the case that it is much easier for us Brazilians to understand Spanish than the other way around. Some claim that it is because Spanish is a bastardized version of Portuguese, but I have no idea how much truth is there on that claim.

At any rate, at a global/professional level, I find Spanish to be much more useful and pertinent than Portuguese

 

[ajoknoblauch]

It has always been the case that it is much easier for us Brazilians to understand Spanish than the other way around. Some claim that it is because Spanish is a bastardized version of Portuguese, but I have no idea how much truth is there on that claim.

At any rate, at a global/professional level, I find Spanish to be much more useful and pertinent than Portuguese

Much of my limited Portuguese comprehension I attribute to the fact that I only rarely speak or hear it.