Learning Spanish After Portuguese: Can Portuguese Help With Learning Spanish?

How much do you know about Romance languages?

Do you understand their similarities?

Can you distinguish their differences?

And does learning one Romance language can be helpful in learning the other?

Romance languages are descendants of Vulgar Latin, the language that today isn’t spoken anymore, but which was spoken back in ancient times, in the Roman Empire.

Luckily for Latin, it emerged through many other languages which are today French, Spanish, Portugues, Italian, Catalan, and Romanian.

They all are different languages but share many similarities.

Their native speakers often claim that they can understand each other even if they speak their own native languages.

We all are aware of the fact that languages that come from the same language family share many similarities, some even the same things.

Portuguese and Spanish, for example, are considered to be two very close and similar Romance languages.

So can a language learner, who successfully achieved some advanced level of proficiency in Portuguese, can learn Spanish that easily?

Will Portuguese help him in better and faster learning Spanish or the opposite?

If you are too eager to  find out right away and you can’t wait for your Portuguese or Spanish tutor to tell you, keep reading because, in the following lines, we will reveal the big secret called ‘learning Spanish after Portuguese.’

Let’s dive in.

How Similar Are Spanish And Portuguese?

So, how similar are Spanish and Portuguese?

Both Spanish and Portuguese come from the same language family, Romance languages.

When two independent, different languages belong to one language branch, it means that a long time ago, they were one language. It’s something like relatives in the family.

When you take a look at your family tree, you can see one person, a grand-grand-grand mother or father, from whom all of you come. He or she had his own children, and that children had their children, and so on until you were born. All those relatives look like you, some of them less, others much more, but the point is that all of you share the same ascendant.

The same is with languages.

And since these two languages are siblings, many things they share.

Here are some of them.

Vocabulary

Many words in both Portuguese and Spanish are similar if some aren't the same. They share around 89% lexical similarity, which means that every 9 of 10 words in Portuguese and Spanish are similar.

Here are some of them:

Beware of The False Friends

Like in any other similar language, here, there are also false friends, words that are the same in pronunciation and writing but different in meanings.

Some of the well-known false friends are:

• Oficina (Spanish)- office

Oficina (Portuguese)- repair garage

• Oso (Spanish)- bear

Osso (Portuguese)- bone

• Perro (Spanish)- dog

Perro (Portuguese)- rusty

• Pez (Spanish)- fish

Pez (Portuguese)- pith, resin

• Polvo (Spanish)- dust

Polvo (Portuguese)- octopus

• Tienda (Spanish)- shop, business

Tienda (Portuguese)- tent

• Topo (Spanish)- mole

Topo (Portuguese)- top

• Vaso (Spanish)- glass, cup

Vaso (Portuguese)- vase, flowerpot

Orthography

As for the spelling rules, even if you don't speak these languages, you can notice how similar spelling rules they have.

Some of them are:

• ón and -ão

The Spanish words that end in -ón, end in -ão in Portuguese, such as corazón- coração ( heart), inversión- inversão ( inversion), or televisión- televisão ( television).

• ll and -ch

Spanish -ll changes to -ch in Portuguese like in the words llover- chover( rain), llegar- chegar ( to get), or  llamada- chamada ( call).

• ñ and nh

Spanish –ñ turns to Portuguese -nh in words like España- Espanha ( Spain), mañana- manha ( morning), and araña- aranha( spider).

Grammar

Differences Between Spanish And Portuguese

Besides many similarities, these two languages also have differences. That's why they are two different languages in the first place.

But don't let that discourage you so that you might think that you won't learn Spanish well.

On the contrary, the following differences can help you to make separate places in your brain for each one of them.

Pronunciation

As much as similar pronunciation is, Portuguese is more challenging than Spanish.

Nasal vowels that exist in Portuguese, you won't find in Spanish. In Portuguese, it is very important to pronounce the sounds right because you might be misunderstood.

Grammar

There are clear differences in Portuguese and Spanish grammar. One of them is object pronouns that are used differently in Brazilian Portuguese, for example, or aren't used at all while in Spanish they are used in strict order.

Also, the future subjunctive is the tense that is commonly used in Portuguese.

Gender

One of the differences between Portuguese and Spanish is gender.

No matter how similar some words may be, some of them even the same, in Spanish, they have a different gender than in Spanish.

Here are some of them.

• el árbol (Spanish)- a árvore (Portuguese)- the tree

• el coraje (Spanish)- a coragem (Portuguese)- the courage

• el equipo (Spanish)- a equipe (Portuguese)- the team

• el viaje (Spanish)- a viagem (Portuguese)- the trip

• la leche (Spanish)- o leite (Portuguese)- the milk

Can Portuguese Help With Learning Spanish?

As you can see by yourself, Portuguese and Spanish are closely related because they have the same root.

Just take a look at words, nothing else, and you’ll understand what we are talking about.

Not only similarities but also the differences between these two languages help one to learn better the other.

So, the answer is simple: knowing Portuguese can be very helpful in learning Spanish.

Moreover, both languages are spoken all over the world, so the benefits of knowing both languages are numerous as well as your possibilities.

Final Thoughts

One more good thing about Portuguese and Spanish is that they are considered to be easy languages to learn for English languages but also for others, so no matter which is your native language, you won’t struggle too much with them.

After all, every next language you learn will be easier to memorize and use it properly.

So, if you already speak Portuguese and consider learning Spanish, don’t waste another minute but book 1-on-1 lessons with Spanish tutors and see how learning Spanish after Portuguese can be a piece of cake.