Portuguese and Spanish are two very similar languages. They are both romance languages and they have evolved in close proximity.
But does that make it easier to learn and speak Portuguese if you already know Spanish?
In the following guide, we’ll answer questions such as:
- Will knowing Spanish help me when learning Portuguese?
- How long does it take to learn Spanish and Portuguese?
- Should I Learn Portuguese or Spanish first?
- Is it easier to learn Portuguese or Spanish?
Is it Easy to Learn Portuguese if I Know Spanish?
Spanish and Portuguese share many similarities and knowing one of these languages will make it much easier to learn the other.
However, they are still two distinct languages and they require a lot of time and effort to learn.
If you already know Spanish and have an interest in Portuguese, we recommend learning it. Just don’t expect to reach fluency in a few weeks or even a few months. It might not take you as much time to attain proficiency in Portuguese, but it’ll still be a long road.
Can a Spanish Speaker Understand Portuguese?
Although these two languages have a lexical similarity of over 90%, there are enough differences to make it difficult for native Spanish speakers to understand native Portuguese speakers and vice versa.
If you are a Spanish speaker, you may be able to understand Portuguese if it’s spoken very slowly and the right words are used, but it’ll be a struggle.
Portuguese grammar and pronunciation are very different from Spanish. Many Portuguese words are similar or the same as Spanish words, but the same could be said for English and French, and moving from one to the other will still take years of study.
Comprehension might be easier for a Portuguese speaker reading or hearing Spanish, but they won’t be able to understand everything.
How Long Does it Take to Learn Portuguese and Spanish?
According to the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), an agency tasked with educating diplomats, it takes around 24 weeks to learn both Spanish and Portuguese.
These 24 weeks are based on full-time study, so it’s not something you can replicate with 10-minute daily sessions on Duolingo.
In fact, unless you’re devoting every hour of every day to your language study, and you have some prior experience learning languages, there’s no feasible way you can become fluent in that time.
The 24-week timeframe covers between 600 and 750 classroom hours. That’s the equivalent of between 3.5 hours and 4.5 hours of classroom study every day.
And that’s not the whole story.
Throughout that time, students are immersed in the language and will also devote several hours to personal learning.
It’s not practical for the average learner.
That doesn’t mean the FSI list is useless, though. It still teaches us a lot about the learning process and gives us an idea of how easy/hard one language is compared to another.
After all, the name of this blog comes from the FSI’s category 4 list.
Based on this information alone, it should take you a similar length of time to learn Portuguese as it does to learn Spanish. How long that time is will depend on how intensively you study, whether or not you immerse yourself in the language, and what your prior experience is.
If you’re only learning for 2 hours a week and spend most of that time with your head in a book, your progress will be slow and difficult.
If you learn for an hour a day and switch between listening practices, reading, grammar, and chatting with a private tutor, you’ll get there much quicker.
How Long For Spanish Speakers to Learn Portuguese?
There are many factors at play here. If we assume daily study, immersion, and a balance between listening, speaking, and grammar, you should attain conversational fluency within a year.
There are stories of experienced language students learning Portuguese in just 6 months after attaining fluency in Spanish.
Is Portuguese Easier to Learn Than Spanish?
If we answer this question using the FSI list mentioned above, Spanish and Portuguese have the same level of difficulty. In reality, however, there are some slight differences that make Spanish a little easier for Native English speakers.
Over the course of many months of full-time study, the differences are imperceptible, which is why the FSI has given them the same ranking. But for the average learner, choosing Spanish could mean you reach conversational fluency much sooner and deal with less frustration and pronunciation problems.
Is Portuguese a Hispanic Language?
Hispanic refers to something that originates from Spain or Latin America. Portuguese comes from Portugal, so it is not Hispanic.
Both languages are Iberian, though, as they both come from the Iberian peninsula. This is also true for Brazilian Portuguese and Mexican Spanish, which were introduced to South America by colonists several centuries ago.
Portuguese vs Brazilian Portuguese
The Portuguese spoken in Portugal is a little different from the Portuguese spoken in Portugal. There are also many cultural differences that impact slang and affect whether formal/informal words are used.
In terms of pronunciation, Brazilian Portuguese tends to pronounce the vowels more than their European cousins and they pronounce the “s” differently when it’s used at the end of the word (more of an “ss” than the “sh” used in Portugal).
If you speak Portuguese, you should be able to understand both variations without much issue.
How Many Portuguese Speaking Countries Are There?
Portugal is spoken in 10 countries:
- Portugal
- Brazil
- Guinea-Bissau
- Cape Verde
- São Tomé
- Príncipe
- East Timor
- Mozambique
- Angola
- Equatorial Guinea
How Many Spanish Speaking Countries Are There?
Spanish is much more widespread than Portuguese. Not only is it the official language of more than 20 countries, but there are also tens of millions of people who speak it as a foreign language.
- Mexico
- Spain
- Colombia
- Argentina
- Perú
- Uruguay
- Venezuela
- Paraguay
- Chile
- Ecuador
- Guatemala
- Cuba
- Bolivia
- Dominican Republic
- Honduras
- El Salvador
- Nicaragua
- Costa Rica
- Panama
- Puerto Rico
- Equatorial Guinea
These countries all speak a variation of the language that a native Spanish speaker would understand, but there are differences in pronunciation, spelling, and slang. Popular variations include:
Latin American Spanish (Latin America)
- Castilian Spanish (Spain)
- Andalusian Spanish (Spain)
- Murcian Spanish (Spain)
- Caribbean Spanish (Caribbean)
- Equatoguinean Spanish (Africa)
Should I Learn Portuguese or Spanish First?
If you don’t speak Spanish or Portuguese, you should learn the language that appeals to you the most.
Don’t get too distracted by how “easy” or “quick” you think a language is. If you learn something just because you think you’ll reach fluency quickly, you may struggle to stay motivated. The same is true for languages that you learn just to impress your friends.
The less experience you have learning languages, the more important it is to study with meaning.
Choose a language that you enjoy and are passionate about, whether that’s because you’re fascinated by Portuguese history, love Spanish cinema, or have a lot of Spanish friends.
Once you decide which language to learn, you need to think about whether you should study Brazilian Portuguese/European Portuguese or European Spanish/Mexican Spanish.
Language apps usually have options for both variations. Again, there is no “best” option, but if you’re in the US and spend a lot of time in Mexico and with Mexican people, Mexican Spanish is probably a better option.