Tuesday, May 1, 2018

How To Learn Helpful Languages: French, Spanish and Portuguese

Problem
Which languages should I learn first?

Answers
USA and South America
In the USA, after English, the three most useful languages are French, Spanish and Portuguese. French is one of the two main langauges spoken in Canada. Also used in St Martin in the Caribbean.

Spanish comes in handy in Mexico and South America. Many parts of the USA have Spanish speaking populations and signs in public places may be in both English and Spanish which helps you learn.

Portuguese is what you need in Brazil in South America.



Europe
FRENCH
In Europe French is handy in France, Belgium and Switzerland. (And French restaurants and menus and recipes, and the labels on bottles of French wine, Champagne, Bordeaux and Burgundy.)

SPANISH
Spanish is good for Spain.  Also Majorca, Minorca, Tenerife. And reading the labels on bottles of Spanish wine such as Rioja and Cava.

PORTUGUESE
Portuguese in Portugal. Also Madeira. And the labels of Mateus Rose, Port, and Madeira.

ITALIAN
Italian will be of use in Italy, Italian restaurants and going to the opera. And the labels of bottles of Prosecco, Asti, Chianti.




Where to start or improve your languages?
Babbel; Berlitz; Duolingo; Earworms; Memrise; Tinycards from Duolingo. 



Buy from bookshops, online from Amazon and Ebay.
Useful Websites:

If you are under 25 and looking for a language to benefit your career, give you job prospects, travel, or increased income, you might want to consider Chinese. 

However, if you are looking for a language which is easy to learn, and fun to use on holiday, the Romance languages are ideal.

The best way to practise a language is to go to the country for a holiday or a longstay and take a course there.

Tourist visits to  countries listed alphabetically:

Brazil (Portuguese)
visitbrasil.com
Note that the website spells the country the way it is spelled in their language with an s.

Cuba (Spanish)
visitcuba.com

France
http://us.france.fr
https://en.parisinfo.com

Italy
Perugia in Umbria has language courses and a university.
Portugal
www.visitportugal.com

Spain
www.spain.info
Language Courses
http://www.languagesabroad.co.uk/spanish.html

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have many more posts on learning languages including: Chinese, Esperanto, French, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Welsh. Please share links to your favourite posts.

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