Portuguese vs Spanish: Which One is More Difficult? / Learning Languages

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Exploring "Portuguese vs Spanish: Which One is More Difficult?" is a comprehensive YouTube video designed to unravel the complexities and similarities between Portuguese and Spanish, targeting English speakers keen on diving into the realm of Romance languages. With an emphasis on the linguistic challenges and benefits each language presents, the video aims to provide viewers with a thorough understanding and actionable tips to master these globally significant languages. It discusses key aspects such as lexical similarities and differences, grammatical structures, phonetics and pronunciation, and spelling nuances, ensuring a well-rounded approach to language learning. By focusing on the specific challenges English speakers might face, the video becomes an invaluable resource for beginners and intermediate learners alike, striving to make the language acquisition journey as seamless as possible.

The video delves into the heart of what makes Portuguese and Spanish both fascinating and daunting for learners. From examining grammatical gender to exploring the use of cognates across English, Portuguese, and Spanish, it offers strategic insights into vocabulary building and understanding complex grammatical tenses. Notably, it highlights the unique aspects of Portuguese, such as the personal infinitive and the future subjunctive tense, which add layers of subtlety and depth to the language. Moreover, phonetic comparisons offer a glimpse into the distinct pronunciation challenges and spelling conventions that differentiate Portuguese from Spanish, providing learners with the knowledge to navigate these hurdles effectively. With a balanced view of the difficulty level of both languages, the video encourages learners to appreciate the journey of language learning, promising a rich reward in cultural and linguistic insights regardless of which language they choose to pursue.

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[mihaijulien]

Knowing Romanian and French, I understand Spanish more (maybe more exposure to this one?) than Portuguese. But, personally, I like Brazilian Portuguese more than Spanish.

[jakjak]

It’s great Tim that you’ve decided to start your channel, you’ve got some knowledge to share

[rubicade]

I am a freshmen in highschool, and am taking Spanish, I absolutely love it. At the beginning of the year, he would ask us questions in Portuguese to see if we could tell the difference between the two languages. I can happily say that I can tell the difference, but not what anything means😅

[hata]

The MOST underrated polyglot channel. You are a legend and an inspiration. German is the first language I’m learning ❤

[gabolifavmc]

I'm a native Portuguese speaker, though colloquial Portuguese isn't hard to learn, the Portuguese taught in schools is very hard. I say this because most Portuguese native speakers struggle at some point with the grammar. Portuguese has a lot of rules, you have to memorise them. Funny thing is, for Portuguese speakers, Spanish is very easy to understand. I remember hearing Spanish as a child and thinking it was just another dialect of Portuguese.

[SanderIwase]

Amazing work. Thank you for the video. My native language is Brazilian Portuguese, and it was really fun looking at it from the perspective of a non native speaker…. I have always thought Portuguese to be easier than Spanish… but now I can get why we are able to understand and communicate with our country neighbors, but they seem to not understand us, even the most basic words… 😂❤

[victoraguirre]

There are some errors (v.g. 7:23, "hambre" is really feminine: El hambre es tremendA, LA malditA hambre, just uses article "el" to avoid cacophony "la hambre", which still may be used in somewhat careless contexts, by children or speaking colloquially, specially rendered as /lambre/). But as a native Spanish speaker and with my basic knowledge of Portuguese, I agree with the video, Portuguese is somewhat more complex if only by the wider spectrum of sounds, and any Spanish speaker who knows Portuguese is aware of that, but not necessarily the other way around: In every single congress in Latin America there's that Brazilian guy who thinks that because he understands Spanish easily, Spanish speakers also understand his fast Portuguese without problem.

[fabiorjr]

As a native Portuguese speaker, I can understand Spanish spoken and written but I just can speak Portunhol and I can't write in Spanish

[belstar]

i think Portuguese is slightly harder but these days i think my Portuguese is better because i use it more and when i speak Spanish i have to stop myself from saying Portuguese words .but i noticed the difference between European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese is much bigger than the difference between the different forms of Spanish

[Petr_]

Hola Tim ! Muchas gracias por esa comparación completa ! En mi opinión, el portugués es más dificil por su pronunciación. Yo sé español al nivel intermedio y lo aprendí más rápido por su pronunciación fonética y logica. Pero puedo entender "portugués escrito" bastante bien, especialmente portugués de Brasil. Por eso no tengo ganas de aprender portugués y confundir los dos.

[francorodriguez]

I'm an Argentinian living in Portugal, we share similarities but is another language believe me jaja

[namibianodetombua]

Nice canal. Portuguese speaker here.
Please note: in Portuguese, the word capital has both genders.
For example, Brasília é a capital do Brasil. Lisboa é a capital de Portugal. (feminine)
Karl Marx escreveu "O Capital".
Perdi todo o meu capital ao comprar ações na bolsa. (masculine).
Congratulations for your good work. 😊

[donc]

Great video and I agree on that Brazilian Portuguese is beautiful, . A few comments. When I use "taza" in Spanish, I use "copo" un Portuguese. And "fierro" in Spanish is "ferro" in Portuguese, and "hierro" is used in written Spanish and used mostly in spoken Spanish from central to northern Spain, i.e. official Spanish. The original "f" has a tendency to be lost in Spanish and is often converted to "h", and it's not the other way around. "Cuando seas mayor vas a entender/comprender" may not be correct standard Spanish but is used. The softening of consonants in (most? variants of) Spanish is evident e.g. de, decir/dizer, água, grande. The word for ananas that I'm used to hear in Portuguese is ananás. To Catch: it may be inappropriate to use "cojer" in American Spanish, and you are better of using "recojer" or "agarrar". A notably minority (c- 10%) of Spanish speakers make distinction between "s" and "z/c", the latter two realized as "θ". In Spanish "El capital" is money and "la capital" is the capital city. When reading Portuguese from Portugal I se the use of capital with feminine gender: "A capital oficial do país é Coimbra". In official or standard Spanish there are only one nasal, the "ñ", but it should not come as a surprise that there are more nasals in spoken Spanish e.g. camión can sound as camiõ or camiong i various variants of Spanish.

[clarencehammer]

One of my Spanish professors in college was Portuguese and he spoke beautiful Spanish.

[noahalbridge]

Great video. I'd really appreciate something in this style with French and Spanish.

[mleciwa]

Just one caveat, what is presented in this video as Portuguese is actually not Portuguese, but Brazilian. Using, for example, Brazilians in Portugal can create very funny or even embarrassing situations and vice versa.

[pierreabbat]

"Hambre" is feminine; the article is "el" because it begins with a stressed /a/ sound. The English cognate is "famine".
The future subjunctive does exist in Spanish, but is rare.
The -ra form is a past subjunctive in Spanish, a past perfect in Portuguese, and nonexistent in French. The -se form is a past subjunctive in all three languages.

[bantorio]

... (12:34) ... ... ... en español también podemos decir 'si fueras más viejo, entenderías' ... o sea, que hay cierto paralelismo ... !!!

[KingsleyAmuzu]

I think you should do a video about why Spanish and Greek sound similar, because some of the sounds of Spanish and Greek are similar to each other.

[KingsleyAmuzu]

I think you should do a video on why Portuguese and Russian sound similar, because the sounds of Portuguese and Russian sound similar to each other.