If you want a decent return
on your investment, says Helen Joyce, the best language to learn is Brazilian
Portuguese...
Some lunatics learn
languages for fun. The rest of us are looking for a decent return on our
investment. That means choosing a language with plenty of native speakers. One
spoken by people worth talking to, in a place worth visiting. One with close
relatives, so you have a head start with your third language. One not so
distant from English that you give up.
There really is only one
rational choice: Brazilian Portuguese. Brazil is big (190m residents; half a
continent). Its economic prospects are bright. São Paulo is Latin America’s
business capital. No other country has flora and fauna more varied and
beautiful. It is home to the world’s largest standing forest, the Amazon. The
weather is great and so are the beaches. The people are friendly, and shameless
white liars. You’ll be told “Your Portuguese is wonderful!” many times before
it is true.
You won’t need a new
alphabet or much new grammar, though you may find the language addicted to
declensions and unduly fond of the subjunctive. You’ll learn hundreds of words
without effort (azul means blue, verde means green) and be able
to guess entire sentences (O sistema bancário é muito forte: the banking
system is very strong). With new pronunciation and a few new words you’ll get
around in Portugal and parts of Africa. If you speak Spanish, French or
Italian, you’ll find half the work is already done — and if not, why not try?
With Portuguese under your belt you’ll fly along.
Best of all, you’ll stand
out. Only about 10m Brazilians have reasonable English, and far more
Anglophones speak French or Spanish than Portuguese, of any flavour. I did not
choose this language; it was thrust on me by the offer of a job in São Paulo.
But when I think of my sons, now ten and five, one day being able to write
“fluent Brazilian Portuguese” on their CVs, I feel a little smug.
Helen Joyce is The Economist's São Paulo correspondent
Which do you think is the
best language to learn? Have your say by voting in our online poll
Editor's note: Thanks to our ever-alert readers—the first was Caio Capelari—for
pointing out that the original illustration for this article featured a
Portuguese newspaper and not a Brazilian one. We do appreciate that an ocean
separates the newsstands of Rio from those in Lisbon. And thanks to Andrew
Stickland for sending a new image from São Paulo this morning.
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