Jared Romney from SpeakingLatino.com recommends Portuguese for Spanish speakers as a stepping stone for learning more difficult languages. He writes: “before committing to a thousand hours of Chinese classes, try honing your skills with a smaller step towards Portuguese. This way, when you do commit to some of the more complex languages, your language learning ability will be well-practiced and streamlined. Portuguese is a logical next step. It is different enough from Spanish that you will learn new LA skills, but so similar that you will be fluent extremely fast.”
Romney breaks down his article into the categories of Grammar, Pronunciation and Vocabulary to best describe the similarities between Spanish and Portuguese. Vocabulary receives the most attention, as the tips he provides for this category offer the quickest path to understanding Portuguese.
With respect to word endings, he provides a chart with some of the more common word endings in Spanish along with their Portuguese equivalent:
Spanish | Portuguese
-ción, sección | -ção, seção
-sión, prisión | -são, prisão
-able, saludable | -avel, saudável
-dad, universidad | -dade, universidade
-miento, descubrimiento | -mento, descubrimento
-gia, tecnología | -gia, tecnologia
If you know Spanish and are also studying Portuguese, what other similarities with Spanish have you found helpful for learning the language?