Spanish vs Portuguese: which should you learn?

Is Spanish or Portuguese easier for English speakers?

On paper, Portuguese. The US Foreign Service Institute, which trains American diplomats, puts both in Category I, its group of languages close to English, but lists Portuguese at 24 weeks of training and Spanish at 30. The FSI doesn't explain the difference, and its students are aiming at professional fluency, so a six-week gap says little about your first months. For what the 30 weeks mean in hours, see how long it takes to learn Spanish.

Many learners feel the difference in sounds rather than grammar. Portuguese has nasal vowels, often written with a tilde: in the free A1 chapters of the Contos Portuguese library, about 4% of all words contain ã or õ, such as não (no), mãe (mother), mão (hand) and pão (bread). Spanish has nothing like them, and its five vowels are pronounced as written. Spanish has its own hurdles, such as the rolled rr and, in Spain, the th sound; see our Spanish pronunciation guide.

The grammar is close. Both have two genders, two verbs for "to be" (ser and estar in both), heavily inflected verbs and a subjunctive. For a closer look at Spanish's hard parts, read is Spanish hard to learn?

How similar are Spanish and Portuguese, word for word?

Close enough to recognise, not close enough to swap. We compared the free A1 chapters of the Contos Spanish and Portuguese libraries: 24 chapters in each, by different writers and with different plots. Of the 100 most common word forms in each (names excluded), only 16 are spelled exactly the same, such as de, casa, nada, para and entra, and even some of those mean different things: Portuguese no is "in the", not "no". Many more differ by a letter or two, and a few are completely different.

Watch the small ones. Spanish pero means but, while Portuguese uses mas, which looks like Spanish más (more). Pairs like these are why learners mixing the two end up speaking what is jokingly called portuñol.

Both libraries include an A1 series built on the same idea, Engaged by Mistake, where a message meant for one man goes to another with the same name. The Spanish version is set near Segovia and the Brazilian one in São Paulo, and they open very differently:

The Portuguese heroine Lara writes "Quero casar com você. Você quer casar comigo?" (I want to marry you. Do you want to marry me?). Casar is shared; você, the everyday Brazilian word for you, has no Spanish twin.

Which language is more useful for you?

Decide by the people, places and media you care about:

• Choose Spanish for Spain, Mexico, and Central and South America outside Brazil, or if you live in a country with a large Spanish-speaking community.
• Choose Portuguese for Brazil, for Portugal, or for family, work or music connected to them.
• Undecided? Read chapter 1 of a story in each and pick the one you want to keep reading. Motivation will matter more over a year than six weeks of FSI time.

Mind the variety, too. Contos teaches Spain Spanish: its stories use piso for a flat and móvil for a mobile phone. Its Portuguese is Brazilian, with você (107 times in the free chapters) and celular for a mobile. If you are heading to Portugal, look for European Portuguese material instead.

Should you learn both, and in which order?

Learning both is realistic, but not at the same time. The overlap that helps you later makes the two easy to blur early on. A sensible rule is to get the first language to a solid B1, where you read stories comfortably, before starting the second.

The order matters less than you might think. Spanish first opens more countries; Portuguese first is, by the FSI's numbers, slightly quicker. Either way, the second language will feel like a shortcut: you will already recognise a large share of its words.

Contos keeps one learning language per account, so pick one to start. Both libraries have the same structure, with series from A1 to B2 and chapters 1–2 of every series free.