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Spanish and Portuguese at uni?

@revido

I would definitely like to do a language degree, but I am not too sure whether to combine Spanish with French or Portuguese? I enjoy both of them, but Spanish and Portuguese definitely come more naturally to me however I don't want to make any decisions I will regret and I know that Portuguese would be easier for me to learn outside university. I also wouldn't want to completely give up my French, so I am in a bit of a dilemma. I would be grateful for any general advice.

Reply 1

sophia5892

Original post by @revido

If you have both Spanish and French at A Level then you could do all 3 languages at Newcastle University on their Modern Languages course.
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/undergraduate/degrees/t901/courseoverview/

There's no commitment to keep all 3 languages going so you could easily drop French or Portuguese after first year (or second or third year). That would give you longer to make your mind up about it and to try the languages out properly to see which you really want to do.
I believe French would be more useful generally than Portuguese but Spanish and Portuguese are a very good combination to have, particularly depending what you want to do once you've graduated. So I wouldn't let the "usefulness" of the language guide your decision - pick what you know you'll enjoy most.

Also, as the romance languages are all linked, you'll soon pick French up again if you did drop it. In the same way that portuguese would be easy for you to pick up as a Spanish learner. For example, I do French, German and Japanese at uni and I did 2 years of Italian for A-Level. Because of my French and limited Italian I can understand a lot of written Spanish and Portuguese even though I don't speak a word of them :tongue:

So I'm sure it must work the other way around too!

Also, if you do decide on Spanish & Portuguese, you should check out SPLAS at Newcastle too:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/undergraduate/degrees/rt47//courseoverview/
The department is really well regarded and my friends on the programme really enjoy it.

Another thing to bear in mind is that you can apply for more than one degree at the same institution and that sometimes unis can be very flexible with their programmes. So if you did apply for Modern Languages at Newcastle for example and then changed your mind and wanted to do SPLAS, it's usually quite straight forward to swap once you've got your offer :smile:

Any other questions, let me know!

Reply 2

rockrunride

Depends on your academic interests. I studied French and Spanish at uni. French is the more academic of the two and harboured more of my interest in cultural studies, whilst outside uni, I've become more interested in Spanish in a practical and day-to-day sense.

But I'm also interested in Portuguese and it's leapt out at me as a potentially engaging challenge. Similar to Spanish, but not enough that it doesn't require additional study, especially for speaking and listening. People will say it's very useful, and that does factor in my interest, but not completely, as I'd rather learn the European variety over Brazilian (c. 11 million native speakers versus 200 million), and they do differ in lexis, pronunciation and even grammar. There are two main draws for EP over BP for me: 1) the fact that I'm European and speak European varieties of French, Spanish and English, and 2) that you'll be able to understand a BP speaker if you're fluent in EP. But that tangent aside, it's fairly easy to get Portuguese lessons outside uni. It's not as easy to find a decent Portuguese course at uni, but if you have a substantial academic interest in Portuguese, then go for it by all means.

Spanish and Portuguese at uni?

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