SPatrick83

I majored in Spanish, minored in French and have picked up Portuguese over the last two years.
From my experience, I don't recommend you learn Spanish and Portuguese at the same time because they are very similar and you'll confuse them and frustrate yourself.
Before you hire a tutor, learn as much vocabulary and basic grammar then seek a tutor to teach you the more difficult grammatical structures. You don't want to waste the money or time with a tutor to learn how to learn your numbers and days of the week. With Spanish you will be able to easily read Portuguese however you'll need to learn how to pronounce Brazilian Portuguese which you can do with an audio assisted self-teaching book.
Buenas suerte y boa sorte!

Stez

I am absolutely terrible at learning a language. I am still trying to master my native English, never mind attempting another one. Watching French movies greatly helped me in getting a surprisingly decent grade at GCSE and a workable level with my colleagues.

Then I tried Spanish, hopeless. Dutch, hopeless. German, hopeless, even with the help of my German family members.

Then my colleagues tried to teach me Arabic and Khmer. I am embarrased to say I have no more than a vocabulary of five words for each of them!

heartybob

I recommend you get together with the lovely Yahillwe. I'm sure you'd get on like a house on fire

FenLandK

Given your location, are you not fluent in Geordie?

Stez

Not anymore, been away for too long and my colleagues are from 40 different countries has changed the way I speak somewhat. I struggled to even understand what my Geordie pals are saying now which is a bit of a shock.

Yahillwe

Ohhh cutie thanks a mill for the compliment...and I an sure that HIDDY and his most credible smiley Madame would and are touched, as I am, by you compliments...


We all, mdm SGR and Pucci, would be more than happy to put out the house on fire.. we all have the kind heart and good will to to it...


I personally can attest to Madame SRG, but would and am honored to, put my reputation on the line.

HIDDY

Yahillwe = High life,expensive tastes. Me = stingy. Wouldn't work.

My earlier post has been misconstrued. I'm looking for a young female tutor to teach me better Spanish....not to replace my wife. By the way, Mrs HIDDY is fluent in four languages and some Portuguese. Why she married an idiot like me I'll never know.

Yahillwe

I might portray expensive taste... but am the most humblest of all people... if you were flying on the same flight with me.. or my kids, and needed our seats. we would without any reason give up our places. It has happened more than once... would and have given my place at dinner for anyone who needed or wanted it... it makes me upset to be portrayed as above... I ain't Mrs new princesses"

You Sir have made me very upset with how you are portraying me... one of the humblest humans you will ever meet.

HIDDY

Calm down my dear...I never said you weren't humble.The jet lag and lack of sleep is confusing you.
Would you really want to live with a stingy though? Economy class travel only? Dining at Wethersppons and shopping at Primark? If so, I'm your man.

BicesterTerrier

Hopefully HIDDY & Yahillwe will be back on speaking terms soon.

Thanks for the comments, I will answer some of the points made -

London Bridge is a little out of my way. I am living in Bicester (for my sins), my Office is in Evesham. I am the Regional Sales Manager for a relatively small business, with responsibility for South America, well pretty much anything south of the US that is not Mexico or uncomfortable for our Septic colleagues to look after.

We have sales agents currently in Brazil & Argentina with a view to adding Colombia & Chile to the list in the next 12mths. I am tasked to spend 2wks every 8 or so weeks travelling in the territory. When in Brazil or Argentina I will be with my Agent most of the time, so speaking the language should be easy. I need to pick up the language really for dealing with the rest of the continent, either when travelling there or simply trying to get past a receptionist on the phone.

Sadly as a small Company, they insist we travel Y, or cheaper!

LeisureFirst

I think this is all good advice. My Spanish is now sufficiently settled into my mind that it doesn't get muddled up when I make occasional attempts to improve my (very limited) Portuguese, but you don't want to start with both at once.

I think you can go a long way with a book and audio course, combined with exposure to the language you'll be getting from all your travelling. There are some things which only a tutor (or a patient native speaker friend) can do, however, such as persistently correcting poor pronunciation until you get it right - but you don't need that right away.

Be brave and bold: don't be afraid to use the language at every opportunity. Sometimes you'll feel a bit silly, especially when you're trying out Portuguese with someone who turns out to speak far better English and doesn't have the patience to put up with your Portuguese.

By the way, that last bit of advice can be taken too far. One of my best friends insists on speaking Portuguese at every available opportunity but this is not always wise. On one occasion, at 3am in Rio, he and my Brazilian partner were approached by someone claiming to be carrying a grenade and demanding all their money. My friend didn't really understand what was going on and, to cut a long story short, everything he said made the situation worse. My partner had to tell him in no uncertain terms to shut up and do nothing. My partner used a complicated combination of lies and threats to persuade the guy to accept R$80 (about �30) to go away, even though he'd seen that my friend had hundreds in his wallet.

LeisureFirst

"Small" can work to your advantage. A friend works for a small hedge fund with a couple of dozen employees and he is forced to travel in F or more expensive (i.e. non-commerical) - I'm not joking - something that no big company would countenance for a mid-level employee.

LeisureFirst

I must say I think this is all very commendable. You will really get a lot more out of the place from learning the language, and every little helps. You start of getting to the sort of level where you're comfortable in a restaurant, not just with asking for the bill but with more complicated things such as explaining you ordered something that didn't arrive. You then get to a level where you can have a slow conversation with a locel about basic things such as where you're staying and how long you're there. And before long you're getting into talking about what's happening tomorrow and the nuances of what you're expecting to do, what you hope to do and what you promise to do, for example. And every little that you gain is rewarding if you're travelling a lot and using the language.