Comments on: How Much Energy Will It Take to Make Portuguese Go Global?

By: Gerhard Seibert

Gerhard Seibert — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:05:20 +0000

Fernando, It is true that the official language Portuguese is the principal requirement to become a full member state of the 8-member Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries (CPLP). However, as far as I know the Obiang Nguema regime has not yet formally introduced Portuguese as the country's 3rd official language. During a visit in Lisbon in early 2009 Malabo's foreign minister Pastor Ondo Bile declared that "According to how the learning [of Portuguese] develops, we shall be able to consider Portuguese as the country's third language". See the respective information at http://www.agencialusa.com.br/index.php?iden=2179...

By: Fernando Aboga

Fernando Aboga — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:16:13 +0000

Gerhard, I browsed around a bit and it seems that Portuguese is, in fact, one of Equatorial Guinea's official languages. I found several articles from Equatorial Guinea's newspapers corroborating this info. Below follows one of the links that I found:
http://www.guinea-ecuatorial.net/ms/main.asp?cd=n...

Although you may consider it nonsense, it was President-dictator Teodoro Obiang Ngumema himself who announced that his government had decided to make Portuguese Equatorial Guinea's third official language. The alleged reasons was to meet the requirements to apply for full membership of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.

By: Gerhard Seibert

Gerhard Seibert — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:36:21 +0000

Completely wrong is the information about Equatorial Guinea. This Spanish-speaking country has not yet imposed Portuguese as the third official language (the second is French, imposed by the local dictatorship in 1998). The majority Creole spoken in Eq. Guinea is pidji, an English-based Creole language that is lingua franca in Bioko island. Fá d´ambô, the Portuguese based Creole to which the author possibly refers is only spoken on the tiny island of Annobón (17 sqkm, 2,000 inhabitants). In Eqatorial Guinea nobody speaks Portuguese. To indroduce Portuguese as official language in this country would be the same nonsense as the introduction of Spanish as official language in Cape Verde or in Ghana.

By: Gerhard Seibert

Gerhard Seibert — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:34:50 +0000

Some of the affirmations made in this article are not correct. The author bases his calculation of people speaking Portuguese on the population figures of the eight Portuguese-speaking countries. This of course is not accurate, as in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, São Tomé e Príncipe and East Timor Portuguese is only the official language, but not necessarily the language spoken and understood by the entire population. On the contrary, in Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and East-Timor only a minority of the population speaks Portuguese. In the six countries, even people who speak Portuguese in daily life frequently use their mother tongue or the local lingua franca.
The author mentions nine Portuguese-speaking countries, but there are only eight.
It is also not correct that all CPLP member states have ratified the Acordo Ortográfico, because Angola and Mozambique have not yet ratified this treaty.

By: Lawrence La Fountain

Lawrence La Fountain — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 23:27:27 +0000

Thank you for this interesting article. I have found Portuguese to be very useful and enjoyable and promote its teaching and learning.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:54:14 +0000

This is the same thing they use to say about Spanish> Years no wanted to speak or learn Spanish because Latin America was not taken as a serious player in the world. Now to do business in Latin America Spanish is very essential. Even in China they are encouraged to learn both Spanish and Portuguese.

I believe with as Brazil becomes more of a major player speaking Portuguese will be essential if one wants to do business. So time will tell.

By: Selma Vital

Selma Vital — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:14 +0000

I disagree entirely with the idea that learning Portuguese is more expensive than learning English. Since there are more places where one can learn English, there are more competition. That is natural. However, a good school of English is expensive in any part of the world.

By: Lee

Lee — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 10:08:03 +0000

As a native Brazilian Portuguese speaker I can agree with many that Portuguese is a good language to learn and it's a bridge for other languages such as Spanish, Italian and French. However, as a freelancer translator I would like to advise that when an important translation is needed, software cannot be replaced by human beings. I've seen many disastrous translation/interpretation jobs.

By: Rafael Tavares

Rafael Tavares — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 07:26:28 +0000

I've spend some time in Portugal and tried to study and to learn Portuguese. It was very expensive. Maybe in Brasil is different. Americans make it easier (and much less expensive) to learn English. They understand it is a valuable investment. Portugal and the CPLP so far seems to consider that learning Portuguese is a privilege not a potential necessity. As Rodrigo says, they need to be serious about the expansion of Portuguese.

By: lourdes

lourdes — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 05:20:27 +0000

There is no doubt , that portuguese is very similar to Spanish, but Spanish still the most important
language of all the latin languages, and the most spoken in the world as a native language in most countries. The article above is wrong, the only country thats speaks portuguese in South America is Brasil. I am a native spanish speaker who likes Brasil very much and I am learning portuguese,
but when you live in the United States you realize that Spanish is the second language and is spoken everywhere, Is not comparizon at all , Spanish is the winner, learn spanish and the learn portuguese.