Brazil to host 2016 Olympics- time to learn Portuguese
Seeing Brazil has now beaten Chicago and Madrid to the hosting rights of Olympics 2016, it’s certainly time to consider learning Portuguese. We’re often asked which are the most popular languages learnt by Kiwis. Spanish and French are high on the rankings, and even German and Italian would be ahead of Portuguese.
Brazil is often overlooked. This despite Brazil being the fifth largest country in the world by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America,the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world, according to Wikipedia. Brazil was a colony of Portugal from the landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500 until its independence in 1822. This is why Brazilians speak Portuguese.
Looking ahead, I can imagine the Portuguese language would only be more popular. In the same way that we saw a steep rise in interest in Mandarin leading up to the Beijing Olympics, I envisage we will see the same interest in Portuguese.
It’s not a hard sell. Anyone who have had personal encounters with Brazilians will know why. Portuguese is a cool and sexy language. I’m surprised we don’t already have people queuing up for Portuguese lessons.
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