Should I learn Spanish or Portuguese?

[stonecold]

im planning after doing my uni degree to go to latin america to be precise ever Brazil, Colombia or Dominican republic but i wanna know whats the best language to learn and me being black is the best place out of the three to get some game if you know what i mean so in other words in which three of these countries are blacks generally more accepted by the local girls which leads back to the language thing because thats where im going and i need to learn part of the language long story short

i guess the real question is Brazil Colombia or dominican republic which ones the best for black american/british etc

[zacb]

I am no expert, but with Portuguese, you only have Brazil (which is a big country, and very diverse), but with Spanish, you have more than one country to choose from, and a greater breadth of people. Now as to which country is easier, idk.

[publicduende]

im planning after doing my uni degree to go to latin america to be precise ever Brazil, Colombia or Dominican republic but i wanna know whats the best language to learn and me being black is the best place out of the three to get some game if you know what i mean so in other words in which three of these countries are blacks generally more accepted by the local girls which leads back to the language thing because thats where im going and i need to learn part of the language long story short

i guess the real question is Brazil Colombia or dominican republic which ones the best for black american/british etc

Colombia is a wonderful country, and - believe it or not - has the same biodiversity as Brazil despite being a tenth in size. And one extra ocean. My wife is from there and I am planning to spend one, maybe even two months visiting it this coming December/January. I don't know what you mean by best country for black americans. Colombia has very few black (Caribbean) people outside specific areas (Choco', the nothern Caribe etc.) and their ideal of beauty is white skin and as much European ancestry as possible, which unfortunately means they tend to be a bit racist in places like Bogota and Medellin. Absolutely no problem though if you go to places like Cartagena, Barranquilla, Santa Marta, or the island of San Andres.

As the poster above said Spanish would be the best language to learn, it would give you access to many more countries and cultures, although Brazil on its own is so huge it might offer as many opportunities as all of the rest of South America combined.

[ringspun]

Here's my take on it, Latin Spanish is spoken in far more countries and you can get by with a little in Brazil, whereas Portuguese is only going to be useful in Brazil and Portugal.

[royaldude]

what are you studying? that could play a role in finding work. brazil has a lot of people 200 million so they have a workforce that can supply jobs even specilized where with dominican republic much smaller if you have a specialized skill you can find work easier.

on the language thing outside of portugal lovely country but small and since it has a long historic relationship with england much of the population speaks english you are really limiting yourself to one country. so id learn spanish
for women brazil has a pretty similar relationship with blacks as the us where they were slaves and not given similar treatment to whites. that said still a large population of blacks in brazil i believe almost non are in government or high political positions. latin america is generally speaking more racist than us. BUT you can still meet women there some have a fetish for black guys so i think your playing field is somewhat even no matter what country you are in. brazil also has a quasi socialist-facist govt similar to argentina. colombia for like a us model of democracy and free trade. i cant speak for dominican republic but they must be doing something right since haiti occups the other half of the island

[Rock]

Hey its a hard call. Ultimately, I think u should learn both languages and since there is so much synergy between them, u probably could get both for 1.3 times (give or take) the price of one. In other words, with 30% more time and effort, u might become fluent in both as opposed to one.

I've been to all 3 of those countries and spent weeks to many months in each.

If I was a black dude, I would give Colombia a pass. The vast majority of girls I met in several Colombian cities, even mulatto ones, credibly claimed they were not open to dating black guys. I even met one girl of apparently pure west African ancestry in Cali and even she wanted to date a white guy if she could. I also found it interesting that the blacks I met there didn't seem to have any kind of special accent. On the phone, I generally could not distinguish them although that might be due to my Spanish not being good enough.

Rio seemed to be a great place to go if u wanna ready made network of black Americans to fall back on as there are large numbers of African American tourists and expats staying in Copacabana and Ipanema beach regions. Many of them seem to be very happy there. And according to my personal tastes, southern Brazil (well Salvador on down) and especially Rio and Sao Paolo metro areas has by far the hottest female specimens in all of South America (no I haven't been to every country there but I've seen girls from all over). The better ones blow away the Colombians in terms of body shape and height. However, the high class mostly white girls seem to be pretty much off limits to gringos and especially guys of color. Not to worry tho. That segment is tiny and you'll find plenty of hot and shapely ones from the other classes. If u wanna study up on Brazil, there's all kinds of great info written by long term expats (black and white) on various threads of ISG.

DR (Santo Domingo and Boca Chica) was my most recent visit to LatAm/Carribean. I actually went overland from Port Au Prince Haiti. Again, I encountered a lot of black American tourists. But unlike Rio, I don't think there are too many black American expats. U can find a fair number of local girls which approximate the body shape so popular in Brazil (just check out my avatar). But there is less diversity as most girls tend to look mulatto as opposed white to African black spectrum plus visible Japanese segment u get in Brazil. And on average, I think girls in my favorite parts of Brazil are still hotter and taller. However, in certain parts of DR, especially closer to the border, u also find large groups of Haitians who are generally discriminated against, especially the darker skinned ones. The ones in DR are mostly able to speak good Spanish. Perhaps DR's biggest advantage is much closer proximity to States and at this stage, lower costs. But night transport and safety are a major pain in the ass there. Again, more info available on ISG.

[polya]

It's a waste of time telling you - you won't listen. Do your degree and live in debt until you pay it all off. Then marry, have kids when you're 60...

[Rocky Top]

I've just started the Pimsleur Brazilian Portuguese audio and t may be too early to say right now, but this seems like this will be a rather smooth transition to Portuguese because a lot of the words and verb conjugations are similar to Spanish. I haven't gotten too far into it yet, but it looks like I may be able to breeze through this with relative ease.

Am I way off base?

Since they are both Romance languages, I figured there would be some similarities, but it actually looks like the verb conjugations may be easier.