Transaction Linguistics

Portuguese is the sole official language of Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe. It is one of two official languages in Macau, East Timor (Southeast Asia), and Equatorial Guinea (Central Africa). Per the 2010 Census, Portuguese is spoken by approximately 240 million people. It is the seventh most spoken language in the world. For internationally oriented companies, its importance derives from its use in Brazil, which has consistently for at least fifty years been one of the most attractive emerging economies in the world for foreign investment. The … [read more]

When a student compares the difficulty of learning Spanish with the difficulty of learning Portuguese or French, he will quickly find two huge advantages for Spanish: 1. When you look at a word, you know exactly how to pronounce it. There are no exceptions. 2. Each vowel in Spanish has only one sound. There are no exceptions. Portuguese and French are like English. When you look at a word, you can get an idea of how it is pronounced. But there are lots of exceptions. With Spanish, what you see is what you get. Because of these two pieces of good news, many people say that Spanish is easy to learn. … [read more]

There is no getting around it.  French phonetics are challenging for a native speaker of English.  There are several sounds in French that at first seem bizarre and totally unnatural, just like a golf swing when you take your first lesson from a demanding pro.  But with perseverance and a lot of practice, they can be mastered so anyone can learn French.  And for those willing to put in the work to internalize them, the reward is phenomenal.  French phonetics are the gateway to the French language, and the language is the gateway to French Business and French Culture. In our program we face the tough phonetic … [read more]