A reader named Steve wrote to me with a problem I know all too well.
He’d spent around two years learning Spanish — never quite fluent, but able to get by — before switching to Brazilian Portuguese for the past eight months or so.
Then he recently needed his Spanish again, and was horrified: for a moment it felt as though he’d forgotten 80% of it.
He wanted to know how to hold on to one language while learning another. If you keep mixing up Spanish and Portuguese, here’s what I wish someone had told me years ago.
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Table of Contents
It’s Not That You’ve Forgotten — It’s That You’ve Overwritten
One line in particular from Steve’s email jumped out at me. He said that even though Spanish is very similar to Portuguese, it felt like he’d forgotten most of what he knew.
I’d rewrite that sentence completely. From where I’m standing, it’s not despite the similarity that his Spanish vanished — it’s because of it. Because Spanish and Portuguese are so close, learning the second one overwrote the first.
That’s the key to this whole thing. You haven’t deleted the language. You’ve buried it under another one that lives in almost exactly the same part of your brain.
And once you understand that, mixing up Spanish and Portuguese stops feeling like a personal failing and starts looking like a completely predictable side effect of learning two near-identical languages.
How Much Difference Is There Between Spanish And Portuguese?
Less than you might hope, frankly — and that’s exactly the trouble.
Spanish and Portuguese share so much at the root that to learn the second, you end up taking the Spanish you already know and writing over the top of it. Anyone who’s learned two close Romance languages will tell you the same.
A few examples. Where in Spanish you’d say gustar for “to like”, in Portuguese it becomes gostar — close enough to trip you up. The Spanish para gets clipped down to a quick pra in everyday Brazilian Portuguese.
On and on it goes, dozens of tiny shifts, each one so minor that your brain happily files the new version on top of the old one. That’s why the languages bleed into each other so easily. They're not the best language combination for simultaneous language learning.
Why I Never Mix Up My Other Languages
Here’s the flip side, and it makes the point nicely. The last four languages I learned, in order, were Portuguese, Japanese, Cantonese and Arabic — all wildly different from one another.
Different grammar, different pronunciation, different vocabulary, the lot. And I almost never get them confused.
The odd word creeps through, sure. One thing that really stuck with me from Egyptian Arabic is the little particle you tag onto the end of a sentence — a bit like saying “isn’t it?” or “don’t you think?” — and that still slips into things I say in other languages.
But the languages themselves don’t tangle, because they’re simply too far apart to overwrite each other. Spanish and Portuguese have no such luxury.
When My Own Spanish Fell Apart
I’m not speaking in the abstract here. Years ago, after I’d learned Italian, I went back to London and started on Spanish.
Within a few months my Italian had all but disappeared — and losing it is one of my genuine regrets. I’m hugely grateful I learned Spanish; I’m a lot less grateful that it cost me my Italian. I got my revenge later when I learned Italian in three months.
Then I learned Portuguese and spent a good while in Brazil. I remember coming back to Europe and meeting up with an old Spanish friend of mine, Patricia.
The Spanish that came out of my mouth was an embarrassment — essentially Portuguese grammar with the odd Portuguese word creeping through.
She turned to me and asked what on earth had happened to my Spanish. I knew exactly what had happened. I’d just learned Portuguese. That was the whole problem.
Can You Learn Spanish And Portuguese At The Same Time?
Yes — and here’s the encouraging part. The very thing that causes the confusion can be turned into an advantage, once you’re conscious of it. I know, because that’s precisely how I dug myself out.
Luckily I still had plenty of Spanish friends and a big Spanish-speaking community in London. I used to play a lot of Brazilian music too, so there were always South Americans around.
On a single evening I’d speak English to one person, switch to Portuguese with the next, then Spanish with someone else. I got very used to flipping between the two.
In the end it felt like I’d had to learn three things: first Spanish, then Portuguese, and then how to use both at the same time, almost as a skill in its own right. These days I rarely confuse them and can switch quite comfortably.
How To Stop Mixing Up Spanish And Portuguese
So, practically, what should Steve — or you — actually do? First, take heart: you have not lost your Spanish.
Steve studied it for two years and has only been on Portuguese for eight months, so he’s still got far more time banked in Spanish. It’s dormant, not gone.
Step 1
Step one is to reactivate it. If you’re a year or so out of practice, book yourself a handful of lessons — a tutor on a platform like LanguaTalk works well — simply to blow the dust off and wake the language back up.
Step 2
Step two, and this is the one that really matters, is to start manipulating both languages in your head on purpose. As you go about your day, whenever you bump into one of them, immediately ask yourself how you’d say the same thing in the other.
You walk into a Brazilian café and someone greets you with a cheerful “Tudo bem?” — straight away, think: how would I say that in Spanish? You reply that you’re good but a bit tired today — again, how would that go in the other language?
It feels clunky at first, but your brain adapts fast, and the more you hunt out these little moments, the quicker the two settle into their own lanes. That, more than anything, is how to avoid mixing up Spanish and Portuguese.
And notice what I haven’t said: I don’t think this is a question of finding more time. In Steve’s case the Spanish is already there. It’s about reactivating it and then consciously using both languages side by side.
Mixing Up Spanish And Portuguese FAQ
What is it called when you mix Spanish and Portuguese?
When Spanish and Portuguese are mixed together, it is often called Portuñol (Spanish: Portuñol, Portuguese: Portunhol).
It is an informal blend of the two languages commonly heard in border regions between countries such as Brazil and Uruguay, or among learners who speak one language and are communicating in the other.
Portuñol is not a standardized language with official grammar rules. Instead, it is a form of mixed communication that combines vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar from both Spanish and Portuguese.
Many speakers can understand it surprisingly well because the two languages share a large amount of vocabulary and similar structures.
Can a Spanish and Portuguese person understand each other?
Yes, to some extent. Spanish and Portuguese are closely related Romance languages and share a large amount of vocabulary and grammar.
As a result, speakers can often understand the general meaning of what the other person is saying, especially in writing.
However, understanding is usually asymmetrical. Portuguese speakers often understand Spanish more easily than Spanish speakers understand Portuguese.
One reason is that Portuguese pronunciation is generally more complex and contains sounds that many Spanish speakers are not used to hearing.
With no prior exposure, a Spanish speaker and a Portuguese speaker may be able to have a basic conversation, but misunderstandings are common.
After a few weeks or months of exposure, comprehension usually improves dramatically.
Two Languages, One Brain
Mixing up Spanish and Portuguese isn’t a sign that you’re bad at languages, or that one of them is slipping away for good.
It’s the natural consequence of holding two languages that grew from the same roots, sitting so close together that your brain keeps reaching for the wrong one.
The reassuring truth is that nothing has been lost — it’s simply been overwritten, and what’s been overwritten can always be brought back.
Reactivate the language that’s gone quiet, then make a habit of flipping consciously between the two, asking yourself how each thought would sound in the other tongue.
Do that for a while and the confusion that once felt like a problem becomes one of your sharpest tools, the very thing that lets you hold both languages at once.
Two similar languages, one brain: it can absolutely be done. You just have to stop trying to keep them apart and start learning to use them together.
Olly Richards
Creator of the StoryLearning® Method
Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.
Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.
When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.
