Why Italy

Why is Italian a more popular language than Portuguese?

I understand that Portuguese is not a widely spoken language. But I'm amazed by the number of Italian learners or Italian language programs available abroad, a language which doesn't seem to be very useful either. So, which reasons explain this difference?

Public Comments

1. more italians in america
2. Because people are intrigued of the whole romatic languag culture type of thing
3. gli italiani sono il la cosa migliore =]
4. because italian is sexy language n_n
5. Well, actually, there are more Portuguese speakers in South America than Spanish speakers. I'm pretty sure that means there are more Portuguese speakers than Italian speakers. According to Wiki, Portuguese has 177.5 million speakers and Italian has 61.5 million. (from a 2005 estimate). Now, there are reason why Italian would be more popluar. For one, Italian phonetics are easier than those of Portuguese. For example, Italian also doesn't have the "French" <r>, but rather the trilled <r> similar to Spanish <rr>. Portuguese vowels aren't as consistant as well. The vowels change depending on if it's at the beginning or end of the word. Italian has it more consistant. Also Portuguese has more Nasal sounds like French, whereas Italian doesn't have so many nasaly vowels. Also Italian culture has had more of an influence than the Portuguese one. Not that either is more important than the other but Italian is more well known. Another thing might be that the history of Italy includes the Roman Empire which had such a large impact on Western culture and the Italians being decendents of that shows another interest in it. On that same note, remember that many of the great artists in Western history were Italian or French. Da Vinci and such. Also some literature like Dante's Inferno have been immortalized throughout history. Another thing is that there is Vence, Rome, and many other famous Italy cities. Lastly Italy has the Vatican (I know it's a different country but nevertheless). The Vatican is the home of the Pope, and many many people hear about the Pope and are very religious and find so much importance in that.
6. I think that more people prefer to choose Italian as a foriegn language rather than Portugese is because of the misconception that if one already speaks Spanish one can understand and be understood in Portugese wheras if one wants to converse with an Italian one has to either learn Italian or the closest language to it which is Latin.