Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL)

For my fellow Filipinos: Tagalog = has parts of Spanish... Spanish = similar to Portuguese, hence Tagalog = has parts similar to Portuguese Shopping will be easy, just dig up the Spanish words in Tagalog and all is well. Conversing will be more difficult because they speak FAST. For those who know another Romance language: Knowing Spanish, French or Italian alone does not guarantee survival. They speak so fast and use a lot of slang that even Brazilians have to cope up when conversing. For my fellow native English speakers: If you cannot distinguish words that have a Germanic origin from a Latin origin, then you will have difficulty learning the language. For those who speak Hokkien, Mandarin or Nihongo: You must have a strong command of English or a Romance language, lest you desire to feel extremely lost and out of place. Being a Eurasian, I speak these languages and was eager to help those who were not so good with English. However, I seriously doubt there are people who are fluent in these languages and can act as translators. (Well, save for the many Chinese shop owners. Use authentic mandarin to get some perks! :D) For all: People who spoke English were basically limited to businessmen, most university-level students and teachers. No, public servants do not necessarily know English, nor do employees in malls and cafes. All of these apply ONLY FOR LISBON, other cities merit an entirely different answer. However, the people are EXTREMELY friendly and very touchy feel-y. Eventually, you will come to relish and love the Portuguese language.

Spanish and portuguese are very similar so I learn very quickly the language and I was living with portuguese people. on the other hand, the courses teach me in english and it was a little bit more difficult for me because I didn,t speak so well english but now I improve my english, I extend my vocabulary and I have friends for another countries (Greece, Germany, Cher Republick) and I had to speak in english with them.

Portuguese is a very diccicult language to learn for foreigners. Reading and writing is not so much the problem as is speaking and understanding the local people. But most people are very patient and eager to help so in the end the communication barriers can easily be resolved. Most young Portuguese speak English quite well.

At Faculdade de Economia, Universidade Nove de Lisboa courses are - in general - taught in Portuguese. However, most courses for exchange students aer in English. This way, studying was easier for me - but of course my Portuguese would have improved much more if I had taken courses in Portuguese.

Good experience in general, but hard to start without any knowledge before arriving there. It was a good opportunity to have courses at the university of Lisbon to get the basics of portuguese.

I've improved my english skills a lot by speaking to the other eramsus students and I've also learned a bit portuguese by handling dayly life situations and by attending a language course.