Why would you want to study Portuguese?

I have often been the recipient of questioning looks when I reveal that one of my favorite languages is Portuguese.  "Why study Portuguese?" "Where do they speak Portuguese?" "Isn't Portuguese just like Spanish?"  Oh, the defense I could make for a language that appears consistently in lists of the top ten world languages and, as a bonus,  is a beautiful, melodious language.

I know why I study Portuguese, but I wanted to find out why participants in my "First Steps to Portuguese" class this summer chose this language. And I received some very revealing answers.

For example, upcoming travel plans!  One participant has a cruise planned that will stop in both Brazil, the largest country in South America,

  and also in Cape Verde, an island country off the coast of  Western Africa.

Another participant has family to visit in the Azores, nine volcanic islands in the Atlantic that form an autonomous region of Portugal.

Still another class member enjoys Europe and would like to visit Portugal,

especially in view of the recent strong US dollar against the euro.

Other class participants displayed an interest in acquiring other languages because they were born in another country (Mexico, Chile, and Japan that I know of) or have studied other languages sometime in their lives.  One person told me she had studied six different languages but spoke none of them fluently.  That's okay in my book, because the journey while studying a language is an exciting experience.

But one of the most insightful answers to the question of why study Portuguese came from a participant who declared, "Learning languages keeps my brain young."  

And that may be the best reason of all!