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Portuguese

Undergraduate students at the University of Michigan may pursue a Minor in Portuguese or an RLL Major by combining Portuguese with Spanish, French, and/or Italian. Graduate students may pursue the Graduate Certificate Program in Afro-Luso-Brazilian Studies.

The objectives of the Portuguese Program are to help students achieve proficiency in the Portuguese language and to learn about the rich cultures of the Lusophone (or Portuguese-speaking) world.

With approximately 260 million speakers, Portuguese is the seventh most widely spoken language in the world. It is the official language of Brazil, Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, and East Timor.

Fluency in Portuguese will open multiple professional opportunities in multiple countries with promising futures in connection to public health, biotechnologies, energy, environmental science, performance, literature and the arts, social justice advocacy, architecture, international relations, business, education, and tourism.

Speakers of Spanish have a significant advantage in being able to learn Portuguese in less than a year, given the close proximity of both languages based on their similar grammatical structures and vocabulary. Fluency in both Spanish and Portuguese will open up opportunities across Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula of Europe.