Brazil aims to emulate the Instituto Cervantes in promoting Portuguese

One more article on Portuguese in Portuguese on the promotion of the language, after yesterday's article on the Portuguese language test known as Celpe-bras taken by fewer than 3,000 last year. Here's some information from the article.

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Brazil considers the Instituto Cervantes to be a model for the promotion of a foreign language, and could base its plans for the promotion of Portuguese on the experience the Spanish institute has acquired, according to the Director of International Relations and Minister of Culture Marcelo Dantas. He believes that cooperation between all the countries that use Portuguese could form a strong bloc to help reinforce this.

At the same table was Sonia Izquierdo Merinero from the Instituto Cervantes de Brasília, who went over the activities of the institute in Brazil where there is a growing interest in the Spanish language. The institute now has eight centres in Brazil, which is now the country with the largest number of students learning Spanish in the world (note: many students in Brazil like choosing Spanish because it's exceptionally easy for them compared to other languages). She said that there were 18,902 students at the Institutos Cervantes in Brazil, almost 4,000 more than the previous year's number, 14,992.

Spain is now the third-largest investor in Brazil, with accumulated capital of $60 billion. This represents 28% of the country's total investment in Latin America.