About to learn some Spanish for another holiday I am going on. Would it be any use in Rio? (How close is it to Portuguese?)

There are many words that are the same but with different accent. Many Brazilians may speak more Spanish than English, so if your not going to learn Portuguese then Spanish is not a bad choice.

thanks
I had planned to learn some very basic Portuguese before we go to Rio. I just wondered if Spanish would be any help at all! We did get by ok with only English last Easter in Rio.

When I first started to learn Portuguese I was surprised at how many words are the same in both English and Spanish. If you concentrate on these words first applying the proper accent then you already start off with a good vocabulary.

Spanish in Portuguese are both romance languages and grammar is almost identical, lots of words are the same, lots make no sense from one language to the other.
The problem is understanding the accents, my first language is Spanish and I would never said that I do understand Portuguese because of my Espanol. Never

thanks for the interesting replies. I think I will just try to get some basic Portuguese phrases. Hopefully they MAY be easier to pick up if I know a little Spanish!