Portuguese Language Profile
Home > Languages > Portuguese
| Indo-European:Romance | Difficulty: * | |
| Introduction | | Usefulness | Moderate, unless you live in
big Brazil or in Portugal. Here in Portugal people normally talk
another language, be it French (old educated people) or English
(everyone under 35 speaks it), or understands Spanish more or
less. Ah, young people normally do not only not speak
French, they also hate it...almost everyone had French at school
as second foreign language. | | Beauty | The basic is that Brazilian
and European Portuguese are very different to the ear. Saying which
one is the most beautiful is a bad idea, but each "accent"
has its fans. Brazilian is clearer and has less particular sounds. | | Chic
factor | This depends on where you
live. In western Europe, most of the Portuguese you will hear outside
Portugal will be from low-skilled immigrants. Speaking their language
will surely make you popular among them and some people will probably
find speaking to your femme de ménage in Portuguese the
ultimate of chic. Personally, I find the nasal pronunciation of
European Portuguese especially fascinating, as it almost totally veils
the similarity of the language with Spanish and makes it sound like a
south Slavic language. | | Speakers | About 160 million, mainly in
Brazil and Portugal. | | Countries | Portugal, Brazil, Angola,
Mozambique, cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, S. Tomé and Príncipe,
East Timor. | | Regional
Variations | Apart from the differences
between Portugal and Brazil, which is the main one, African
accent is recognizable, although it is close to the European
one; in Portugal, people of the different regions speak with
slight variations, you will at least recognize the accents of Porto
and Alentejo. | | Travel | The main motivation for me to
learn portuguese would be a travel to Brazil. Being
able to dwelve into the immensity of that country and discover its
people with the added advantage of being able to talk to all the
portuguese migrants in Europe would be a sufficient reason to learn. | | Culture | Brazilian music and a few
great writer (please help me on that topic !) | | m | | Difficulty | | Phonemes | Relatively easy, apart from
the nasal diphthongs and their very hard L , which is a little harder
than the L pronounced by native people of Fribourg, Switzerland, in French.
| | Syntax | Very close to Spanish, and
thus from other romance languages. | | Vocabulary | Very close to Spanish, and
thus from other romance languages. | | Ortograph | Not so easy, says Pedro,
especially if compared to Spanish. Portuguese has silent consonants,
but once you get their reason you will master it. For example,
in acto (act), A is an open vowel, C is silent, and the U is
almost silent. The C is there so that the vowel is open. | | Overall
difficulty | I rate this language as *,
that is, very easy to learn, at least for speakers of other
romance languages. If you speak Spanish, in my opinion all that is
needed is about 3 months. | | Time
needed | 3 to 12 months. | | m | | Learning
material | | Books
and tapes | I would use either FSI
portuguese in 2 volumes (the only sources I know are NTIS and
Audioforum, but I don't know the difference) : If you already speak spanish, you can try : There's also a Pimsleur Speak and Read Essential Portuguese,
more expensive but also more modern. There is only one volume for now,
that you can use in your car without any books. You can buy them from
Simon and Schuster who bought Dr Pimsleur's business, but it's cheaper
from Amazon : | | Schools | ? | Links
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