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Spanish speakers, do you understand Portuguese? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 5082 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes  Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French | Message 1 of 24 19 April 2011 at 3:24am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello Spanish native speakers and non-native (who speak Spanish as a second language) speakers.
My question is: Do you guys understand Portuguese? You might be thinking, Why? But the question is dedicated for those who have never studied Portuguese, or just studied a little. The main reason of the question is that I (Portuguese native speaker) understand most of Spanish, be it Written or Spoken (my only problem is when it's sung), but a lot of Spanish people told me that they don't understand Portuguese very well. Is there a linguistic reason behind that? When I say that they don't understand Portuguese very well, I'm not talking about Continental Portuguese, I'm talking about Brazilian Portuguese with one of the most (if not the most) clear accent, the "Gaucho" accent. I always thought that studying Spanish was useless, because I could speak fluently with them, but now I don't really know, because they seem to don't understand Portuguese, at least the Spoken language. The same happens with Italian, I don't understand so well like I do with Spanish, but I can get the meaning of a text and sometimes the context of the Spoken language, but sometimes I do understand the Spoken, maybe 85%. The Italians also seem to don't understand Portuguese, even if we speak slowly. I have never studied those languages, though. I know I DO NOT have a good ear for anything, I'm not even at a level I would like to be in English, and I'm studying it for a long time, so, Why does it happen? What's your experience with this? Did I talk with the wrong people and generalized? Is Portuguese harder than those languages, but only easier than French (which I understand just a few in Spoken and a little more in Written)? I would like to know your opinion. Thanks in Advance! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5346 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 2 of 24 19 April 2011 at 3:48am | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, I am able to understand Portuguese to a degree without having studied it. Some years ago before I studied languages I bought a Brazilian mini-series on DVD without Spanish or English subtitles and I was able to follow the plot reasonably well; having Portuguese CC on did help a lot.
Same thing with Italian. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6123 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian | Message 3 of 24 19 April 2011 at 5:20am | IP Logged | ||
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I can read basic Portuguese fairly easily but the spoken language is very strange sounding and I really don't understand it.
We actually had a thread here where we were conversing in various Romance languages and I found that I had little trouble with Portuguese and Catalan but Romanian was very difficult: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=11327&PN=0&TPN=32 Edited by JW on 19 April 2011 at 5:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| HenryMW Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5175 days ago 125 posts - 179 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, French Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 4 of 24 19 April 2011 at 6:17am | IP Logged | ||
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After Hurricane Katrina, I worked at a cell phone store, and I was one of two people who spoke Spanish, the other being the manager who couldn't spend all day on the floor. A lot of the construction workers rebuilding the city were Hispanic (who were all new to town, so Spanish became an important language literally overnight), so I handled almost all their business. One day a man came in with a problem with his phone. I was able to understand him most of the time, but there were parts of what he said that I had trouble with, so I called Spanish customer care and gave him the phone. I was actually a little depressed that I was having such trouble. After the problem was resolved I got the phone back and told the customer care rep that I was sorry and that I usually don't have trouble. I asked him where the customer was from thinking he had some regional accent I had never heard of before. Turns out he had trouble with him, too because he spoke Portuguese. That was my first encounter with Portuguese, and I went from feeling depressed to happy in that one isntant.
You read all the time that the Romance languages are similar, but it didn't really mean anything to me until I saw it. Could I get everything I needed from the guy to solve his problem? No. There were a few important words that I didn't recognize. Maybe a native Spanish speaker would have, but I didn't. Would I feel totally lost in Portuguese-speaking country? Not at all. I think I would be able to get around, just with some effort. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| alang Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7222 days ago 563 posts - 757 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 5 of 24 19 April 2011 at 8:02am | IP Logged | ||
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More or less. (Usually less) One odd thing is I can follow a slowly spoken Brazilian Portuguese and Italian conversation better than Cuban Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alexander86 Tetraglot Senior Member United Kingdom alanguagediary.blogs Joined 4982 days ago 224 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, Catalan Studies: Swedish | Message 6 of 24 19 April 2011 at 9:30am | IP Logged | ||
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I really struggle with spoken portuguese. I mean of course I pick up more words than the average non-romance
speaking person, but still it's not like Swedish-Danish-Norwegian in comprehension levels. Reading is easier, but still nothing like a 'free' language. I actually find Italian easier to hear and read... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Dragomanno Triglot Groupie Zimbabwe Joined 5004 days ago 80 posts - 98 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, GermanB2 Studies: Romanian, Serbo-Croatian, Latin, Lithuanian, Albanian, Ancient Greek | Message 7 of 24 19 April 2011 at 2:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Although the question was aimed to Spanish-speakers, I'd like to add my contribution as a native speaker of Italian. Having never studied neither Spanish nor Portuguese, I can read and understand several texts in those language with little effort. I'd never dare to write or say something, howhever, unless I don't study them. As far as speaking is concerned, I personally find Portuguese much harder to understand than Spanish.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 5082 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French | Message 8 of 24 19 April 2011 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks! I didn't know about this thread, interesting. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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