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Portuguese vs "Brazilian" Portuguese

  Tags: Portugal | Brazil | Portuguese
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12 messages over 2 pages: 1
sonjaks
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 Message 9 of 12
13 August 2009 at 2:02am | IP Logged 
Generally speaking, the Portuguese have no trouble understanding Brazilians, save for some regional words and slang, but Brazilians have some trouble understanding Portuguese Portuguese.

Before living in Portugal I had studied Brazilian Portuguese for 4 years in the US and was already very fluent in Spanish. It took about two months before I was really used to the accent. My Brazilian friends said it took them about a month.

Part of this is because European Portuguese is dropping its vowels, ie "Portugal" is pronounced "Prtgal" and "O meu nome e Maria" is pronounced "U miu nme Maria".

Brazilian Portuguese on the other hand is starting to drop consonants. "Poohtuuugaw" and "o meuuu noooomiii e Mariiiia".

So it's a lot easier to follow.

Also, Portugal is inundated with Brazilian pop culture so they are used to the accent.

I chose to study in Portugal in part because I wanted to learn the harder of the two accents. I am glad I did; I have no problem understanding Brazilians. On the other hand, foreigners who study in Brazil are often quite afraid of the European accent.
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ellasevia
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 Message 10 of 12
14 August 2009 at 4:44pm | IP Logged 
I would agree with everything that has been said. When I was beginning to study Portuguese, I started off with the European dialect, but found the pronunciation a bit difficult and there were not as many materials as for the Brazilian dialect. So ultimately I chose the Brazilian dialect and am fairly fluent in that. I cannot really understand spoken European Portuguese, though, because of the very different pronunciation. Spending a little time in Portugal would solve this, I imagine.
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Marc Frisch
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 Message 11 of 12
15 August 2009 at 12:55am | IP Logged 
Snipy wrote:
I was just wondering if there are so many differences between Portuguese from Portugal and the one from Brazil; for example, I'm learning Portuguese, would I have troubles communicating with brazilians?


I learned Brazilian Portuguese and understand other variants of Portuguese as well. Work through the two Assimil books (Brazilian and Portuguese) and you're all set.
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SPINMASTER X
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 Message 12 of 12
16 August 2009 at 3:11pm | IP Logged 
Wow I can talk about this subject all day long!

I was living in Germany(right next to the border of Luxembourg) and I was taking Brazilian Capoeira(martial art from Brazil) classes in Luxembourg. Luxembourg has a HUGE lusophone community from Portugal and Cape Verde. I learned to speak Portuguese in Germany among Brazilian capoeira instructors and when I started to train in Luxembourg I became blown away because I couldn't understand a word the Portuguese and Cape Verdean people were saying. I would be in mixed company of Brazilians, Portugese and Cape Verdeans and I'd have to have somebody translate what the Portuguese people were saying to me even though I was speaking portuguese just fine with the Brazilians! It was insane!

Of course as time when on(like a million months later) I started to have less problems but it was rough at the beginning.

Whichever poster mentioned that Portuese from Portugal sounds like all consonants and Portuguese from Brazil sounds like a bunch of Vowels is 100% right. The languages are moving in opposite directions!


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