Brazilian in a lot of ways is closer to Portugesian roots than the mother country’s language’s evolution but on the other hand, has a lot of native borrow-words. This Wiki article doesn’t really get to the nitty gritty, namely how comprehensible would a Cariocan and a Lisboner be to each other. Would it be mostly okay like, say a Londoner and Chicagan with an occasional hiccup over words with not the same meaning like ‘football’ and ‘biscuit’ or would there be a lot of head scratching and 'What’d he say?"
My family includes members from both countries.
There would be the occasional hiccup but the brasilian and the port-a-gee can fairly easily converse.
I read years ago that language academies of Brazil and Portugal hold regular joint sessions where they coordinate their language planning and work on keeping the two sides of the language from drifting farther apart. Are they still doing that?
I’m told by coworkers from both countries that they get the same laugh from seeing manuals that distinguish both as I get from seeing movies translated to “american Spanish” and “spanish Spanish”. The differences comparing both Portuguese texts are often limited to one or two words, both of which are understood (if less used) by speakers from the other country.
And yes Johanna, their Academies collaborate constantly. Apart from the joint sessions, now they often distribute papers to both and whatnot. Internet is a beautiful thing.
Anecdotally, my sister-in-law (who is Portuguese) tells me that Brazilian is spoken at a slightly faster tempo, and softens some of the sounds compared to European Portuguese. When I asked if it was similar to the differences between Northern and Southern U.S. accents, she said that was a fair approximation. I have seen her translate for a flustered Brazilian businessman whose luggage didn’t arrive in Toronto with him, and there didn’t seem to be any misunderstandings or need to repeat words at all.
¿Oye, guey, que pedo? Manuals are formal writing. In a similar vein, American English and the Queen’s English are perfectly intelligible to those of us on both sides of the ocean, but idiomatic speech is generally different enough. Did I get pissed in the bar because I had too much to drink, or because that damn bartended said he slept with my wife?
I know that the dubbing for The Simpsons is separately done for American Spanish and Spanish Spanish markets. I hope to God they have a third one for those wacky Argentinians.
The first novel I read in Spanish – El Padrino – was definitely Spanish Spanish, and the idiomatic use of the language (and some basic, easy-to-understand mechanics) was different enough that it was at times distracting. On the other hand when I watch Spanish movies it’s not so distracting once I get accustomed to all the interesting pronunciation (which is much better than Cubans and Puerto Ricans).
Oh, yeah – technical writing too. Didn’t Microsoft have some problems a year or so ago because one of their registration forms, when soliciting sex, asked for “hembra,” which is fine for most places but was akin to saying “puta” when used in Venezuela?
Microsoft is soliciting sex now?
Is “hembra” the usual word anywhere with reference to humans? My understanding was that it is typically used only for animals. It would be much rarer than “female” in English used in reference to women. The equivalent on forms where you have to fill out sex would be “feminino.”
So is the difference between Brazillian Portuguese and Portugal Portugues simiilar to the differences between American and British English?
I grew up speaking Brazilian Portuguese with my folks and I’ve traveled to Portugal. There are big differences in accent and the Portuguese use the tu form of speech which the Carioca doesn’t. When I went to Portugal and visited Porto I was able to understand what people were saying but it took me an afternoon to get used to the accent. People there had less trouble understanding me since they get a lot of Brazilian television. Even after I had a couple of drinks and was ordering a draft using the Brazilian term, they still understood me and told me what the equivalent was.
However, the formal written forms are about the same. The main differences are pronunciation and less formal speech.
To me it is equivalent to British English and American English. Both are mutually intelligible and are most similar when formal and less similar in informal speech.
I was all ready to say how it seems to be more than just the American/British difference when I went and looked here: Brazil vs. Portugal differences (in Portuguese) and reviewed the list.
It really does look just like the US/Brit thing.
From their list:
Different use of silent consonants: acção (pt)/ação (br)
Different words for big numbers (million, billion) just like US/UK
Different words for nationalities: polaco (pt) / polonês (br) = Polish
Different acronyms: AIDS(en) = AIDS(br) = SIDA(pt)
Usage of umlaut: agüentar (br) / aguentar (pt) (Don’t we do this with “coordinate”?)
Many assorted differences in common words (like lorry vs. truck)
Different pronunciation: closed “o” in Mônica (br) vs open “o” in Mónica (pt)
Some possibly funny different meanings: bicha=line (pt), bicha=homosexual (br) (Kind of like “fanny” or “fag” in US/UK)
Capitalization rules for dates
New countries and places: A name ending in “an” may become “ão” (pt) vs. “ã” (br): Tehran = Tehrão/Tehrã
The one I came here to mention in the first place was gerund vs. infinitive: Brazilians prefer the gerund while Portuguese prefer the infinitive.
Estou comendo (br) / Estou a comer (pt)
“I’m eating” vs. literally “I am at to-eat”
This “a comer” construction is a little confusing and takes time to get used to, but no big deal.
And of course there’s the “tu” vs. “você” usage.
I suspect that the real challenge is in the slang more than anything else. Folks can communicate quite well if they need to, however.
My Brazilian wife told me that she knew someone from the “ilha da madeira” in Portugal and the accent was impenetrable, but then again I had to watch “The Full Monty” with subtitles on to figure out what those Yorkshire guys were saying.
Not sure… on Mexican forms that I’ve seen it always says “feminino” and “masculino” – presumably people, but my wife says “macho” and “hembra” can be used, too, albeit usually just for animals. As per Microsoft, I have no idea what they’re thinking.
The use of varón and hembra for human males and females is very common in Venezuela, and fairly common in the DR, in my experience. ETA - although not in officialese, more in informal parlance.
That’s interesting. I know of one other language using that construction. Uzbek also uses the infinitive to make a present progressive. The first example of this I saw was in the title of a song by Yulduz Usmanova, “Uchmoqdaman (I’m Flying).”
uchmoq (the infinitive ‘to fly’) + -da (locative case) + man ‘I am’, literally ‘I am at to fly’.
Yeah, it does sound funny when you look at it. This is used only in literary Uzbek; in the colloquial language they would use a different construction, uchayapman. There are several ways of making a present progressive in Uzbek grammar, with nuances of meaning. According to one book, the Uzbek infinitive present is “not necessarily punctual.” Like–I’m not necessarily eating right this second, but I might start again at any time without further notice? The infinitive present doesn’t occur in any other Romance or Turkic languages, just Portuguese and Uzbek? For no apparent reason? Weird.
Yep. You can use “hembra”, but your wife is correct. A better word would be “femenino.”
Another voice to add to the fray. I worked for the State Department and was assigned to Lisbon. There were no Euro classes starting soon, so they put me in the 6-month Brazilian class, where I earned a respectable level of speaking and reading. The first conversation I had when I arrived at my job in Lisbon left me standing with my jaw swinging, as I understood very little of what was said. The accent was not only completely different, but the Portuguese tend to ‘swallow’ the words and talk inside of their mouths (if that makes any sense). My Brazilian teachers were much more demonstrative and lively when they spoke.
The pronunciation (or accent, if you will) is different enough to where you can easily miss what is being said. For example, words starting with the letter “d” are pronounced differently in both countries. The word for ‘day’ is ‘dia’. In Portugal, the word is pronounced like it looks: DEE-ah. In Brazil, it’s prounounced JEE-ah.
While that may be true for non-native speakers, don’t assume that it is necessarily true for native speakers-- especially since both populations probably grow up being exposed to the different pronunciations to a certain extent.
As was posted above:
If all it takes is “an afternoon” to get used to the accent, that’s not much.
A lot of times you can cut thru an accent once you understand the context of a conversation. I’m reminded of a business trip I took to Scotland quite awhile back. I found that if someone walked up to me and started speaking out of the blue, I had no idea what they were saying. But once I understood the subject of the discussion, much of the accent and dialect idioms seemed to “disappear”.
I was, of course, speaking from the perspective of a non-native speaker. I speak (or spoke, at this point) three languages other than English, and it’s always more difficult in the real world versus the classroom world, even when you learn from native speakers. I knew Brazilians who had zero problems with the language in Portugal.
I hear both of these equivalent constructions in Spanish – “Estoy comiendo” and “Estoy a/al comer.” I’ve always assumed that the latter was more like “I’m about to eat” but am I wrong?