Brazil hasn’t been part of the “Portuguese Empire” for hundreds of years. Portugal is over 4600 miles away on a different continent. Has the Portuguese language evolved in these two countries to the point where communication is difficult?
What about Spainish and Latin American teams?
In both cases, they can communicate just fine. The occasional word choice might elicit a chuckle or two among kids (e.g., “coger” means “seize” in Spain and, usually, “fuck” in Mexico), but among adults, not even that.
The differences among STANDARD dialects/accents of Spanish-in-Spain/Portuguese-in-Portugal and STANDARD dialects/accents of Spanish-in-Mexico-etc./Portuguese-in-Brazil is comparable to US vs. British English. As with any language, it’s the “non-standard” (regional and social class) dialects/accents than can pose more of a challenge sometimes. But, as with any language, most people can “code-switch” pretty well into some semblance of the standard dialect/accent when the situation warrants.
I’ve heard amusing anecdotes of misunderstandings from Latin American friends, from traveling to other parts of Latin America. The only one that I specifically remember is that the same word means a plastic grocery bag in one country, but a condom in another. But then, one can get that sort of misunderstanding between English dialects, too.
Brazil became independent of Portugal in 1822. In other words, they separated more recently than Great Britain and the US. If Americans and Brits can understand one another, why would you expect Brazilians and Portuguese to have problems?
Even Portuguese vs Spanish can kind of almost squeak by as people speaking the same language - both with REALLY strong and very strange accents. :). Brazilian vs European Portuguese is not such a big deal.
As a Spanish speaker I can for the most part make sense of written Portuguese, but not spoken Portuguese.
As someone with only high-school Spanish, I was able to serve as an interpreter between a woman who spoke only Portuguese and a Norwegian who spoke only Norwegian and English, so at least when you’re trying to make yourself understood, spoken Portuguese and Spanish can’t be too different.
The date of independence is irrelevant for this. When the speaking communities were physically separated is the significant date.
I speak Spanish as a second language and can more or less read Portuguese after having read up on the grammar. I can sometimes get the gist of lectures in Portuguese, but not conversational Portuguese.
Some Spanish dialects are harder to understand than others, but all are reasonably intelligible.
Well, the OP opens with a statement about Brazil not being part of the Portuguese Empire, which would suggest that political separation is what he has in mind.
As for physical separation, they were always physically separated, obviously. The Atlantic Ocean is not a recent phenomenon.
As for cultural separation, that has been consistently reducing. The Portuguese settled Brazil early on in the colonial age, which was an early manifestation of globalisation. As globalisation has proceeding apace since then, travel, trade, communications etc between Brazil and Portugal has become progressively easier and cheaper.
I recently did some filming in Brazil with an Argentine cinematographer. The crew mostly spoke English but with the DP they would sometimes speak “Portunol,” a sort of pidgin. I’m not fluent enough in either language to describe it but it worked.
I myself used to speak fluent French and Italian and I know a little Spanish, and I understood some of what the crew said. I also did one interview in Portuguese (with a translator) but I found I could often pick out the gist or some key words–made working with the translator much easier.
I can barely understand someone from the Bronx.
Yes, there was an American gentleman by the name of Randy Long who found it prudent to go by a different name when he was traveled to Britain.
Also, “Pissed” means drunk in British. Not angry.
A point directly proved by “rubber” (an acceptable word for “eraser” in South African English [and British as well I thought]).
And don’t mention ‘fanny pack’…
One subtle thing that took me aback is their use of the phrase “that’s the thing, innit?” Which is used in the same way as the one word phrase “exactly” is in America. I hear “that’s the thing, innit?” used to express agreement that is strong enough that nothing needs to be added. Whereas in America, if you say “that’s the thing, isn’t it?” you usually then proceed to explain your reasons for agreement. Whenever I hear it I wait for a half a second or so waiting for the Brit to explain themselves 
It’s like the joke about Texans and “I tell you what”
“yada yada yada I tell you what!”
“… what?”
“I just told you!”
I did an education exchange between my school near London to a high school in Connecticut.
the teacher in our group, reinforced stereotypes about UK boys schools by telling the high school principal, “there’s nothing the boys like more than nip behind the bike sheds for a quick fag”.
Questions often have mistaken assumptions implied in them. It’s our job to point those out. The date of independence would only be significant if it resulted in a drastic reduction of intercommunication and migration between the two communities. As far as I know, it had very little effect in either case.
The date of the linguistic separation is what’s important. When there was enough Portuguese/English/Spanish speakers in a physically separated location (e.g. the New World) that the influx of migrants from the Old World didn’t overwhelm the colony. You can tell that it’s happened when people from the Old World start commenting on the linguistic peculiarities in the New World. So somewhere in between the founding of the colony and that point.
As far as I know, the Portuguese and Spanish colonies had about a 100-year head start in this regard. Was that enough of a difference to make them less comprehensible to their Old World counterparts. Apparently not.
When I was a Foreign Service employee, my first posting was to Lisbon. The only Portuguese language class that I could get into was the one taught by Brazilians. After six months, I could converse reasonably well. When I got to Lisbon, I realized that I could understand very little, as the accents and pronunciations are different enough to make things relatively unintelligible. On the other hand, another employee there who had grown up as a native Brazilian speaker had few problems communicating, although she said she had to concentrate on what was being said because of the same issues.
As for Spanish and Portuguese languages being similar enough for easy understanding between the two, that’s simply not true. Just because they are both Romance languages doesn’t mean they are interchangeable. If that were so, a Spaniard and a Romanian could easily converse.
But isn’t a significant part of that the accent, if you will? With enough exposure, you get used to the accent and recognize cognates you might not have originally been able to understand.
I can speak and understand Spanish reasonably well. I can read Portuguese pretty well. But when I hear Portuguese spoken, I’m lucky if I can recognize a word or two every so often. I assume the difference in understanding between written and spoken is largely due to pronunciation. Yes, the spoken language will differ from the more formal, written version, but still a big chunk of that is pronunciation.