Differences between the two varieties of Portuguese

Recently TV Bandeirantes showed the first Portuguese soap opera on Brazilian TV. The comments on the quality were positive and the audience share was encouraging. The strangest aspect of the whole event was that the original Portuguese was substituted by Brazilian Portuguese (dubbed), including the music from the soundtrack. Apparently the Brazilans thought that it would be too difficult to understand the original.

Em todos os níveis, a começar do fonético, a língua de Portugal e a língua do Brasil já apresentam mais diferenças entre si do que semelhanças. É o apego à sinonímia equivocada entre língua e escrita mais monitorada que ainda permite a muitos afirmar que no Brasil e em Portugal se fala a mesma língua. É a insistência em ensinar uma norma-padrão mais próxima dos usos escritos mais formais dos portugueses que permite alegar a existência, em ambos os lados do Atlântico e passados 500 anos do transplante, de "uma" mesma língua. Ensinar Português ou estudar brasileiro

Not everyone is aware of the fact that the differences between Brazilian and Continental Portuguese far exceed those existing among the several varieties of English, Spanish or French. However, language specialists consistently recognize such differences. For instance, unlike the case for other languages, Portuguese-as-a-second-language primers, dictionaries and grammars invariably identify the variety of Portuguese that they contain. Furthermore, prestigious organizations such as the Foreign Service and the Center for Applied Linguistics have different tests to assess each variety of the language. Necco: Article by Lyris Wiedemann

Phonology (the following has been adapted from Wikipedia.

In many ways, compared to European Portuguese (EP), Brazilian Portuguese (BP) is conservative in its phonology. This also occurs in Angolan Portuguese, São Tomean Portuguese, and other African dialects.

Vowels

Brazilian speakers generally pronounce all vowels more clearly and distinctly than the European speakers. In the syllables that follow the stressed one, BP generally pronounces o as [u], a as [ɐ], and e as [i]. Some dialects of BP follow these rules also for vowels before the stressed syllable. In contrast, EP elides some unstressed vowels, or reduces them to a very short, near central unrounded vowel, a sound that does not exist in BP.

Consonants

One of the most noticeable tendencies of BP is the palatalization of /d/ and /t/ in some regions. This pronunciation began in Rio de Janeiro and is often still associated with this city, but is now standard in other major cities such as Belo Horizonte and Salvador, and has spread more recently to some regions of São Paulo (due to the migrants from other regions), where it is common in most speakers under 40 or so. It has always been standard among Brazil's Japanese community, since this is also a feature of the Japanese language.

Nasalization is much stronger in BP than EP. This is especially noticeable in vowels before /n/ or /m/ followed by a vowel, which are pronounced in BP with nasalization as strong as in phonemically nasalized vowels, while in EP they are nearly without nasalization. For the same reason, open vowels (which are disallowed under nasalization in Portuguese in general) cannot occur before /n/ or /m/ in BP, but can in EP. This sometimes affects the spelling of words. For example, EP, harmónico "harmonic" is BP harmônico . It also can affect verbal paradigms—for example, EP distinguishes falamos "we speak" from 'falámos' "we spoke", but BP has falamos for both.

Related to this is the difference in pronunciation of the consonant written nh. The word "palhinha" will have a subtle difference in pronunciation between the two varieties.

BP did not participate in many sound changes that later affected EP, particularly in the realm of consonants. In BP, /b/, /d/, and /g/ are stops in all positions, while they are weakened to fricatives in EP, as in Spanish. (Whether such a change happens in BP is highly dialect-specific. Rio de Janeiro is particularly known for such a pronunciation; São Paulo is particular known for not having it. Elsewhere, such as in the Northeast, it is more likely to happen before a consonant than word-finally, and varies from region to region or even from speaker to speaker.

An interesting change that is in the process of spreading in BP, probably originating in the Northeast, is the insertion of [j] after stressed vowels before /s/ at the end of a syllable. This began in the context of /a/—for example, mas "but" is now pronounced [majs] in most of Brazil, making it homophonous with mais "more". The change is spreading to other vowels, however, and at least in the Northeast the normal pronunciations of voz "voice". Similarly, três "three" becomes [trejs], making it rhyme with seis "six" [sejs]; this may explain the common Brazilian replacement of seis with meia (literally "half", as in "half a dozen") when spelling out phone numbers.

Sample text in Portuguese

Todos os seres humanos nascem livres e iguais em dignidade e em direitos. Dotados de razão e de consciência, devem agir uns para com os outros em espírito de fraternidade.

Listen to recording of this text by a Portuguese speaker from Portugal

Sample text in Brazilian Portuguese

Todos os seres humanos nascem livres e iguais em dignidade e direitos. São dotados de razão e consciência e devem agir em relação uns aos outros com espírito de fraternidade.

Listen to a recording of this text

Problems with the "b" and the "v"

According to the following article from Cronicas e Ensaios:

Sabe-se como a troca do V pelo B, sobretudo no Minho e no Porto, é profundamente censurada, principalmente pela população da capital, onde se falava moçárabe antes de lá terem chegado o Afonso Henriques e o Martim Moniz. Pois bem, na Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, há já bastantes anos, fiz prova de que tal só acontece porque, em português, não existem pares de palavras, que se distingam umas das outras apenas por esses sons (baca/vaca, binho/vinho, bir/vir, bale/vale), em quantidade suficiente, de tal forma que obrigasse os falantes a articular correctamente um som ou outro consoante o caso, para que, em situação de comunicação, não resultasse em equívoco. A mesma teoria se aplica ao chamado fenómeno de hipercorrecção (frequente em pessoas que, em situação de indecisão, receosas da censura social, acabam por se «corrigir» onde não devem), fenómeno que consiste em articular o V mesmo em palavras em que apenas existe o B (vom/bom, voi/boi, velo/belo, vigode/bigode). Mesmo nos casos em que existem os tais pares de palavras de que falei (bago/vago, bem/vem, balão/valão, balido/valido), há sempre a possibilidade dos falantes estabelecerem a distinção através do contexto linguístico ou até situacional.

It is because of this pronunciation--seen by the Brazilians to be closed-- which is not the fault of the Portuguese but only a natural linguistic phenomenon, that a Brazilian has difficulty in understanding his European cousins. If there were more contact the problem would be reduced. Let it be said that there are also regions of Brazil--certain areas of the Northeast--where a Portuguese person would be hard pressed to understand the locals.

I recommend this discussion of Brazilian-Phonology

Vocabulary

A Brazilian would have a hard time understanding "kispo" for anorak. Notice the common mistake of substituting the "v" for "b" in "gabardine", not to mention the misspelling of "impermeabilizamos"..

There are many lexical differences due to the long separation of the two variants of Portuguese. A list of some of the most common can be found in my European Portuguese--Brazilian Portuguese Dictionary or in Dicionário de Gíria. An article written by Naomi James Sutcliffe de Moraes and printed at Necco talks about the differences.

I will begin this section with a European Portuguese literary passage. "Na passadeira de peões surgiu o desenho do homem verde...Os automobilistas, impacientes, com o pé no pedal da embraiagem, mantinham em tensão os carros..."(Ref. 1) In Brazilian Portuguese this would be: "Na faixa de pedestres surgiu o desenho do homem verde...Os motoristas, impacientes, com o pé no pedal da embreagem, mantinham em tensão os carros..." The European Portuguese sentence is not just non-idiomatic. Depending on the level of the reader it would be nonsensical. Passadeira (BR) most commonly refers to a woman who irons clothes, a peão (BR) is a cowboy, soldier, or chess pawn, and an automobilista (BR) is a race-car driver. Read complete article by Naomi Moraes

See Eurotexte for a short, but well organized list of vocabulary differences

See a humorous article by P. A. Grisoli called Portugal para principiantes: Onde o bumbum é rabinho.

A Brazilian would think that "prego" was a nail. To his surprise, it is a sandwich.

Matabicho doesn't mean "kill the beast" but only "hunger".