Brazilian Portuguese vs European Portuguese: Know the Difference

Brazilian and European

As an English speaker, you may have heard that there are two types of Portuguese – Brazilian and European.

This isn’t entirely true; there are in fact three different dialects spoken in the Portuguese-speaking world, including Galician (spoken in Spain) and Fala (spoken in the Azores), but let’s focus on the two we’re interested in here: Brazilian and European Portuguese.

Pronunciation of Brazilian Portugues vs European Portuguese

One of the first differences between Brazilian and European Portuguese is that Brazilians have a more Spanish-influenced accent.

Many Brazilians pronounce words like fome (‘hunger’) with a long ‘o’ sound, not an ‘oo’ sound as it is pronounced in most varieties of European Portuguese.

There are also some major differences in spelling like livro (‘book’) and library being spelled as liuro and libria respectively.

Differences in pronunciation can be found for example with the word país, which can sound much like peas in standard European Portuguese, but be more similar to pears when spoken by a Brazilian speaker.

Some minor differences also exist including many varieties of Brazilian language which may or may not contain different vocabulary or expressions than their counterpart elsewhere.

Common Verbs, Adjectives and Nouns

Portuguese is a Romance language, originally spoken in Portugal, Brazil, and many other countries. There are some differences between variants of the language. In most cases, they are due to cultural differences or which country they are spoken in.

Brazilian Portuguese is different from both Brazilian culture and distinct accents. This variation is apparent in how native speakers pronounce vowels and consonants differently than European variants and also features phrases with only words of Brazil ian origin that would not be translated into any other variant.

Brazilian pronunciation includes heavy use of dental fricatives (sounds such as sh) when compared to the more guttural sounds in standard European Portuguese usage.

The exception to this rule is /x/, which is used at the beginning of word clusters and occasionally elsewhere. Portuguese-speaking countries include Angola, East Timor, Mozambique, Cape Verde Islands and São Tomé and Príncipe.

Portuguese dialects can differ by region with regard to grammar, syntax, vocabulary, or pronunciation; although each dialect has unique distinctions it does not have clear boundaries that demarcate where one ends and another begins.

Sentence Structure of both Brazilian and European Portuguese

Both Brazilian and European Portuguese have their advantages and disadvantages. Brazilian Portuguese is a variant of Portuguese, as it is spoken in Brazil.

When compared to other variants of Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation tends to be softer and more like spoken English than other versions.

One disadvantage is that it often contains words that are not used in Portugal or Europe. Due to this fact, Europeans may be confused by some new phrases or vocabulary when speaking with Brazilians, or vice versa.

The Portuguese language is one of the official languages of Brazil, and Portuguese people who speak only Portuguese can live well in Brazil. However, Portuguese people living in Brazil are considered to be bilingual since they also speak Portuguese.

In comparison, European Portuguese is a dialect of the Portuguese language spoken primarily in Portugal and its former colonies including Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde Islands and São Tomé and Príncipe Islands.

There are three variants: Brazilian (spoken throughout South America), African (spoken throughout Africa) and European (spoken primarily in Portugal). It shares much history with the rest of the Romance languages such as Spanish and Italian.

Grammar structure of Brazilian and European Portugues

There are many differences between Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese. The first major difference is how Portuguese sounds when spoken by a Brazilian person or by a Portuguese person.

People from Brazil pronounce words differently and use different expressions. In Brazil, people tend to roll their rs more than in Portugal and also to use nasal sounds such as nasal vowels like ão, ãe, ãi.

Portuguese speakers from Portugal would use an r followed by an h in front of it while brazlians would just say the r followed by a vowel sound.

Portuguese speakers from Portugal will say oitenta (eighty) whereas brazilians will say oitenta (pronounced OI-tentah). One of the most prominent features of Portuguese is that they have three forms for you which can be used depending on who you are speaking to – tu, vosso and voce.

Vosso means your honor or majesty and voce means you singularly without any dignity or respect. Tu means you familiarly with some formality but not as much as voce.

FAQ’S