Spanish is not so important as latin-americans praise!

When we say ASNO is not normally used in Brazil, we say it doesn't belong to common usage, just like the word AUTUMN in the USA, rarely used. If you take a search in google.site.br you will see that JEGUE and JUMENTO are much more used than ASNO. ASNO sounds pretty obsolete in Brazil, 99% of people have never heard of it.

TU SACOU, SEU GRINGO ALOPRADO!?

""""uma peculiaridade sintática, originada na fala dos escravos, que até hoje é apontada como uma das distinções entre o português falado em Portugal e o que se fala no Brasil: a colocação de pronomes átonos antes dos verbos(mi deu, ti falô).""

<Brazilians speak the way slaves used to speak (in the colloquial speach)but remember slaves did not go to school. Today Afrian Portuguese speakers are speaking an educated Portuguese.
This is very interesting Africans are speaking like the educated Portuguese and the Brazilians are speaking like the uneducated African slaves.>
Gringo, get a grip, you know niente, zip, nada on Brazilian (portuguese).
Your position is pretty offensive. """

No it is not offensive is what it says here "uma peculiaridade sintática, originada na fala dos escravos" (mi deu, ti falô) "a syntactic peculiarity, originated in slave speech "maybe you want to correct the writer of the article, or if it isn't it what he meant just say what you think he meant probably you know better than he does.


""When we say ASNO is not normally used in Brazil, we say it doesn't belong to common usage"""
Not where you live maybe but don´t say it is not used in other regions because it is used and it is common yes more when people write than speak but it is common.


"""ASNO sounds pretty obsolete in Brazil, 99% of people have never heard of it."""
That is because you were never told children stories when you were a kid or you do not travell around in Brazil, your way of speaking BrazilianPortuguese is not the best of all or the only used, there are other ways of speaking in Brazil that you are ignoring.

"""TU SACOU, SEU GRINGO ALOPRADO!? """
Aloprado é a vovózinha!

Hi. Just jumping in midstream here with regard to the importance of various languages. The most important in Europe has to be English. The most important in North America is also English followed by Spanish.

English must certainly be the most important language in Europe because it is the only language with a reasonable chance of being spoken, or at least understood, everywhere in Europe, not to mention the rest of the world, and bearing in mind that it is the principal language of the United Nations. It is the second language, after native tongues, most taught in schools throughout Europe, and certainly an indispensable language in the world of travel and business.

Spanish is becoming increasingly essential in North America. It makes sense to learn Spanish if one wishes to get around in the Americas. It would be as nonsensical to learn German to get around in the Americas as it would be to learn Spanish to get around in Russia or Japan.
If one had to choose one language to get around in the world in general, the best choice would be English.
Nice forum here.

For you Spanish and Portuguese specialists:

In everyday spoken usage, what difference is there in Portuguese and/or Spanish between "muy" and "demasiado"?

For example, when one says "El es muy gordo," is that the same, in everyday speaking, as "El es demasiado gordo" ?

A better example, in Spanish, would be "El es muy gordo para mi".
Is that the same as "El es demasiado gordo para mi" in street language?
(pardon my Spanish mistakes).

We don't use DEMASIADO in Brazil, but I think it is still used in Portugal.
We say DEMAIS, which also means EXCELLENT, SWELL, COOL, GREAT :)

Here in Brazil, we use it like this:

donkey = jumento or jegue
stupid person = burro* [not normally used for animals]
(in fact, burro is a mix of horse and donkey similar to mule, but it is not
a species, it is a hybrid)
asno is very seldom used. both Aurélio and Houaiss have a link to main word: JUMENTO which is the biology term for donkey in Brazil

*estúpido means RUDE here. It is rarely used for ''stupid''

Ela foi estúpida/grossa comigo. = She was rude to me.

JUMENTO

NOME COMUM: Jumento
NOME EM INGLÊS: Donkey
NOME CIENTÍFICO: Equus asinus
FILO: Chordata
CLASSE: Mammalia
ORDEM: Perissodactyla
FAMÍLIA: Equidae
COMPRIMENTO: até 2,70 m
ALTURA NA ERNELHA: qté 1,60 m
PESO: até 400 kg
PERÍODO DE GESTAÇÃO: 375 dias
TEMPO DE VIDA: até 45 anos

Qual a diferença entre jumento, mula, burro, jegue e asno?

(Matheus Silveira Azevedo, São Gonçalo do Sapucaí, MG)

Jumento, asno e jegue, são nomes regionais diferentes dados para exatamente o mesmo animal: o Equus asinus, uma espécie de "parente" do cavalo. O jumento é famoso por sua grande resistência e pode ser encontrado em praticamente todo o planeta, exceto em regiões mais frias. Desde o início das civilizações, ele vem sendo usado como animal de carga, sela e tração, sendo muito útil para trabalhos pesados no campo. Em média, tem 1,30 metro de altura e chega a pesar 400 quilos. Mula e burro, por sua vez, são um outro animal, formado a partir do cruzamento entre um jumento e uma égua. Quando o filhote desse acasalamento é uma fêmea, ela é chamada de mula; quando nasce um macho, ele é popularmente chamado de burro. Independentemente do sexo, esse animal é fisicamente mais parecido com a mãe, ou seja, uma égua, mas consegue herdar do jumento a força e a resistência. Graças a seu formidável equilíbrio, a mula (ou burro) consegue andar por caminhos íngremes nas montanhas, sendo muito útil como animal de carga. "Os burros e as mulas têm como característica principal a forte 'personalidade'. São animais que exigem muita perseverança e um trabalho específico para serem domados", afirma o veterinário Alexandre Gobesso, da Universidade de São Paulo (USP).


http://mundoestranho.abril.com.br/edicoes/29/mundo_animal/conteudo_mundo_43526.shtml

Toni
“asno is very seldom used. both Aurélio and Houaiss have a link to main word: JUMENTO which is the biology term for donkey in Brazil”
“We don't use DEMASIADO in Brazil, but I think it is still used in Portugal.
We say DEMAIS, which also means EXCELLENT, SWELL, COOL, GREAT :)”


Explain why people still write “demasiado” on the Brazilian web pages are they Portuguese writing?

“A gratuita perversidade é que o condenaria, é que o livraria da Justiça. Continuou caminhando. Aquele homem era muito alto, o outro era demasiado gordo: abordá-lo seria ridículo.”
http://www.marcelocid.blogger.com.br/2005_07_01_archive.html

Também não é, muitas vezes, vaidade nenhuma quando um jovem diz que acha estar demasiado gordo, muito pelo contrário!
http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/sarahhh_kuka/Artigos

É demasiado triste, como Cuiabano que somos, vermos o quanto a consciência do ser humano, é irracional. lembro-me de quando criança em minhas andanças com meu paim, que me apresentava a beleza do rio cuiaba, do mercado do porto e os enormes peixes que ali comercializavam.
http://www.diariodecuiaba.com.br/especial_com.php?cod=4&com=17254


Explain why people still write “asno” are they all wrong ?

O que? O Homem está pasmo, diz que ele é um asno e que eu tenho livre arbítrio para tirar um sarro? Oxente!
http://www.usinadeletras.com.br/exibelotexto.phtml?cod=5014&cat=Cartas&vinda=S


Neste momento, sem hipocrisia nenhuma você vai deixar muito claro para o seu amigo que ele é um asno e seu dinheiro vale muito mais para você do que aquela custosa amizade.
http://www.anjosdeprata.com.br/aatemas/2006/133/133felipetazzo.htm



Should we correct their webpages and send them an e-mail saying the words are no longer used in Brazil?

stupid person = burro* [not normally used for animals]

Explain why people still write “burro” referring to the animal "burro" on the web pages if it is not normally used for animals?

e construiremos uma circunferência C2 com raio R+d e centro no ponto B=(R,0) onde está amarrado o burro:
http://pessoal.sercomtel.com.br/matematica/alegria/burro/burro.htm

Seu Joaquim era um homem muito trabalhador. O dia nem tinha amanhecido, e ele já estava trabalhando. Em sua terra cultivavam muitas coisas, tinha muitos animais, além de um bonito porco e de um burro de carga.

http://www.brasilcatolico.com.br/historias/oporcoeoburro.asp

Some people speak more Brazilian Portuguese than others but when it comes to define others stupidity it seems Brazilians still throw obsolete words at each other, I think this can be considered an example of street language that you can find in a forum:


Mateense vc continua a racionar como um asno . Seu jumento do Sernamby , eu naum disse q era o 1º ano de segunda divisão , eu disse q esse era um clube novo chamado Centro de Futebol Linhares .......
http://www.terra.com.br/forum/dnewsweb.cgi?cmd=article&group=esportes.Comente_o_Campeonato_Capixaba_2005&item=1155&utag=

Para variar, o asno aqui até hoje não havia feito nenhum cd de backup... O hd era novo também, 1 ano e meio apenas....
http://www.forumpcs.com.br/viewtopic.php?t=149858

well, I have found words like AUTUMN and CINEMA on .us web pages, which certainly does not mean these words are commonly used in the USA.

AUTUMN

Results 1 - 10 of about 528,000 for autumn site:us. (0.26 seconds)


Wow, Americans DO use the word AUTUMN, wow!!!!!!!!

In various areas of the US, uses of the words "autumn" and "cinema" are more widespread than in other areas. Though many tell you they always say "fall" never "autumn", I am from Miami, Florida and there they share importance. "My favorite season in Miami is autumn" does not sound strange, outdated or poetic to me. I have, in fact, said it before.

Rafael,

<<Hi! I´m from Brazil. I was simply startled to read something like this: "It is predicted by scholars that portuguese will eventually make way for spanish in brasil in the not too distant future. "
With all due respect, this is a complete nonsense!>>

I've read that article also. No one can't say if it's nonsense or not since it's a prediction. So relax no need to get angry and upset over it.


http://linguanews.com/php_kr_news_read.php?section=s1&idx=1424

"Brazil is surrounded by countries that speak Spanish," Dr. Fischer said in an interview with the newsmagazine Veja. "As commercial exchanges and contacts increase," he said, "there will be much pressure" to abandon Portuguese. "Due to the enormous influence of Spanish, it is quite likely that a type of Portunhol will emerge," he added, combining the Portuguese words for Portuguese and Spanish.




<<I live here and I KNOW that Spanish is not so important to us as you state... >>

Portuguese is even more unimportant to other South Americans. The only ones that argue to the contrary are Brazilians themselves. But as someone else stated they have issues which are usually accompanied by an inferiority complex. Because of the huge amount of territory Brazil has they feel that they must be a "world power" and unfortunately for them they're not. They're just one massive thirld world nation and that's it. And the reality of this has damaged their psyche considerably.



<<Why would a whole nation simply change its common language, the language of its culture and media? >>

Calm down. Some things don't have a logical explanation. They just happen.

<<That doesn't make any sense.>>

It does to some.


<<I don't speak Spanish, and no one that I know do. And we're pretty fine this way, thanks.>>

I actually know of many Brazilians that are keen students of Spanish and fluent in it. The same cannot be said of other South Americans in regards to Portuguese.