Brazilian Portuguese - is it a hard language?

Guest   Tue Sep 08, 2009 9:30 pm GMT
I'm Polish and I want to learn BR Portuguese. How difficult, compared to other languages, will it be for me to learn it? Are Brazilians tolerant of non-native speakers?
Paul   Tue Sep 08, 2009 9:50 pm GMT
<< How difficult, compared to other languages, will it be for me to learn it?>>

Its a standard romance language, and is of comparable difficulty to the rest of them.

<<Are Brazilians tolerant of non-native speakers?>>

Yes. In my experience they love to hear foreigners speak their language, or at least attempt to.
branco   Tue Sep 08, 2009 10:02 pm GMT
if you're polish, it will be a breeze for you. and it's the easiest among them
Kelly   Tue Sep 08, 2009 10:08 pm GMT
Brazilian Portuguese is difficult because of digossia. There is one grammar for the written language, and another one for the spoken language. So, it's like learning Swiss Spoken German and Swiss Written German. Written languages of Brazil and Switzerland (in the case of German) follow closely the original form (from Portugal/Germany) just with slight differences in spelling, vocabulary and grammar, but the spoken language is just another thing.

spoken Brazilian: te amo, me chamo
written: amo-te, chamo-me (it's forbidden to use a clitic at the beginning of the sentence, this rule came from Lisbon)
translation: I love you, my name is...

spoken Brazilian: cheguei em casa, vou lá em casa
written: cheguei a casa, vou lá a casa (it's forbidden to use the preposition EM with verbs of movement, this rule came from Lisbon)
translation: I just came home, I'm going home (to pick some things)


spoken Brazilian: vi ele, mataram ele
written; vi-o, mataram-no (it's forbidden to omit clitics; this rule came from Lisbon)
translation: I see him, they killed him

spoken Brazilian: entre eu e você
written: entre mim e ti (it's forbidden to use nominative forms with prepositions, this rule came from Lisbon; note that Spanish uses nominative form just like spoken Brazilian: entre tu/Usted y yo).

Spoken Brazilian is used in speech, in movies, soap operas, in sitcoms, in comic books, and in lyrics of popular music, it is used in Brazilian modernist literature (authors like Mário de Andrade and Guimarães Rosa use it)...
Books, journals, magazines hate Brazilian grammar, and prefer forms from Portugal.

It's difficult to learn a language with two separate grammars, and it's tiring too.

On Brazilian diglossia:
http://eyesonbrazil.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/portuguese-diglossia-part-1/

Brazilian spoken grammar, in case you want to prefer Brazilian spoken usage: http://www.amazon.com/Grammar-Spoken-Brazilian-Portuguese/dp/082651197X

Unlike Argentinian Spanish and US English that have proud of their own linguistic usage, most Brazilians think they speak a lousy version of Portuguese, full of mistakes, and there are always actions against the local form, that try to impose the written language (imported from Portugal) in every situation.

For example, no US English teacher would ever say ''We speak incorrectly'' or ''Our official language is British English'', but in Brazil these things are frequent, professors like Pasquale or Sacconi consider all brazilian features of language incorrect, and long for usage from Portugal.

Argentians pressed Spanish Academia to accept their forms, so now Argentinans write the same way they talk (with voseo and vos-tuyo mixture being accepted). But the same is not true of Brazil, there is very low linguistic proud in Brazil.
hardware   Tue Sep 08, 2009 10:36 pm GMT
acabei de ouvir uma da suas series em youtube e gostei imenso como fala. O seu portugues é tipico brasileir, mas falado quase propriamente. fecha e abre mais as vogais como os portugueses e poe bem os pronomes (a proclise e mesoclise).

assim todos deviam de falar no Brasil!
PARISIEN   Tue Sep 08, 2009 11:08 pm GMT
<< it's like learning Swiss Spoken German and Swiss Written German. >>

-- C'est vraiment grave à ce point ?...
la putain   Tue Sep 08, 2009 11:18 pm GMT
PARISIEN, quelles langues parlez-vous ?
Evinória   Tue Sep 08, 2009 11:40 pm GMT
Vai fundo amigo!

No que precisar estarei aqui para ajudar!^^


Visit my Youtube Channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/alexcetera
Guest   Wed Sep 09, 2009 12:09 am GMT
<<Argentians pressed Spanish Academia to accept their forms, so now Argentinans write the same way they talk (with voseo and vos-tuyo mixture being accepted). But the same is not true of Brazil, there is very low linguistic proud in Brazil. >>


Do you think the Argentinians need the ok from Spanish Academia to write the way they want?. Spanish Academia regulates Spanish spoken in Spain and they simply don't care what Argentinians say or write because they have their own Argentinian Academy of Spanish language. Another different thing would be that the Argentinian Academy says Argentinians must speak Spanish like the Spaniards, but as far as I know this never was the case.
Evinória   Wed Sep 09, 2009 1:00 am GMT
<Argentians pressed Spanish Academia to accept their forms, so now Argentinans write the same way they talk (with voseo and vos-tuyo mixture being accepted). But the same is not true of Brazil, there is very low linguistic proud in Brazil. >>


O que eu acho engraçado é que a pessoa que diz isso, não é brasileira. Como alguém que não é brasileiro, poderia dizer sobre o que os brasileiros são ou não orgulhosos?

Há certas coisas acerca de um povo, que somente esse povo pode responder! A questão linguística no Brasil pode ser vítima de tudo, menos falta de orgulho.
Kelly   Wed Sep 09, 2009 7:18 am GMT
''Ocorre que a língua portuguesa "oficial", isto é, o português de Portugal, não aceita o pronome no início da frase. ''

[It happens that official Portuguese language, that is, Portuguese from Portugal, does not accept pronoun at the beginning of a phrase.]

http://www.tvcultura.com.br/aloescola/linguaportuguesa/sintaxe/colocacaopronominal2-medisseramque.htm

Pasquale Cipro Neto, the most famous Brazilian professor.



No American professor would ever say ''you cannot write -I just ate-, because British English requires -'I have just eaten-''

Americans respect their usage, Argentinian respect their usage, yet Brazilians don't respect their usage, they consider it inferior...
Tionghoa   Wed Sep 09, 2009 8:08 am GMT
Is Brazilian Portuguese a bit harder than Italian?
Harman   Wed Sep 09, 2009 3:32 pm GMT
I think brazilian should leadership portuguese language because the big amount of portugues speakers nearly 200 millions in Brazil vs 10 millions in Portugal.
It's a matter of time that standard portugues v1.0 will be brazilian one, evinora. Media will do it.
Harman   Wed Sep 09, 2009 3:37 pm GMT
Guest, any case there are a global spanish academies association to standard spanish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Spanish_Language_Academies
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asociación_de_Academias_de_la_Lengua_Española
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associação_de_Academias_da_Língua_Espanhola
mim   Wed Sep 09, 2009 5:29 pm GMT
no. it isn't it's the easiest Romance language, a sort of creole