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The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

hackingportuguese.com

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Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#31

Post by Kaze404 »

soneca wrote: post #22

My name is Rodrigo and I work remotely for an american company with only American teammates. When I say my name I pronounce the way Americans would pronounce it to simplify communication, but it always feels a little phony. Like I am making up a nickname that’s actually not mine to a new group. Not anything that bothers me, just a curiosity of global remote work and our R.

"Rod" might work as a suitable nickname, since it's also used for names like Roderick (which sounds eerily similar to Rodrigo now that I think about it).

Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#32

Post by lucis »

paol wrote: post #27

Just a heads up for non-portuguese speakers: brazilian portuguese and european portuguese can differ quite extremely in pronunciation. Then there's also african portuguese pronunciations, though to my ear those tend to be closer to the european. The article is written from a brazilian standpoint, so keep that in mind when comparing with your own experiences of the language.

That's right, this is for Portuguese, not Portuguese (PT) /s

Recently, there was a polemic in social media that Portuguese mothers were worried their kids were only speaking "Brazilian", due to the dominance of Brazilian content creators in Youtube, Instagram, TikTok...

[1]: https://www.correiobraziliense.com.br/mundo/2021/11/4962302-... (Portuguese)

Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#33

Post by StephenSmith »

I took some Spanish in school but my most notable experience attempting to learn (Brazilian) Portuguese as a native English speaker was hearing the difference between the names José and Roberto.

There's the quintessentially, native-English-speaking pronunciation of José with a hard J. With Spanish, the J is obviously silent, or extremely soft, but in Brazilian Portuguese (I can't speak for other forms), you pronounce it almost like someone reading the name for the first time in English, with the hard J.

And then you have the opposite with the name Roberto, in Spanish the R is hard and present (and easy for native-English-speakers), but in Portuguese, the R has that same soft J sound that Spanish speakers use on José.

It's fun how these (three) languages intertwine.

Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#34

Post by wefarrell »

zanellato19 wrote: post #25
wefarrell wrote: post #23

I can never get over the way my Brazilian wife pronounces the currency. Singular - hey-ow Plural - hey-I. They're spelled real and reals respectively.

real and reais, not reals. hey-I on the plural doesn't make a lot of sense to me, you are probably not hearing something she is saying.

You're right there is a very subtle s as the end that I wasn't noticing, especially at the speed of normal conversation.

Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#35

Post by samueloph »

soneca wrote: post #22

My name is Rodrigo and I work remotely for an american company with only American teammates. When I say my name I pronounce the way Americans would pronounce it to simplify communication, but it always feels a little phony. Like I am making up a nickname that’s actually not mine to a new group. Not anything that bothers me, just a curiosity of global remote work and our R.

I used to do the same for "Samuel" but figured I'm happier saying my name the correct way when asked instead of having that weird feeling. I don't mind if people say it differently with their accents or don't try to say it like I do, but it's nice when somebody says it correctly.

"correct pronunciation" to me, in terms of names, roughly means the pronunciation that that person grew with (so it's about where they're from).

Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#36

Post by lucis »

lvass wrote: post #24
diego_moita wrote: post #19

Scottish people can pronounce the same sound! When you say "Loch Ness" with a very thick Scottish accent, the "ch" in loch is quite close to it. Also the sound is quite common in other languages: "roi" in French, "reisen" in German, ... Even some Spanish dialects like Galego have the same r. Only Castilian/normal Spanish doesn't have it. OTOH, just ask a Brazilian to pronounce simply "the". The "th" phoneme is quite…

>"Brad Pit" becomes "brahdjee pitchee" I think this is very much standard all over Brazil. It's a common pattern in a large amount of english words, I think most or all of us can pronounce it correctly, but we don't because it'd be harder say and recognize while trying to pronounce it like an american almost sounds like pedantry here.

> I think this is very much standard all over Brazil.

You mean about the "mispronunciation"? Because the j in "bradhjee" I hear mostly in southeastern accents, where people in Northeast says it more closely with how it's spoken in English.

Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#37

Post by darkwater »

diego_moita wrote: post #19

Scottish people can pronounce the same sound! When you say "Loch Ness" with a very thick Scottish accent, the "ch" in loch is quite close to it. Also the sound is quite common in other languages: "roi" in French, "reisen" in German, ... Even some Spanish dialects like Galego have the same r. Only Castilian/normal Spanish doesn't have it. OTOH, just ask a Brazilian to pronounce simply "the". The "th" phoneme is quite…

> Even some Spanish dialects like Galego have the same r

You are opening a can of worms here considering that Galego is officialy a language, not a dialect, and it's basically very very similar to Portoguese, up to a point in which a galician colleague of mine, when we were at a conference in the USA would talk in Galego with a couple of Brazilian guys and they talked to him in Brazilian Portoguese and they went along just fine. Modern galego and portugues stem from the same root[1]

[1] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idioma_gallego#Historia

Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#38

Post by forinti »

paol wrote: post #27

Just a heads up for non-portuguese speakers: brazilian portuguese and european portuguese can differ quite extremely in pronunciation. Then there's also african portuguese pronunciations, though to my ear those tend to be closer to the european. The article is written from a brazilian standpoint, so keep that in mind when comparing with your own experiences of the language.

Brazilians have a hard time understanding European Portuguese (I think that pronoun placement is a major factor other that the actual phonetics - they just don't expect certain phrases).

And I've also heard from Portuguese that they find Brazilians easier to understand than some of their own compatriots, especially now that telenovelas have spread Brazilian vocabulary in Portugal.

Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#39

Post by jayroh »

As a BR-born son of an American and a Brazilian, this post/article brings me all sorts of joy. To this day, the sound of people speaking in BR-PT out in public brings a smile to my face. (To be clear, I live in Boston so there is a pretty large Brazilian population here)

All languages have their own beauty but there's something special about Brazilian Portuguese - the flow, the "sing-song'y" nature of it, it's almost like a dance. Admittedly I am biased, but I've heard similar from people without the background.

Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#40

Post by samueloph »

lucis wrote: post #32
paol wrote: post #27

Just a heads up for non-portuguese speakers: brazilian portuguese and european portuguese can differ quite extremely in pronunciation. Then there's also african portuguese pronunciations, though to my ear those tend to be closer to the european. The article is written from a brazilian standpoint, so keep that in mind when comparing with your own experiences of the language.

That's right, this is for Portuguese, not Portuguese (PT) /s Recently, there was a polemic in social media that Portuguese mothers were worried their kids were only speaking "Brazilian", due to the dominance of Brazilian content creators in Youtube, Instagram, TikTok... [1]: https://www.correiobraziliense.com.br/mundo/2021/11/4962302-... (Portuguese)

Yes, it's funny in a way that Brazilian culture is influencing Portuguese's other than the reverse (since Portugal colonized Brazil). I guess during the internet era, having a bigger population is a big factor on "culture pressure" or whatnot (there's more Brazilian online content than Portuguese, or any other lusophone country).
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