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The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

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Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#141

Post by digorithm »

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.

Hah! I'm also Rodrigo, and I've been living in Canada for 6 years now. I've given up hoping people would get the pronunciation of my name right. At this point I think I'm even more used to the North-American way. Rodrigo is a hella hard name if you've never spoken Portuguese.

Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#142

Post by yeahforsureman »

marcodiego wrote: post #9

Portuguese is very rich in terms of phonemes compared to other western languages. Brazil is a very big country with many different accents, but when we talk about popular artists and TV, there are some which are popular in the whole country. This makes the people well aware of how people from different parts of the country speak and, naturally, people have developed a "common way to speak" that can sound "neutral" to…

How well do you cope then with e.g. Germanic and Eastern European features (such as vowels ä, ö, ü/y, y/ы and schwa, difficult consonant clusters, and short/long vowels and consonants independent of stress)?

Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#143

Post by rglullis »

lhorie wrote: post #124
rglullis wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Maurício de Souza is an underrated genius and Turma da Mônica is the first and best example that comes to my mind when I'm overseas and get asked about Brazilian culture. But please, let's not measure its virtues by some broken standards like Identity Politics. I mean, yes, they have "diversity" and I think they have "minority representation done right" but - unlike any example of modern American cultural pro…

> The art and the stories come first Yes, this can't be emphasized enough. I mentioned inclusivity to weave a narrative, and although one could argue that more recent characters like Luca are more of the checkbox-ticking variety, generally speaking the character cast of Monica's cartoons is mind-bogglingly diverse, far beyond "wokeness" lines. There's Chico Bento (a hillbilly boy living in a farm) and his gang, there…

It is Mrs. Rock, she is an old lady and demands respect. ;)

Seriously, I think I basically learned to read with their comics (along with Disney's) and it is impressive how some of these stories get stuck in our heads and definitely take a role in forming our personalities. With Disney's, there is the story where the kids use the duplicating machine to make infinite money, and end up learning about inflation. With Monica, there is one story where one of the boys (I think it's Cebolinha) are talking with Anjinho about the consequences of doing what they do to Sansão and if they are going to Hell for it, which becomes an amazing short but beautiful affirmation of Judeo-Christian values. Paraphrasing, Anjinho says something like "do not worry about Heaven or Hell and the afterlife, just use this life to bring as much of Heaven to Earth as you can"

Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#144

Post by ncmncm »

These treatments always skip over the elephant in the room: "r" where there is none. E.g. Brit pronunciation "agender" for agenda, and most problematically "drawring".

It appears that appending "r" sounds was once a marker for "posh" status in England, and adopted by the middle class as an attempt at upward mobility. But they went overboard, and added Rs the posh wouldn't. Arguably, it was initially done in mockery, but the mocked missed the joke. I don't know any way to test that hypothesis.

Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#145

Post by ncmncm »

pdpi wrote: post #139
oblio wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He he. That's partly why we make fun of you as the most Western Eastern European country. Developing economy, speaking with a strong Slavic accent, recovering after a long dictatorship, you check many boxes :-p

I'd never heard that one, that's amazing. Who's the "we" you speak of?

Must be Spaniards.

I worked with someone from Romania. He said Portuguese sounds just like Romanian until you try to understand it, then it sounds like someone making fun of Romanian.

Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#146

Post by simtel20 »

yeahforsureman wrote: post #142
marcodiego wrote: post #9

Portuguese is very rich in terms of phonemes compared to other western languages. Brazil is a very big country with many different accents, but when we talk about popular artists and TV, there are some which are popular in the whole country. This makes the people well aware of how people from different parts of the country speak and, naturally, people have developed a "common way to speak" that can sound "neutral" to…

How well do you cope then with e.g. Germanic and Eastern European features (such as vowels ä, ö, ü/y, y/ы and schwa, difficult consonant clusters, and short/long vowels and consonants independent of stress)?

You don't have to go that far afield. Most Brazilians have a tremendous challenge in saying "the" and will be taught to say "th" as "d" and often it's good enough to be understood, but far from natural sounding.

Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#147

Post by simtel20 »

EL_Loco wrote: post #129
andrepd wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even Portugal, a small country of 10 million people / 100k km^2, has quite a lot of linguistic diversity.

Portuguese ranks sixths on number of native speakers, according to Wikipedia.

Portuguese as spoken in Portugal is very different from how it is spoken in Brazil which has a population about 30x larger.

Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#148

Post by asveikau »

School-Cotton wrote: post #125
asveikau wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where are you from? I was born in Washington DC to a family that had recent roots all over Europe. And had some young interest and exposure to Spanish. I'm American, but my accent is a little all over the place. I don't get much grief over this in the northeast, but on the west coast people are pretty confused by the way I talk.

I’m from Arizona (not the West Coast, but culturally and physically close enough). My mom would always try to correct my pronunciation of “Latin”, “mountain”, and similar words with a /t/ realized as a glottal stop. She’s from the East Coast, so indeed, maybe that pronunciation isn’t as common there.

Yeah. That amuses me. I'll need to be honest... When I hear people overdo the flap pronunciation of /t/ in those specific words, it triggers something judgemental in me. I've been on the west coast for 14 years now, so I think I've gotten over it somewhat.

Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#149

Post by oblio »

pdpi wrote: post #139
oblio wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He he. That's partly why we make fun of you as the most Western Eastern European country. Developing economy, speaking with a strong Slavic accent, recovering after a long dictatorship, you check many boxes :-p

I'd never heard that one, that's amazing. Who's the "we" you speak of?

https://www.reddit.com/r/PortugalIsEastEurope/

Re: The enigmatic Portuguese R (2013)

#150

Post by simtel20 »

quirino wrote: post #112
lhorie wrote: post #98

A discussion of Portuguese Rs wouldn't be complete without at least a mention of Jimmy Five[0] (aka Cebolinha), a character in the Monica's Gang cartoon. > Due to dyslalia, Jimmy Five is incapable of pronouncing the letter "r", replacing it with the letter l, in the Portuguese version, or with the letter w, in the English version. When the letter is used at the end of a word, however, he pronounces it normally (as in…

Here are the main characters from Monica's Gang: - Monica (Mônica) - has ludicrous physical strength (quite easily the strongest person in the world in the cartoon). Gets made fun of by the boys for her big front teeth and responds by hitting them with her blue stuffed rabbit. - Jimmy Five (Cebolinha) - Can't pronounce some words properly (as described above). Has exactly 5 strands of hair on his head and is always t…

Bravo for explaining it. But how could you not include Sansão as a primary character?
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