Are Portuguese and Brazilian the same language?

''Spanish should simply absorb Portugal and Brazil into the hispanosphere''

not really, Spanish exposure in Brazil in limited because there is a rainforest and mountains barrier between Brazil and Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia.

Only in the South, there is some exposure (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay), but the South is not the most influential part of Brazil, Southeast (Rio, São Paulo, Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais) and Brasília are.

"K.Tさん:Wow, your Portuguese is better then mine then. First time I heard a Portuguese person speaking I had to speak in English because I couldn't understand.Now I understand better, though."

Lol. No, of course not. You are a native speaker. Heck, I wish that you and Zatsu would write here in Portuguese, so I would be encouraged to start writing in a natural style. Can you recommend any language-related forums in Portuguese?

I was, truthfully, able to understand Continental Portuguese on first hearing, but its sounds startled me so much that I wasn't able to focus immediately. However after a few minutes I was able to understand it and make a few mental notes about some differences between words in CP and BP.

Perhaps that is because I had already gone through the mental excercises of deciphering different varieties of French, Spanish and Japanese mostly out of necessity, so this was simply another exercise in ear training.

Isn't this the way for others? After a while, one starts to sort out sounds like this:

"O-kay, that sounds like "sh" is inserted for where I would use "s"."

"People insist that it's a "g" sound, but some men say "n" for the sound.

"R is R except for people who think it is D."



Lol. It's almost like math.

Brazilians predicate being unable to understand European Portuguese. On the other hand they affirm that they understand Spanish perfectly.
On this basis one could postulate that Brazilian Portuguese is a dialect of Spanish.
As has been proposed by someone before in this thread, brazilians have no reasons to call their language Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese, instead they should rename their language as Brazilian Spanish.
Thus, the question of this thread would be answered. Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese are two different languages, while Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish are one and the same language:

BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE= BRAZILIAN SPANISH= SPANISH

Brazilians belong now to Hispanic America.

Brazilians also say that they understand Italian better because Brazilian Portuguese has a lot of Italian influence.

Brazilian Portuguese was mostly influenced by African dialets, so a Brazilian visiting Africa should feel just like at home.

"Brazilians also say that they understand Italian better because Brazilian Portuguese has a lot of Italian influence."
I don't know if this theory has any linguistic base but Italian is pretty easy for Brazilians to understand...Portuguese spoken in São Paulo sound like Italian sometimes. Some people even say "pronto" meaning hello on the phone.

"As has been proposed by someone before in this thread, brazilians have no reasons to call their language Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese, instead they should rename their language as Brazilian Spanish. "
I wouldn't go so far but I agree with Mr. Peter R. Petrucci, who says Brazilians are Spanish/Portuguese bilinguals. I wish Brazilians could speak Spanish too, which is not the case. I can speak ok but when I went to America and said just one sentence to a Spanish speaker I heard the question: ¿Eres brasileño?
When I asked why she said that, the answer was plain and simple: Por qué hablas como tal!!! :)

Tchau!!

"Brazilian Portuguese was mostly influenced by African dialets, so a Brazilian visiting Africa should feel just like at home."
I don't know if that can be said about language (Even though some people in Bahia and Afro-Brazilian religion-related people speak YORUBÁ, which is one of the languages in Benin) but it seems that food habits in Benin are similar to Brazil because they eat stuff similar to a "feijoada" and also have "vatapá" and other dishes common in Bahia.
It seems that many slaves came from that area.

Kwaheri!!

I believe Angolan Portuguese (or dialects in Angola?) was the most influential of them all to Brazillian Portuguese, and even today both variants are similar. Some music and dance (like samba) are also from Angolan origin.


<<Maybe the person I talked to could be from "Porto", which is said to be difficult to understand. >>

hehehe, people from Azores are probably the hardest to understand^^;;

<<I wish that you and Zatsu would write here in Portuguese, so I would be encouraged to start writing in a natural style. >>

Wow, sério?
Vou escrever em Português então^^ mas vou também avisando que a minha "versão" de Português não pertence a nenhum lugar específico porque eu nunca vivo no mesmo sítio durante muito tempo...

K.T., muita gente fala que os portugueses "comem" as letras ou não pronunciam as palavras direito... Claro que eu não posso concordar, mas o que você acha?

"I believe Angolan Portuguese (or dialects in Angola?) was the most influential of them all to Brazillian Portuguese, and even today both variants are similar. Some music and dance (like samba) are also from Angolan origin. "
Zatsu:Thanks for helping me again. Indeed many slaves also came from Angola to Brazil and I believe they spoke "Quinbundo" mainly. I gotta study more about African influence in Brazilian but I guess these were the main languages (Quinbundo and Yorubá).

"hehehe, people from Azores are probably the hardest to understand^^;;"I never heard them...The only variations of Portuguese I've heard are the CP (But I heard it from people living over 20 years in Japan and TEACHERS, which might have influenced the way they speak), Cabo Verde Portuguese and people from Angola.

"Wow, sério?
Vou escrever em Português então^^ mas vou também avisando que a minha "versão" de Português não pertence a nenhum lugar específico porque eu nunca vivo no mesmo sítio durante muito tempo... "
Imagine o meu português então...Moro há 10 anos no Japão, falo inglês no trabalho (Com canadenses e australianos) e japonês em casa (Ainda por cima dialeto de Osaka). Não é à toa que pensam que sou estrangeiro quando volto ao Brasil. kkkkk(I'm not racist, kkk is the way to laugh using the keyboard.Think about "k" pronounced in Portuguese).

"K.T., muita gente fala que os portugueses "comem" as letras ou não pronunciam as palavras direito... Claro que eu não posso concordar, mas o que você acha?"
Concordo com você em grau, gênero e número. Português da Europa parece russo para mim. Aliás, russo é pronunciado mais claro!!!
Um abração!!

<<I never heard them...The only variations of Portuguese I've heard are the CP (But I heard it from people living over 20 years in Japan and TEACHERS, which might have influenced the way they speak), Cabo Verde Portuguese and people from Angola. >>

It's not like I hear people from Azores everyday either, but yeah... Do you know Pauleta, the football player? (though you don't care about soccer? =O) If you ever hear him talk in Portuguese, he's from Azores.^^
Hmmm, the people I knew that weren't living in Portugal for so long did lose a bit of Portuguese ability, lol, even their accents were influented by the language of the country they're now living in.


<<Imagine o meu português então...Moro há 10 anos no Japão, falo inglês no trabalho (Com canadenses e australianos) e japonês em casa (Ainda por cima dialeto de Osaka). Não é à toa que pensam que sou estrangeiro quando volto ao Brasil. kkkkk(I'm not racist, kkk is the way to laugh using the keyboard.Think about "k" pronounced in Portuguese). >>

Lol, é mesmo^^ a pessoa já "liga" automaticamente as outras línguas e vai deixando para trás o português...Em que língua você pensa agora?
É, em Portugal o "kkkk" não resulta, nem o "rsrs"...


<<Concordo com você em grau, gênero e número. Português da Europa parece russo para mim. Aliás, russo é pronunciado mais claro!!! >>

LOL. Mas na verdade eu não concordo...
É interessante que você tenha mencionado russo, porque uma amiga russa ensinou-me algumas palavras e diz que a minha pronúncia é muito natural! =O Ela não disse o mesmo de outros amigos de outras nacionalidades. A parte interessante é que eu apenas pronunciei como faria em português, nada mais.

J.C., isso não tem nada a ver com o assunto, mas quanto tempo levou até você conseguir ter uma conversa normal em japonês?

"LOL. Mas na verdade eu não concordo...
É interessante que você tenha mencionado russo, porque uma amiga russa ensinou-me algumas palavras e diz que a minha pronúncia é muito natural! =O Ela não disse o mesmo de outros amigos de outras nacionalidades. A parte interessante é que eu apenas pronunciei como faria em português, nada mais.
Zatsu:Mesmo você não concordando estamos nos entendendo!!kkk
Não tenho problema nenhum pronunciando russo também. Nem mesmo o "sdrastvie"!!! kkkk

"J.C., isso não tem nada a ver com o assunto, mas quanto tempo levou até você conseguir ter uma conversa normal em japonês?"
Não se preocupe em mudar de assunto pois brasileiros são bons em improvisação!!!rs
Eu comecei a estudar japonês em 1990 e ao entrar na faculdade em 91(fevereiro) comecei a falar razoavelmente no início de 1992, ou seja, levei um ano pra "soltar a língua". Quando vim ao Japão pela primeira vez em 1993 entendia tudo o que me diziam e também falava sobre qualquer assunto. Infelizmente esqueci como falar em japonês padrão pois todos à minha volta (Incluindo esposa) falam em Osaka-ben.(Só não posso chamar o dialeto de "kinki japanese" hehe)

Fui!!

"Brazilian Portuguese was mostly influenced by African dialets, so a Brazilian visiting Africa should feel just like at home."

This is true of the case of São Tomé e Príncipe, this tiny Central African country is similar to the Brazilian state of Bahia. It was São Tomé who gave the TCH sound to their Tee's and Dee's.

''Concordo com você em grau, gênero e número. Português da Europa parece russo para mim. Aliás, russo é pronunciado mais claro!!!''

Eu tb acho.

"I believe Angolan Portuguese (or dialects in Angola?) was the most influential of them all to Brazillian Portuguese, and even today both variants are similar."


?? Hmmm?? What in the world are you talking about?? Nothing could be further from the truth.

Angolan Portuguese, is nearly indistinguishable from peninsular Portuguese (especially the pronunciation). They follow the European standard very closely, and don't speak any "creole"-type derivation.

This is due to Angola being a portuguese colony untill 1975, and having extended contact with them. They speak standard European Portuguese, with none of the features of the Brazilian language.