Does Russian sounds like Portuguese?

European Portuguese SOUND like a Slavic language, aka, it only sounds.
This is because Portuguese has a specific system to pronounce the vowels. Unstressed vowels are often not pronounced.
This kind of accent is typical from Lisbon and central Portugal. There are considerable differences in pronunciation in European Portuguese, let alone Brazilian Portuguese.
In Oporto, there is a strong English influence in the accent probably left by port wine sailors and traders. People there tend to speak with diphthongs just like the English do "Aw Pawrto é muito bão"

In the Algarve it's the opposite: diphthongs are suppressed.

Island Portuguese is quite different. Very hard to understand.

Brazilian Portuguese has strong Italian, African and in a lesser extent German influences (guttural "r"), because of the ethnic origins of the settlers there.

Anyway, PT sounds like Russian but it's completely different from Russian or any Slavonic language. The words and grammar are completely different.

Joao

Now, to all Portugal European haters. Just f*ck yourselves again with your European wars and genocides, and leave Portugal alone. Do not come here.
Portugal will never be part of Spain, and should leave this corrupted EU. Spain is once again trying to strangle Portugal with the help of the EU.
He have to get out of the EU for not sinking further.

To all in another forum who went around and around about how Spain was richer than Portugal throughout history. Let me add the following:
XV century. Portugal richer than Spain
XVI cent: equal. Periods of Spain being richer
XVII cent: equal
XVIII cent: Portugal richer than Spain
XIX: Portugal richer than Spain
XX cent: Civil war in Spain: Portugal better off until the 1960's. Then Spain overtook.
Nowadays, the european integration seriously cripples peripheral countries (south of Italy, West of Spain, Ireland before 1990, Northern Scandinavia). Besides, the corrupted EU is bribing Portugal for not producing anything.

For those eurobastards who stay in denial and do not believe, just try to answer this two questions:
1 - Why throughout history so many Spanish settled in Portugal, so much so that many Portuguese have Spanish background (including myself)?
2 - How could Portugal remain independent from all the Spanish attempts to annex if it wasn't rich?

Think about it

"Or just pronounce your Spanish like Portuguese, and in many cases it will be Portuguese."

It will be like speaking Czech in Poland. Words are different. Many words are completely different.

You should take classes of Portuguese first. Can't you find any Russian there who have returned from Portugal? There were quite a few Russians here in Portugal. Many returned to Russia.

"On the bottommost part of forum, Galicians understand Northern Portuguese but mistake the speech of Lisbon for Russian, like most Spaniards and Italians.

Probably these guys from Lisbon speak with Borat's accent, just like what most Western Europeans joke about Bulgarians, Poles and Russians.

Probably the new ethnic slur for many Portuguese is Borat, lumping them together with the Poles, Russians, Bulgarians and Romanians(this might be less offensive, the rest can be more offensive)."

Given that most of the waiters in Lisbon's cafés and restaurants are Brazilian (a few Eastern European, some African). that's the ethnic fact about Lisbon. And stupid euro-tourists who come here do not even know it.
Lisbon's Portuguese is not the most beautiful language, but it's in my opinion nicer than so many ugly languages such as Dutch, Hebrew, machine gun sounding Spanish from Madrid or Bulgarian (no offense for it's people).

"Tá é a parecer-me que com tanta má fé que anda aí de alguns brasileiros , deviam era ter sido colonizados pela Espanha//

Well, Brazilian mentality is closer to the Spanish one than to the Portuguese one:

Brazilians and Spaniards: happy, smiling, optimistic, cheerful
Portuguese: sad, gloomy, full of melancholy, way nostalgic of their ''glorious'' past and obsessed with Brazil who doesn't give a damn about Portugal"

Brazil does give a damn about Portugal when Portugal uneases about legalizing the Brazilian immigrants here. They then threat to apply the same measures to the Portuguese living in Brazil. Currently almost 50% of the population in Lisbon are Brazilians, and I like that.

Brazil does not give a damn about Portugal, mostly when many investments in hydro electric power plants in Brazil come from Portugal (lol). It does not give a damn as well when part of the oil discoveries in Brazil have Portuguese investments (lol).

I think you're lost in the world map (lol)

''The Lisbonians can sound as aggressive as Russians, more so when angered, they probably can do a stand-in for Russians or Polish or fake Borat. :)) ''

I don't know why Portuguese they hate Ucranians, they sound very alike...

I am from Lisbon and I do not hate Ukrainians. They are welcome here, but a few are grumpy and aggressive too.
Some people from Lisbon are somehow insecure about Ukrainians and Eastern Europeans, so they show aggressiveness to them. Also many Brazilians do not like Ukrainians (I met a Ukrainian woman who complained about that).

I've been told that many mainland Portuguese resent the fact that the Spanish claim not to be able to understand a word of spoken Portuguese. Here where I live a lot of the Portuguese from Europe claim that the Spanish are lying when they say they don't understand Spoken European Portuguese. Why do those sentiments? Also, the exact opposite can be said is true about American Spanish and Br. Portuguese speakers in Latin American. Most of the American Spanish speakers always say "I can understand a lot of what they are saying" or say "I am planning on taking classes to understand more Br. Portuguese." I know many American Spanish speakers who have at least two or three friends who are Brazilian. When they communicate, they usually talk in what ever native accent they speak in (meaning the Castellano speaker will speak Castellano to the Brazilian and the Brazilian talks back in Br. Portuguese usually at a reduced speed in the part of the Brazilian). Why does there exist such an understanding or a sort of unity between the two varieties in Latin America. Is it because both spoken standards in Latin American are softer and reduced in harshness allowing for easier communication (unlike what Joao said, machine gun Spanish does not exist in Latin America, that is a phenomenon of mainland European Spanish).

note: The only group of Castellano speakers that I've noticed that might say they don't understand Br. Portuguese have been people from Mexico. I wonder why just Mexico?

Portuguese reminds me of Spanish spoken with Russian accent.


<<note: The only group of Castellano speakers that I've noticed that might say they don't understand Br. Portuguese have been people from Mexico. I wonder why just Mexico?>>
Maybe because they are less exposed to Brazilian than the South Americans?.

Guest: About Mexicans, you're right. They are more exposed to US influences, in my opinion.
About the Spanish speaking South American countries, they are much smaller than Brazil, and in many cases poorer. There, it's Portuguese that takes influence on them.
In Paraguay and Uruguay, many people speak Portuguese with various degrees of fluency.

JGreco, I like Latin-American Spanish, it's more melodic and sweet that Spanish from central Spain.
I also prefer the Brazilian accent to the Portuguese accent of Portuguese. I am Portuguese and have no problems about it.
In the same manner, I like the soft version of Dutch spoken in Flanders as opposed to the ugly and "fart-like" harsh Dutch spoken in the Netherlands.

Brazil is ridiculously poor and less coherent than other countries. The crappiness of Brazil is put into perspective by the fact that tiny garbage hole Chile and mentalcase Venezuela are the regional Powers.

"Brazil is ridiculously poor and less coherent than other countries. The crappiness of Brazil is put into perspective by the fact that tiny garbage hole Chile and mentalcase Venezuela are the regional Powers."

Chili has indeed the highest living standards of hole South America, but Brazil has caught up in the last years, mostly due to the strong real (Brazilian currency). I read somewhere that Brazil is the most expensive country in South America, no longer dirt cheap. Given its size, and the economies of scale produced, it creates some infamously rich areas, mostly around São Paulo and Brasilia.
São Paulo is the most industrialized region of the whole Southern hemisphere, and it has the largest stock exchange of the whole Southern hemisphere.

I hope this off topic comment may cool down your ridiculously hot frustration that you can't get rid off. I feel sorry for your pain in the elbow:-((

to Joao:

There is a joke between Czechs and Poles and the Poles find Czech mad funny, they can't help but laugh.

http://www.polishforums.com/general-polish-language-17/polish-slavic-language-key-other-slavic-languages-2520/

There is a story about 2 Poles in Prague. These Poles loudly complained how expensive the city was, and then one of the Poles said, "And their language, it sounds so childish!"

The Czech cab driver somehow understood it...and that was enough for him to stop and say, "A wasz je lepsi?(and yours is better)"

That sentence said made the Poles laugh more because it implies childishness to the Czechs. Both Poles and Russians find Czech like babytalk.

I wonder if some Portuguese find Spanish and Italian like babytalk.

However, many hear your language as something like Spanish spoken in a mix of Catalan(due to your pronunciation of -ado as -at and pronunciation of unstressed o as u), Russian/Bulgarian(due to dark l, jery and vowel reduction), Polish(due to strong, hard "sh" sounds and vowel-starved words) and Albanian(due to trilled r and the y sound of Albanian).

to Joao:

"There is a joke between Czechs and Poles and the Poles find Czech mad funny, they can't help but laugh.

http://www.polishforums.com/general-polish-language-17/polish-slavic-language-key-other-slavic-languages-2520/

There is a story about 2 Poles in Prague. These Poles loudly complained how expensive the city was, and then one of the Poles said, "And their language, it sounds so childish!"

The Czech cab driver somehow understood it...and that was enough for him to stop and say, "A wasz je lepsi?(and yours is better)"

That sentence said made the Poles laugh more because it implies childishness to the Czechs. Both Poles and Russians find Czech like babytalk.

I wonder if some Portuguese find Spanish and Italian like babytalk.

However, many hear your language as something like Spanish spoken in a mix of Catalan(due to your pronunciation of -ado as -at and pronunciation of unstressed o as u), Russian/Bulgarian(due to dark l, jery and vowel reduction), Polish(due to strong, hard "sh" sounds and vowel-starved words) and Albanian(due to trilled r and the y sound of Albanian)."

YEP, it's normal. Spanish vocabulary is closer to Portuguese than Italian. Italian is a trouble for us to understand if we did not learn the language. But I would say that the sounds of Italian are more simmilar to Portuguese than the Spanish sounds.
If you're a Portuguese speaker and you're not used to Spanish or Italian, you'll find Spanish or Italian funny. I got used because I travel a lot but when I was young it was really funny to listen to Spanish or Italian.

It's even funnier when a normal word in a language may sound like a bad word in another language, like "kurve" in Czech and Polish, or the Czech "panelak".

Interesting that I met an Austrian here one week ago who said that Portuguese sounded like Czech. Also, I also think that Catalan sound like Czech, while Polish sounds like Italian because it's a very melodic language.

I was surprised by Polish myself. It was uncharacteristically dissimilar from all the other Slavic languages I've heard. The high influx of Latin and Greek origin words made some very basic sentences intelligible with Italian and Spanish. There was a website that showed this with Polish, but I don't remember the url rights now.

It's not only Polish that has a lot of Greco-Latin loanwords. Russian, Bulgarian and Serbian have those internationalisms. In Russian, the Latin, native and the Church Slavic vocabulary go to different registers.

As for loanwords, Czech and Croatian are notoriously puristic.

Wiktor Dmitrijewič Chuliganow says something about Czech language at 14:00...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI2QrbdIKCY&feature=related

Czech intonation goes up and down and sounds flat for Bulgarian, Russian and Polish speakers, which have more animated tones. Portuguese seems to be quite animated in pitch.

Probably Catalan and the Brazilian variety of Portuguese can be mistaken for vowel-fed Czech.
The Portuguese spoken in central to southern Portugal is as vowel-starved as Russian, Polish or Bulgarian.

The word "Lusofona" will sound like łzowna in Continental Portuguese, the final "a" sounding like a Russian or Bulgarian schwa. The ł character is the symbol for a hard, dark l.

I can barely mistake Polish and/or Russian for Italian. However, Ukrainian and Polish have similar intonation, different and more melodious than Russian.

Joao, I wonder if there is truth in the saying "Portuguese can learn Polish and Russian with having a thin accent in there, unlike the English and the other non-Slavic tribes."