Portuguese 101, Yo!

It’s not a lie that Portuguese is very similar to Spanish, but where people go wrong is thinking Portuguese is Spanish with a weird accent and different verb endings. Portuguese is completely its own language and is, in my humble opinion, a lot harder than Spanish. Maybe it’s because I’ve grown up with Spanish being spoken everywhere from the grocery store to Sesame Street, or maybe it’s because I’ve never been fully “immersed” in Spanish, but either way Portuguese is hard! I can roll my R’s and even attempt the accent from Spain where all the S’s turn to TH sounds, but in Portuguese there are some sounds that, to me, are MUTIO DEFICIL!

When speaking Portuguese, instead of the –ion ending in English and the –ción ending in Spanish, you use –ção (ssow). This is extremely difficult for me to do because when speaking you somehow miraculously use the back of your throat and nasal passage simultaneously. This is an extremely vital sound as well, because much unlike Spanish, Portuguese is a tonal language. Stressing the wrong sil-la-ble can completely change the meaning of a word. It’s the difference between grandma and grandpa, past and present verbs, and bread and a rather vulgar slang word.

Portuguese is also read much differently than Spanish. In Portuguese many letters make completely different sounds than in English. For example the word “radio” (I think you can guess what it means) is pronounced “ha-geeoo,” my name is said “See-mohwwn-ee,” and “differente” (different) is “gee-ferh-ench.”

Brazilians also use three different verbs to express to be. “Ser” expresses things that are permanent and “estar” and “ficar” (which literally means “to stay”) express the impermanent. As far as I can tell, the difference between these two verbs is like the difference between “good” and “well” and is something that’s difficult to explain, but easy to mess up.

However, in exchange for the impossible (well not IMPOSSIBLE) pronunciation and 3 forms of “to be,” Brazilians made the verb endings nice and simple. Unlike the 5 or 6 you need in Spanish, I only really have to be familiar with three verb endings to communicate in present tense Portuguese. Brazilians use the word “eu” (ayy-you) to say me/I, “você” (voh-say) to say you, ele/ela for him and her, “a gente” ( ah jen-tchee, literally meaning “the people”) for us/we, and plural forms of ele/ela/você for them/they. The nice thing is that voce, ele/ela, and a gente are all in the second person, and therefore use the same verb conjugation! Needless to say, this makes my life a lot simplier.

So far, my language skills are rapidly improving. I’m able to (semi) correctly use ficar/estar. If the person I’m speaking to speaks slowly enough, I can understand pretty much everything, and if I don’t understand, I can tell them exactly what parts they need to repeat. Some people are easier than others to understand, but it’s all a matter of how much they articulate and how many verbs they throw into one sentence. As of now, I can understand everything my host mom, brothers, and sociology teacher say, and none of what my host dad, history teacher, or Rotary president tries to tell me. That’s ok though, at least when I come back to the United States I’ll be really good at charades.