European Portuguese | What you will NEVER hear and why you cannot understand what people say

[@thelanguageunschool]

What other words / word combinations do you have trouble hearing?

[@katdodd5801]

Gold nugget. "We speak in sounds, not in words." Thank you!

[@thomasng1816]

Wow really helpful to get to know the “queen” ❤😂. Muito obrigado!

[@thelanguageunschool]

Now that you know her, you'll start hearing words, not noise!

[@thomasng1816]

@@thelanguageunschool yes yes 👏

[@ubizmo]

Ironically, (for me, a native English speaker) the thing that makes Portuguese so difficult to decode is the very thing that we do all the time in English. We swallow up the unstressed syllables, or turn them into schwa. In "inforMAtion" only the MA stands out. The rest is mumbled. It must be a nightmare for people learning English, just as it's a nightmare for me to decode Portuguese. "Desculpe" becomes, to my ear, just "shkoolp" and by the time I remember that, the speaker is at the end of the sentence and starting another one.

[@thelanguageunschool]

That is very true. I think we have the advantage of having our ears exposed to English before we ever have to say a word. It's years of input!! But how much Portuguese have you listened to before moving to Portugal?

[@viniciusban]

I can say as Brazilian, that we also struggle to get used to European Portuguese accent. It sounds like a foreign language. We tend to speak almost all vowels, swallowing mostly those in the end of words.

[@Eduardo.Fernandes09]

Eu sofro para entender inglês nos meus listening. Alguma dica, amigo?

[@viniciusban]

​@@Eduardo.Fernandes09 O que eu faço é ouvir o máximo que eu posso. Diferentes tipos de áudio. Podcasts com entrevistas, documentários, filmes, séries, etc. Importante é ouvir sotaques diferentes também. Eu gosto da Netflix porque tem como controlar a velocidade do vídeo, assim como aqui no KZbin.

[@thelanguageunschool]

Tem de primeiro entender como funciona o connected speech no inglês e depois ouvir uma pessoa várias horas por dia. O ideal é começar com um vídeo com legendas e alguém que vc goste.

[@thelanguageunschool]

That's, in part, because you guys don't get exposed to it enough. I grew up watching novelas and Disney dubbed in Brazilian Portuguese.

[@Krka1716]

Well, Brazilians tend to pronounce almost all the vowels, including those at the end of the words, but so do the Portuguese albeit in a different way: they elevate or/and shorten the unstresssed ones and keep the stressed ones long and low. Brazlians only do it for the initial and final unstressed vowels (when they do) - a different 'logic'. It may sound you as a different language likely due to lack of exposure to the more 'diversified' Euro-PT phonology... The other Portuguese speaking countries don't seem to have any problems with it...

[@nunoalexandre6408]

Love it Catarina!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@thelanguageunschool]

Love the excitement so many pontos de exclamação transmit 😉

[@amyharry3071]

Wow! Muito obrigada por este vídeo. É incrível! Já percebo. Faça mais! Se faz favor.

[@thelanguageunschool]

Sempre às ordens!

[@charliebc6538]

Este é um ótimo vídeo. obrigada professora 🙏

[@thelanguageunschool]

Que bom que gostou, Charlie.

[@nunoalexandre6408]

Love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@davidwilliams2743]

Que bom vídeo. Muito interessante, muito útil.

[@thelanguageunschool]

Ainda há sons que não consegue perceber, David?

[@davidwilliams2743]

@@thelanguageunschool Sim, há. Por exemplo eu tenho dificuldade com o pronome "lhe", como "dou-lhe o livro."

[@thelanguageunschool]

@@davidwilliams2743 é normal. Aqui tanto a gramática como o contexto deverão ajudar. Claro, se puder praticar com conteúdo com legendas ainda melhor.

[@javifontalva7752]

I wish you made videos only portuguese for people who are more advanced. I know that most of your students are English speakers and beginners but it would be great nonetheless.

[@thelanguageunschool]

I know and appreciate you asking for that. My earlier content was in Portuguese only. Doing subtitles is very tedious... I'll keep it in mind. But in the meantime, there's so much stuff you could be listening to if you're more advanced, right? 😉 have you checked my Mini-Tuga?

[@HiszpańskiPodstawy]

E também para quem não sabe inglês...

[@jasperwinehouse9456]

A robotic way of speaking Portuguese brings one thing to mind Brazil

[@thelanguageunschool]

You think? I find Brazilian Portuguese to be slower (not in all regions), yes, but more melodious. I wouldn't call it robotic.

[@s.mestre9063]

I agree, a bit like japanese. Brazilians seem to speak very loud because of the very basic vowel phonetics and syllable timed way of speaking, similiar to spanish or italians and greeks, all seem to speak very loud, that's related to the 5 basic vowel sounds. Some of these languages have a bit more of vowels sounds such like Italian but it is very easy to detect it.

[@thelanguageunschool]

@@s.mestre9063 interesting... I had never made the connection loudness - vowel system. How is your listening comprehension of European Portuguese? (assuming you're not a native Portuguese speaker!)

[@s.mestre9063]

@@thelanguageunschool It sounds sophisticated to my ears. But for students, at first, it can be hard to understand what people are saying because it is a time stressed variety, in Brazil it is a kind of a mix between time tressed and syllable stressed, but it never reaches the vowel reduction present in European Portuguese. To me Portuguese reminds me of English in a way and of French in another for instance.

[@s.mestre9063]

I am Italian and I live in South Portugal. The vowel reduction in this region is even stronger than that of the North. It gets similar to Catalan, Gat, for Gato, Amig, for Amigo, etc. Carteira -> Cartera; Bombeiro -> Bomber