French vs Portuguese (How Similar Are They?!)

[@Langfocus]

Hi, everyone! I hope you like the new video! Don't forget to check out these excellent courses: ▶ Check out French Uncovered: bit.ly/French-Uncovered ◀ ▶ Portuguese Uncovered: bit.ly/Portuguese-Uncovered ◀ ▶ See ALL Uncovered courses: bit.ly/Uncovered-ALL-languages ◀ Try it free for 7 days! Disclosure: If you upgrade to a paid course, Langfocus gets a small referral fee that helps support this channel.

[@limaroger]

@@L17_8 So...what's this bullshit related to the vid? Vá fazer proselitismo religioso na puta que o pariu! Allez faire du prosélytisme religieux sur la pute qui t'a enfanté !

[@minhaconta4685]

@tonyneves1388 Portuguese from the south of Portugal and the islands say "estou jantando" in these places they use the gerund, I don't think it's wrong, you can speak that way that any Portuguese-speaking person will understand both in Africa and in Europe

[@vervideosgiros1156]

The right spelling is Rio de Janeiro, not "di" Janeiro. "De" means "from". The way you spelt it's in Italian.

[@LepinayAlix]

In your example "Words that are completely different' There is cognate words for those if you look at old french, still in use in some books and some regions : French > Old French > Portuguese > English -------------------------------------------------------------------- ➡1. aussi > tant bien > tambèm > also/as ⚫"tant bien" is only in use now in the expression "Tant bien que mal" meaning "as bad as good" ➡2. plus > mais > mais > more ⚫"mais" in french used to mean "more" from latin magis, now we use "plus" to say "more" and "mais" now means "but" ➡3. très > moult > muito > very ⚫"moult" means "a lot" and "very" like "beaucoup", like in this sentence "c'est moult beau" meaning "it's very beautiful"

[@vervideosgiros1156]

@@LepinayAlix That's so interesting! I speak French but I'm very rusty, now. I understand everything, I can still write so so, but I have to think to speak French. I didn't know some of those old words! It's "também": in Portuguese we just use the other accent on a; the only cases are: "à"/"às" "àquele (s)"/"àquela (s)" .

[@jonathonhill7422]

I am an American who fluently speaks Portuguese. My Spanish-speaking friends often tell me that Portuguese sounds like Spanish with a French accent. After watching your video I can see why. While Spanish and Portuguese are clearly more closely related, Portuguese does share some nasal sounds with French, not to mention a similar j sound.

[@bennythetiger6052]

Native portuguese speaker here. Yeah, if I were to rank romance languages based on how different from original latin each one of them sounds, french would be first and portuguese second imo

[@saymyname2618]

Wanna be my friend? I haven't met many English speakers who can speak Portuguese, let alone are fluent in it, so I would be happy to talk to you.

[@eddygonzalez6018]

​@@bennythetiger6052 I would have to go with Italian followed by Romanian. Or maybe Romanian followed by Italian. Then Spanish as third.😊

[@HarryHaller1963]

I think of Portuguese in a similar way, but because it seems closer to Latin I throw Italian into the mix: Portuguese sounds like a Spanish-speaker who is trying to learn both French and Italian at the same time...or maybe a French person trying to learn Spanish and Italian?

[@HarryHaller1963]

@@bennythetiger6052 I started learning Spanish in high school, then took up Latin for a few years, all the while picking up French here and there. Lately I've been focusing on Portuguese, starting with Brazilian and more recently shifting towards European. To me, Portuguese seems closer to Latin than Spanish, or even Italian.

[@pedroafonso7065]

As a Brazilian who just started learning french this video is a blessing! thank you Paul :D

[@Joebob62911]

Salut! Par curiosité, quelle variété de français es-tu en train d'apprendre? Je suis moi-même francophone et je connais d'excellentes ressources pour lusophones.

[@akay2833]

as a French who learns Brazilian Portuguese, this video is helpful as well!

[@bumble.bee22]

​@@akay2833xD

[@pedroafonso7065]

@@Joebob62911j'apprendre le français de France parce que c'est le plus utilisé sur l'internet mais parfois j'utilise quelques mots du français de suisse (comme les nobres: huitante, septante et nonante 😅)

[@pedroafonso7065]

@@akay2833Boa sorte, cara!

[@luisteixeiraneves4211]

Tenho 60 anos. Sou do tempo em que o francês era a primeira língua estrangeira que se aprendia no ensino secundário.

[@Dankschon]

Assim era. O meu pai também aprendeu francês na escola

[@pauvermelho]

Para mim é um alivio que não seja. Depois de aprender Inglês no 5º e 6º ano, chegar ao 7º e levar com aquelas conjugações verbais todas do Francês....caneco o Inglês parecia uma língua para bebés

[@534fj5]

Fue por un berrinche de Francia por la propuesta de enseñar español en las escuelas de Brasil.

[@geovannacampos6794]

Eu estudei francês com os livros da biblioteca da escola! Antigamente era uma escola de moças (quando estudei já era misto) e a biblioteca ainda tinha os materiais de latim, francês, algumas edições de enciclopédias… acho que fui a primeira em 30 ou 40 anos a utilizar esses materiais novamente.

[@gambarusso]

@@534fj5berrinche = poder

[@copanova901]

I'm french and learnt brazilian portuguese out of passion until I formally reached level C1, and let me tell you, both languages are hard but for different reasons. My take is that french is complicated in its structure. This makes things weird in your brain when you try to think in portuguese, which is more straight to the point. The order of the words in a sentence in portuguese also varies slightly when compared to french, and it can make you sound a bit awkward if you don't pay attention. Brazilian portuguese is also much more melodic and soft sounding than french, so a french speaker will have to work on the way they accentuate words so it doesn't fall flat to a brazilian ear. Other than that yes, many words are similar, and I do cheat a lot with the nasal sounds because truthfully, they're not formally similar but when spoken it's more than alright to create the illusion :p ã and an are shaking their hands in solidarity. Abraços

[@joaopauloduartedasilva4101]

Funny you mention that, I had a lot of trouble getting into french especifically because of the rigidness of the structurem comprised of many elements but not many souds. Je + le + ai + vu will always sound like too much compared to Eu + vi. I also have a C1 french level but I'm very aware of all my shortcomings and that the french thoguht process is incredibly different from the brazilian one, so I made peace with the fact that I might still stutter a little for the years to come. De qualquer forma, muito bom saber do seu interesse pela nossa língua! :)

[@fernandomartins3968]

cool, je suis brésilien et j'apprends le français depuis 1 an 🇫🇷🇧🇷

[@VGOM2000]

Aprender francês é um calvário.

[@johnathangoncalo4971]

French is more similar to Italian (89% lexical similarity. French and Italian past tense, for example is exactly the same (Avere-Avoir or Essere-Être as auxiliary verbs. Also, many of those core verbs are clearly identical. It's like Portuguese and Spanish verbs. Same goes for vocabulary. If you knew Italian prior to learning French, a lot of things would make more sense. When I learned Italian, I had prior knowledge of French, so it wasn't as bad, but there are elements in Italian that don't exist in Spanish, Portuguese, or even French. When I learned French throughout elementary and highschool, I tried to use Portuguese as a crutch, which didn't work so well. When I learned Spanish, I didn't even have to study, but with French and Italian (in certain aspects) it was a struggle.

[@josevilas4927]

N'oubliez pas qu'en anglais les noms des langues s'écrivent avec des majuscules. Mais pas en français, espagnol et portugais. Par exemple: Je parle espagnol, portugais, français, italien et anglais. En anglaise c'est : I speak Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and English. Les jours des semaines et les mois des années sont également en majuscules en anglais, mais pas dans les langues romanes.🗼

[@rems4544]

I'm impressed: as a Frenchman who has been learning Brazilian Portuguese for several years and having spent a lot of time in Brazil at language schools, I have to say that your video is very well done! For me, a Frenchman, I could already understand Portuguese more or less correctly by reading it, but not at all by listening to it: the pronunciation is too different. Thank you again for this wonderful comparison. A very good job

[@rems4544]

@@guyl9456 hablo castellano muy bien o el español de Mexico, y eso es tambien un problema precisamente porque los idiomas están tan cerca que a menudo hay peligro de mezclarlos...

[@SamoelFilho]

Actually the Brazilian Portuguese pronounce the sound of the written words. What is hard is the French with no sound at the end

[@thiagobalthazar2668]

French person saying that a non-frenchspeaker doesn't speak the word as it's written Me: oh really? Now tell me how is to speak an entire language that includes 10 letters in a word but pronounces just 4 or them

[@Rosannasfriend]

He said it’s hard for him because of the different pronunciations between the languages, he never said French is easier than Portuguese… Reading comprehension is fundamental guys…

[@rems4544]

@@Rosannasfriend Thank you !

[@benjaminb5889]

as a native french speaker, portuguese is difficult to understand in its spoken form. but when I read it, it is quite easy to understand. I also speak a bit Spanish and Italian: portuguese shares a lot more features with those 2 others romance languages than french. thank you for the video. merci 😊

[@SinarNila]

🥂🥂🥂🥂

[@rondonalves2897]

as a brazilia i feel the same regarding Cathalan, a language I dont have so much contact. reading, i can get it. but when people speaks it's so hard to understand it sounds like romanian to me.

[@hsiedler1]

I am brazillian and can't speak french (I speak english and spanish and some italian). It occurs the same to me: written french is more intelligible than spoken french!

[@diegoflorencio]

I'd like to see a comparison between Portuguese and Italian as well.

[@luizbomfim2840]

YESS!!!! SIMMMMMMMMMM!

[@braniely]

I think he had already done one, Just take a look bro.

[@josevilas4927]

This guy has that too. He has compared most principal languages in different videos. just click on languagefocus while watching a video like this and you'll see a bunch of comparisons.

[@Gustavo3706]

I'm Brazilian and fluent in French and I say the oral languages are definitely not mutually understandable, as my friends who don't speak french get nothing when I ask them to understand french. Also, this video is quite accurate (some details are slightly different or have regional variations) and I highly recommend it. Bravo, très bien 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[@olivierpelvin]

I'm french and i didn't notice *any* error about the french parts. He even got it right about the "un" nasal vowel being different between parisian/northern France and the south of France where it's pronounced a bit differently (i would just say that it's not disappearing, it's just confided to the southern accent).

[@KozmicKarmaKoala]

Tua lingua e' a mais linda. O frances e' um coco. Feia essa lingua ! Falo Espanhol de Cuba, NYC English, Italiano, Catalao e Turc (pouco)...e a tua, a minha tambem. 🥰🥰🥰

[@rondonalves2897]

i studied french with private teacher for 2 years... but when I learnt Russian (living in russia for 5 years) whenever i try to speak French, i tend to use Russian words. it's like there's no room for a 4th weak language in my hard disc. russian language occupied the space of the third language and i need to concentrate a lot to try to have any conversation in French.

[@ALROD]

@@KozmicKarmaKoala Mas aí é opinião, né? Eu já acho o francês bonito, principalmente na forma escrita (visualmente falando)

[@MajWinters100]

​@@olivierpelvinhe's probably talking about the Br Portuguese part😂

[@tsnowsill]

Once upon a time when I was a monolingual English speaker, I remember people telling me how understanding one romance/latin language could help you understand the others. I eventually learned Spanish which helped a bit with understanding Italian, but I found it barely helped at all with understanding French. Curiously, after I learned Portuguese some time later, French soon became significantly more comprehensible to me. I still don't speak French, but thanks mainly to Portuguese (I think) I can follow quite a lot of French conversations these days, certainly much more than I would have anticipated.

[@kiq993]

I don't speak French, but after learning English and getting to occasionally reading French, I can understand (even in songs) at least 70% without any formal studing by simply knowing English and Portuguese (my mother language). Same goes to Spanish that I didn't studied it, but understand 100% be it written, spoken or sung.

[@meteoman7958]

Knowing French has given me a lot of understanding in Italian and Spanish, but Portuguese is a blur to me.

[@kiq993]

@@meteoman7958 For me at least, what works the best is to get a grasp on the pronunciation and then read the written language, for example, listening to a song reading the lyrics.

[@terubr]

Knowing Spanish you could learn Catalan easily. That's the latin language that helps understanding French. :D

[@tsnowsill]

@terubr Catalan is a funny one for me. I feel like that when I listen to it, I understand one sentence really well, and then the following sentence I don't understand anything. And it keeps going back and forth like that

[@KozmicKarmaKoala]

Brazilian Portuguese is the loveliest most melodic of the Romance languages. And I am a Spanish speaker .

[@rondonalves2897]

I'm Brazilian and among the many Brazilian accents that exist, i feel the same regarding the Porto Alegre city accent. it sounds like they are singing while they speak.

[@alissong.]

Thanks for the recognition brother 😭😭😭🥰 Spanish is awesome too! Very beautiful

[@helenafactome]

Não sabe o que está a dizer! O espanhol é a língua mais bonita do mundo!

[@wandertsc]

I love the spanish language! And I'm brazilian. ¡Saludos!

[@marcoscimone6323]

sorry but french is another level (and I’m italian)

[@darioshub]

I am Croatian and speak Brazilian Portuguese, also I create content in Portuguese in my channel and I wanted to comment that when I hadn't spoken any Portuguese, I had an impression that Portuguese sounds like a mixture of French and Spanish. I heard some people even say that it sounds like a mixture of French and Russian. Of course when you learn vocabulary and get used to the pronunciation, none of that seems true. I didn't like European Portuguese too much since I didn't find it "nice" hearing it but once I became fluent I find it quite normal and actually like listening to it. Greetings to all!

[@realhawaii5o]

I'm Portuguese from Portugal. The one that sounds like Russian is our variety, not the Brazilian one. I live in Estonia where 30% of the population are native russian speakers so it's common to hear it. I can tell you that if I'm not paying attention, I might think a couple of russian speakers in the background are Portuguese.

[@renatodep]

@@realhawaii5o As someone who's from Portugal you should know that Brazil has many dialects, some sounding more like European Portuguese than others. I am Brazilian and I've been asked SEVERAL times if I was speaking Russian, so your statement is false.

[@Carolina-rd3gh]

@@realhawaii5oOnly people who are not familiar with languages say that Portuguese sounds like Russian.

[@MoiraLAbbate]

Russian and Portuguese (Brazilian or European) have many sounds in common. I'm Brazilian (from São Paulo) and listening Russian at distance, sounds like Portuguese to me.

[@realhawaii5o]

@@Carolina-rd3gh I literally speak 5 languages. There's so many resources explaining why they SOUND similar... They aren't linguistically that close... Of course, closer than Portuguese and Turkish, but they are still quite far apart...

[@titiwa632]

I'm from Portugal and I'm learning French right now. Before that, I didn't understand spoken French and reading was difficult. Now (after 2 months of learning French) I can understand slow speech, especially with French subtitles and can express myself very basically. It's definitely a weird romance language.

[@cyberherbalist]

Definitely weird.

[@SinarNila]

Perfectionist idiom, code, that's the why it's so weird.

[@tj2375]

It's not weird at all. If you're portuguese, french is quite similar at all levels, only the verbs are a bit more complex because there are modes that portuguese doesn't have. And the quirky numerals. Small things really. The other differences are just pronunciation and accent. There's a reason France was traditionally the country portuguese, some almost illiterate, went to work and live abroad. It's because French is probably the language portuguese can learn organically, better than Spanish even.

[@titiwa632]

@@tj2375 No, Castilian Spanish is definitely easier for a Portuguese to learn than French (let's not talk about Galician and Mirandese). The French pronunciation is the main cause for the low intelligibility between French and other romance languages. About the emigrants: they went mostly to France because Spain led by Francisco Franco was not much better than the dictatorship in Portugal.

[@tj2375]

@@titiwa632 if it was so easy there wouldn't be such a low count od Castillian speakers in Portugal.

[@seb3813]

I'm a native French and Spanish speaker and I also speak a little bit of Italian. I was very surprised when I realised I could also understand Portuguese. Not all words of course but I could watch a whole TV series in brazilan Portuguese with Portuguese subtitles without much difficulty. The magic of romance languages ✨️

[@GABIdotGABI]

Hey! I'm curious. Which tv series did you watch? Is It Invisible City?

[@seb3813]

@@GABIdotGABI It was 3% on Netflix! I highly recommend it grew to become one of my favourites!

[@GABIdotGABI]

@@seb3813 ow, Nice! It's really very good

[@axailaniya]

@@seb3813that show actually got me more interested in Portuguese! Don’t speak any Romance languages though so watched it with English subtitles haha

[@OA-mn1bf]

What about the portugese of portugal? Is it similar just a difference lronounciation? Or is it entirely different then? I am willing to learn now spanish, french and italian, and can alreadz speak english and german

[@azera2599]

Português é uma língua maravilhosa. Le portugais est une langue merveilleuse

[@Tuliosantos1]

Le français aussi! Les langues que viens du latin en général.

[@anthonyragan2696]

This was really interesting. I'm studying Brazilian Portuguese (probably B1 or B2 level now), studied Latin, and know a (very) little French. Regarding the verbs for "to have," Portuguese does have both: haver (Latin: habere) and ter (Latin: tenere), but the use of haver has changed considerably. It now means "there is," rather than "have:" e.g. "Há um gato no quarto," akin to the French "Il y a un chat dans la chambre." But, at least in Brazilian Portuguese, ter seems to be taking over the "there is" role, too: "Tem um gato no quarto." The evolution of language is fascinating.

[@murilomoreira7979]

😃😃😃

[@nathanalexandre137]

not trying to be a prick, but the way we Brazilians use 'haver' and 'ter' can get a bit more complex 'ter' is used as in 'to have', 'there is (physical)' and 'there is (time)'. 'haver' is used as in 'there is (physical)' and "there is (time)' as you said previously, in BP 'ter' is taking 'haver' spot, *however* only in 'there is (physical)' cases (and that only happens on colloquial speech! even children's books use 'haver' in a 'there is (phy)' sense! - so "Há um gato no quarto" is something normal to find written somewhere but not to speak casually, funny right?) in 'there is (time)' cases, as in "Houve um problema; Houve uma vez (There was a problem; There was a time)", 'ter' and 'haver' are used almost at the same rates (tho we tend to use 'ter' more, specially because it can be used in 'there is (time)' cases where 'haver' cannot. these cases are when talking about a specific subject [such as I, You, He/She, They, We], as in "Nós tivemos um problema (We had a problem)")

[@anthonyragan2696]

@@nathanalexandre137 Not to worry; I appreciate the lesson. :)

[@vervideosgiros1156]

​@@nathanalexandre137Em Portugal dizemos "Há um gato no quarto".

[@vervideosgiros1156]

​@@anthonyragan2696In Portugal we say "Há um gato no quarto". In Brazil they say "Tem um gato no quarto".

[@WillMellquist]

French and Portuguese? Wow! I never thought you'd compare these two languages, but I'm interested to see how they compare with each other!

[@flavio-viana-gomide]

Don't you know both languages come from Latin?

[@WillMellquist]

@@flavio-viana-gomide I'm very much aware of that!

[@catw6998]

I enjoy seeing these comparisons. I used to do the Spanish with my brother’s learning of French. We were students in 1st year. Then when I was in Spanish class we had a Portuguese exchange student. We would do the same comparisons. It was fun and kinda funny at the same time.

[@Joergvf]

From the point of view of a Spanish or Italian speaker, this comparison makes total sense! Since Portuguese is so similar to those 2 languages, but the phonetic complexity makes it hard to understand, it's often seen from their point of view, that Portuguese has phonetic features that resembles French, like the nasal vowels and the J sound.

[@PauloPereira-jj4jv]

Why you thought that? Both are romance languages. They're very similar.

[@fernandoo.8737]

This is gonna be interesting to me, as a Brazilian. French to me looks so different from other Latin languages like Spanish and Italian.

[@congamonga7039]

It is Germanic influence on French, amigão

[@torrawel]

Yet, it is not. Grammatically for example, French and Italian are way closer to each other than Portuguese & Spanish. Also, as you could see from the video, cognates in French and Italian are quite high... The solution lies in the influence of the state and in the connecting languages like Occitan and Catalan.

[@piedrablanca1942]

ustedes en Brasil prácticamente son bilingues, porque entienden casi todo el Español

[@fernandoo.8737]

@@piedrablanca1942 sí, es verdad. Por lo menos el español escrito.

[@fernandoo.8737]

I just watched the video (the first comment was before the video was published) and I loved many parts of it, specially that you covered both formal and informal Brazilian speeches. Thank you!

[@HeAndrRoiz]

A correction, the alveolar thrill /r/ still exists in Portugal, it's extremely common in rural areas particularly in the northern dialects - you just don't see it very often in media because those tend to speak standard or Lisboner Portuguese, which not all of us use.

[@mariaaparecidadasilvagonca7352]

The same in Brazil. It's more common for some old people and rural people specially in the south.

[@gide5489]

It is very rare but it still exists in rural regions of France probably more in the South-West

[@jean-francoiscaron5706]

It's also a poor-Montreal/rural thing in Quebec. Some actors even adopt it on purpose to appear lower-class.

[@henriquekatahira1653]

That’s so interesting! Sounds that rrural people like to thrrril the Rrs.

[@pauvermelho]

I use it when I'm annoyed with something saying: iRRita-me fo%ag $3cara4&* p6t filha dum

[@1CO1519]

As native Portuguese speaker who studied French: they sound very different on first approach, but they're very similar after you understand a few basic patterns.

[@rems4544]

Oui, je peux confirmer !

[@rems4544]

Oui, je peux confirmer !

[@alexandrafisher3614]

This!!

[@johnathangoncalo4971]

Italian shares an 89% lexical similarity with French, so Italian is much closer. I'm a Portuguese speaker as well. I found French to be very challenging in high school, but when I started Italian before and during university, I immediately made so many more connections between Italian and French. The core vocabulary as well as the verbs are clearly related...If French had a more "Italian sounding accent, it would definitely be mistaken as just another Italian dialect. But this is just comparing the modern Romance languages. Old/medieval Tuscan Italian is much closer to castellano than it is today. But obviously an Italian has the biggest advantage in understanding modern Spanish if he/she also has knowledge of Latin.

[@michaelsunguro6530]

C'est vraiment cool de voir que ces deux langues-là sont similaires.

[@johnmurphy7674]

Elles ne le sont pas. Un francophone n'arrivera pas à lire un texte en portugais et inversément sans base.

[@michaelsunguro6530]

@@johnmurphy7674 mais c'est vrai que ces deux langues-là sont similaires à soixante-quinze pour cent 💯.

[@michaelsunguro6530]

@@johnmurphy7674 et ce n'est pas la même langue

[@minhaconta4685]

Quebec French is more similar to Portuguese they have super similar nasal diphthongs like ãū, õū, ēī.. and TI and DI can be affricated like in BR Portuguese

[@michaelsunguro6530]

@@minhaconta4685 how do you know that?

[@johnearle1]

I’m Canadian, I took French from Grade 3-12, plus some college conversational French classes. I used to have this Brazilian guy come to the store a lot. He would speak Portuguese to me, and I used to get about 80% of what he was saying. I have a cousin who moved to Oporto. She was fluent in a couple of years.

[@HO0660]

Porto

[@RoseTeixeiraMRMT]

This is amazing!

[@dfk09]

Thank you for your channel Paul. Your channel was one of the main reasons that I started studying Portuguese. It's been almost six years. I'm now a fluent speaker and traveled to Brazil many times and made a few friends along the way.

[@Langfocus]

My pleasure! That's great to hear.

[@spaceinbetween6591]

It really is amazing how learning a language can change your life so much. I was once the average monolingual American; I started learning French 11 years ago, now fluent, been to France several times, and met my ex who was my first love because of it.

[@dfk09]

That's an incredible story! As they say, "languages open doors".@@spaceinbetween6591

[@isaac4273]

caralho mano, a injeva e muita kkkk, espero ser fluente algum dia tambem!

[@rechacaaosanimes6399]

19:19 I just want to add that, in portuguese, we do have an equivalent to the french word "avoir", that being "haver", which also comes from the latin "habēre". As an auxiliary verb, it has the same meaning and function, though it is usually reserved for more formal situations, especially in writing.

[@Aarozinho]

I’m a native English speaker who learned French in college. Knowing French made learning Portuguese much easier.

[@ghenulo]

Sorry about the college thing. I went to college for a few years (the biggest mistake of my life; my biggest regret is not quitting sooner), so I know how horrible it is.

[@256ugkalix3]

Same as me

[@pliniojr95]

That's impressive. But i think the easiest way to learn brazilian portuguese through another romance language is learning spanish first.

[@andromede087]

I'm from Belgium and my native language is French. I confirm that I can't understand spoken Portuguese, but I guess most of what is written in Portuguese. Having studied Latin at school is a great help to undestand other Romance languages.

[@HiramZabdy]

I'm a native Spanish speaker who learned French and Portuguese and I can say that French is the least mutually intelligible compared to the other romance languages, and the main reason is its pronunciation. As I said, I speak three romance languages, and that makes me undestard pretty well the fourth one I haven't studied, Italian. But if that wasn't the case, if instead of choosing French I had chosen Italian, I can assure I wouldn't be able to understand anything in French at all. French pronunciation is sooo different.

[@ethandouro4334]

I would adore a video about Brazilian Portuguese accents

[@sohopedeco]

Or African Portuguese accents

[@ethandouro4334]

@@sohopedeco or maybe all the accents as a Whole

[@alefsilver9135]

Dude... As a Brazilian, I tell you that it is very, VERY complicated and full of rules, I sometimes have doubts myself! LoL

[@ethandouro4334]

@@alefsilver9135 it sure is

[@r.gurgel6532]

you know we have probably more than a hundred, right? (being exagerated)

[@MrShadowThief]

One thing to note is that, at least in portuguese, even if the equivalent french word is different, it's usually still used in portuguese but with a slightly different meaning.

[@sohopedeco]

Wait till you hear the false friend for "coup". 😅

[@leonardos2925]

Like in: Maison = French for house. Mansão = Portuguese for mansion.

[@AndreKoCo]

@@leonardos2925Or: Donner = French for to give. Doar = Portuguese for to give away/to donate. Both from latin 'donare'.

[@Dragases6894]

It's exactly thé same with french

[@rafaelpinheiro4728]

Hi, Paul! I'm a Brazilian who's been following your channel since the very first videos, and now that I'm studying in France, this video was golden!! So well done as always, thank you!! 😊

[@nerenahd]

The two most beautiful spoken languages.

[@jinengi]

Side eye

[@joeyuzwa891]

Honnêtement le français est un peu laid. L’ukrainien et le gaélique sont les plus beaux, je trouve (aussi l’allemand, particulièrement quand chanté)

[@ynacyr4]

​@@cfgauss71portuguese too.

[@Dragases6894]

​@@joeyuzwa891l'ukrainien est affreux ...

[@shreddedbagelwabiwabo8342]

Uhhh... No

[@Joseph80201]

It is important to note, that in Portuguese the subject pronouns can be dropped because generally the verb conjugation clarifies the pronoun. I French, although conjugations exist, they sound almost the same in the spoken form and hence the pronoun is needed to provide clarity. I Hebrew something interesting happens- in past tense canjugations differ thus we can drop the pronoun, and in present tense cojugations are generally the same thus the pronoun is needed. The Grammer changes according to the tense to provide the required clarity.

[@samirh2758]

He said that

[@abarette_]

yeah, French pronoun-based conjugation is weirdly useless since the pronoun is compulsory. The only time conjugation is really relevant is for Imperative, which drops the personal pronoun and switches up other pronouns like EN or LUI

[@adrianomarchesi3982]

In portuguese: * OBRIGADO - The short version for "Eu me sinto obrigado a retribuir/devolver o favor/ajuda (I feel obligated to return the favor/help). * VILLE - We have VILA/VILAREJO which means a very small, simple city almost a rural area. *MAISON - we have MANSÃO,which means a very large house, associated to rich people,a mansion...

[@abarette_]

Similarily, in French we have CITÉ although its meaning is very slightly different from VILLE.

[@joroc]

@@abarette_ So in portuguese we have CITE that means to cite

[@abarette_]

@@joroc but we have the verb (citer = to cite, cite = cites, cité = cited) in French too, where do you think the english word comes from 😂

[@bolinhoparodias]

I don't know if I'm wrong, but I think Portuguese is the language that has the most sounds for the letter R. In my accent, there are words that I pronounce the letter R like the English R. The words like "porta" (door) and "amor" (love) for example, I pronounce the R pretty similar to the English R. In Brazilian Portuguese, we have 6 sounds to the letter R. Each Brazilian pronounces at least 3 of 6 of them, it really depends on your accent. In the case of the examples of the video, the guy pronounced "amor" pretty differently from me. In his accent, he pronounces the letter R using the roof of his mouth, while I usually roll my tongue to the back like an English speaker. Here in Brazil, in a relationship, we normally call our partners as "amor", but we tend to drop the letter "a" and pronounce just "mor". In my accent, I pronounce "mor" like "more" in English, just for you to understand how I pronounce some of my "R's" lol. There are people here that pronounce "amor" as a Spanish speaker, touching and slightly trembling the tongue to the roof of the mouth. Also, there are several words that have a silent R at the end of the word. In a casual and fast conversation, we tend to drop the final R of each word without notice.

[@jboss1073]

I think it is specifically the Portuguese spoken in Rio de Janeiro that has the most sounds for the letter R - in fact I seem to remember from a paper that it is the only language that has all the sounds for R.

[@lemonz1769]

As an American English Speaker when I hear Brazilians that use the R similar to ours it’s very jarring for some reason. I think your R is even stronger than most Americans, especially the Caipira R, and I don’t hear that R sound in many other languages. It reminds me of when British English speakers are doing a very heavy American accent or trying to make fun of our accent they emphasize the R very strongly. I’m learning Brazilian Portuguese now and it’s so interesting to hear the many accents.

[@jboss1073]

@@lemonz1769 You can take a shortcut to learning Brazilian Portuguese "r" by going Carioca and picking the /h/ sound for it. Cariocas have all "r" sounds in the IPA so whichever you pick you will always be right.

[@caleb_sousa]

@@jboss1073 and what exactly would be "all R sounds"? Languages around the world have drasctically different sounds associated to "rhoticity", it makes no sense to claim such a thing.

[@caleb_sousa]

@@lemonz1769 interestingly enough, they have a similar R sound in Porto. For reference, check portuguese youtuber "mathgurl" .

[@andreiaiosif2534]

I am Romanian, I studied French in school, starting from 5th grade, and Portuguese (Brazilian) on my own, starting in my late thirties. I understand way better spoken Portuguese than French and writing in Portuguese is way easier than writing in French.

[@DomingosCJM]

Essa sua afirmação realmente coloca o francês numa categoria aparte de dificuldade.

[@lucionuno]

I'm a Brazilian who speaks French. It's important to notice that even thought the vowels have sometimes completely different pronunciations, the consonants are pronounced almost exactly the same way. For example, "C" before "A", "O" and "U" have a "K" sound, and before "E" and "I" have an "S" sound. To have an "S" sound before A, O and U there's "Ç" in both languages.

[@lucasfernandes6199]

As a Brazilian I have the feeling French is the furthest (or at least hardest to understand without previous training) Romance language from Portuguese, out of the major Romance languages. Yes, even Romanian sounds more similar to me. The differences in pronunciation in informal speech are drastic.

[@manfredneilmann4305]

I agree

[@mcaeln7268]

portuguese and romanian went through very similar sound changes at the same time actually

[@caleb_sousa]

@@mcaeln7268 romanian has the weak i sound that european portuguese has.

[@andreiaiosif2534]

I am Romanian and I agree. When I started to learn Brazilian Portuguese i felt „at home” since the first lesson, with French not so much. Despite being very Latin on its core French has a very strange writing, pronunciation and accent. Romanian and Portuguese are way more logical.

[@Carolina-rd3gh]

@@andreiaiosif2534 I’m Portuguese 🇵🇹 and the Romanian people I have met could understand almost 100% of what I said in Portuguese but I couldn’t understand even half of what they said.

[@sohopedeco]

Brazilian Portuguese is extremely diglossic, i.e., formal register differs a lot from informal everyday speech. I started learning French when I was 11 and really think it helped me a lot with formal Portuguese school grammar, which is something most Brazilians struggle with.

[@davipccunha]

As a Brazilian who has been living in France for one year, the beginning was really difficult to understand the speech since the phonemes and sounds differ a lot. But after some months there I got used to it and was able to get it going pretty well. For the writing/reading, it's usually pretty easy since there are a lot of similar words or words that have a cognate that is not that usual in Portuguese but still exists.

I've been watching this channel for the past 5 years, and I can assure y'all it's amazing how the quality of Paul's videos has been constantly increasing through time, especially regarding his language comparisons. This has become truly one of the best language-themed channels on KZbin, if not the best. Congratulations, Paul! I personally think this video is your best comparison so far.

[@tctheunbeliever]

People can make fun of the construction "y'all" but I'm happy that those of us Muricans who kin talk rite were able to come up with the elusive second-person plural. (Youse? You guys? Be serious.) I know I'm asking for trouble here.

[@bolinhoparodias]

Something interesting is that French and Portuguese share the same sound for the letter J, unlikely to Italian and Spanish

[@MartinRolo]

And both french and portuguese use the letter "ç" while spanish don't

[@mariaaparecidadasilvagonca7352]

​@@MartinRolo Hey, look who's here, the youtuber with the creepiest surname!

[@allejandrodavid5222]

"Ch" sounds the same in both languages

[@MartinRolo]

@@mariaaparecidadasilvagonca7352 why creepiest? Lol

[@andreiaiosif2534]

Romanian also have the same sound for the letter J.

[@romulomenesess]

Finally! Thank you! I've been waiting for this video since october 2019 when I first watched the comparison between portuguese and spanish, spanish and french, french and italian and italian and spanish. Now looking forward for the italian and portuguese one.

[@aaronchow4800]

Cantonese speaker here - I took French in High school.. I almost think that French vs Portuguese are as similar as spoken Cantonese vs Mandarin since when the pronunciations are very different but when comparing the writing they are very similar

[@pudimdecana51]

Brazilian physician here. Even when I was beginning studying french, I could easily understand technical textbooks because of written language similarities, even though I couldn’t speak or understand french yet. The pronounciation makes a huge difference.

[@abarette_]

liaison truly is a beast of its own category

[@juliogarighan7894]

As a Brazilian who speaks French, I can say that it quite hard to understand the oral versions, specially the daily talk (verlan in French and coloquial in Portuguese), but the written form is quite understandable if you have a very good knowledge of formal Portuguese. You can see it’s not exactly what you know but the word ‘remembers’ you some very old or very formal version you learned already. It’s quite an adventure I would say. It helped me to learn more about myself and my own language.

[@italoman9]

As a Romance Languages lifelong student and fan, I've always loved reading and listening to French and Portuguese. To me, they represent a linear progression westward from the original Latin, in that they share nasal sounds and the dropping (or tendency towards dropping, respectively) of their unstressed syllables' (often final ones) final vowels. Also I've always found it interesting how this happens in Romanian's vowel-final words in certain pronunciation categories, too -- you get the visual of the original Latin speakers' (citizens and military) having migrated out of Latin's original Roman region in directions southwest, north and northeast so that, in some ways, there was a tendency for the most outskirted-arrived-at Vulgar Latin dialects to have shared similar substrate developmental changes to some extent. I've been primarily a student of Italian for decades; so I can actually understand written French and Portuguese to a good extent, too, where I've noticed all three languages seem to share a certain same grammatical syntax as to how words and expressing meanings are "arranged" in a sentence.

[@opauloss]

Que trabalho fantástico! Parabéns pelo cuidado com os detalhes e pela pesquisa profunda que você certamente fez ao produzir esse vídeo. Obrigado!

[@hamedsoltandehghan7915]

As someone learning french and generally a language enthusiast, I have to hand it to you, I am astounded by the detail and the research you put into this video. Very accurate and very informative. Keep up the good work

[@mtndudesf]

The similarities between the pronunciation of French and Portuguese are likely the result of strong Celtic influence which are common to the history of both areas. The similar r, nasalized vowels, abundance of diphthongs and skipping of consonants are remarkable. Example: Lisboa comes from lisbona which lost an n. In French you have hopital that lost the s from hospital. This makes both languages more vowel-centric than other Romance languages.

[@keithkannenberg7414]

I'm always amazed at how similar Romance languages are in written form when they sound nothing alike. Without a bit of training I find that I can read basic Spanish based on my study of French and Latin but I can't make heads or tails of it when listening. I find it fascinating that with all of the sound changes that have occurred over the last 1500-2000 years and lexical changes to try to reflect that (e.g. diacritics for nasal vowels in Portugese) the written languages remain so relatively similar.

[@caleb_sousa]

There were most probably efforts to keep the spelling reforms of each language in harmony with one another. Like for galician spelling, the official document from from Real Academia Galega explicitly states that they took decisions with portuguese and spanish spelling in mind.

[@yannsalmon2988]

You should take a look at Interlingua. It’s a constructed language based on Romance languages that is kind of a middle ground between French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese completed with Latin and using also English to simplify the grammar. About any native Romance language speaker can understand 90%, if not all of it without training at all.

[@jean-guytremblay4248]

O francês é a minha língua materna . Agora eu falou português brasileiro e eu gostei muito. Português é um pouco mais difícil que espagnol mas italiano é muito mais fácil. Thanks for the video.

[@joaopauloduartedasilva4101]

Bah oui, c'était étonnant de voir combien de mots en français sont proches de l'italien. Par example, fenêtre est proche de fenestra (italien), tandis que en portugais on dit "janela". Parler portugas et fançais m'a donné une méilleure compréension de l'italien.

[@klimtkahlo]

Espanhol em português escreve-se com nh. De resto excelente! 👏

[@jasonhudson1840]

It's interesting to me how French and Portuguese developed certain features independently such as vowel nasality and writing systems which tend to be less orthographically friendly than those of other Latinate languages. Where they differ is also interesting; French swallows consonants, whereas Portuguese, European and to a lesser extent Brazilian, doesn't. Thank you for your awesome video.

[@pauvermelho]

" *French swallows consonants, whereas Portuguese, European and to a lesser extent Brazilian, doesn't* " Brazilians swallow consonants, not us

[@cafe1925]

As a person who has learned Spanish a bit and then started learning Portuguese and French later, the striking difference of these languages with Spanish I found, is their nasal sounds. It felt very wierd until some exposure

[@bennythetiger6052]

I'm a native portuguese speaker... I really never thought of nasal sounds as a weird concept until I learned other languages hahaha. They can be tricky, but definitely not impossible

[@ricmag4183]

Thank you for this video :) but some precisions... In Old French, the word for "over/on" was "sobre" as in Spanish, Portuguese... which became "sore" and finally "sur". The Old French language was closer to the Spanish, Portuguese, Italian... languages than the modern French. Some examples : In Old French, we said "vida" (as in Spanish, etc.) which became "vie" "Castel" became "chastel" and finally "château" "Cosa" became "chose" "Io" became "jo" and finally "je" "Egua" became "ewe", "eaue" and finally "eau" "Cat" became "chat" "Car" became "char" "Real" became "Reial", "roial" and finally "royal" Etc. In Old French, "entendre" meant "to understand" and this meaning still exists in some cases (we can say "entendu" to say "understood"). "Muito" in portuguese has its cognate in French with the word "moult". But the evolution of the French language is very particular... And don't forget one very important thing, the modern English language is made up of more than seventy per cent French words or words derivating/coming from French :)

[@mariaaparecidadasilvagonca7352]

Very good! I love linguistics and ethimology.

[@PeloquinDavid]

That's not quite correct. To get to those levels, you have to include those many words (often scientific and technical terms) that came directly into English from Latin or Greek in modern times (as those same words came into French at more or less the same time). But your point that the lexical similarity ratio between English and French is in that range is undeniably true.

[@enriquequinones8639]

I’m a Spanish native speaker, but I speak French and Portuguese fluently. And so proud of me, I was able to translate the sentences from English (pausing the video, before the final sentences), and my translations were the same 😮 . Quite interesting to know the origin of some words coming from Latin ❤. Great video ! - merci pour la vidéo ! - obrigado pelo vídeo ! - gracias por el video!

[@gide5489]

La vidéo 😂

[@enriquequinones8639]

@@gide5489 thanks for the correction 😚

[@Carlosr2rp]

In formal Portuguese we can use both - Demos-lhe as chaves - Nós lhe demos as chaves. It depends if you start the phrase with the verb or the pronoum. But if its negative we always use - Nós não lhe demos as chaves We also have the "mesóclise" that's when the pronoum is placed in the midle of the verb - Dar-lhe-íamos as chaves. But it will sound just "too" formal (like someone who is 100yo haha). So it's better to start the sentence with the pronoum - Nós lhe daríamos as chaves. It's also formal but you won't sound like you are 100yo

[@nogardethiw]

Po, a mesoclise ninguem usa, kakak so soube disso pela escola msm

[@Krka1716]

In Portugal, the affirmative 'Nós lhe demos as chaves' cannot be used, only 'Demos-lhe as chaves' is possible. Likewise, the 'mesóclise' is mandatory in affirmative sentences (and unavoidable), while the negative version would forcibly use 'Nós não lhe daríamos as chaves'.

[@Ãdré-ps8xp]

Ou "lhe demos as chaves"

[@CleverNameTBD]

I like that you specified that it's parisian French which has the guttural R whereas lots of us in louisiana and parts of Canada still roll and tap the R. Also, in louisiana and i believe parts of canada, we do actually have a present progressive construction by using après + verb. I am eating (right now) = j'suis après manger which differs from standard french "j'suis en train de manger" which for us would mean "im about to eat (similar to how parisian french would use "sur le point")

[@pierreabbat6157]

My father was from Normandy, and I've only visited Louisiana and Canada. I gargle the 'r', as did my father. (French has a word for it: grasseyer.) But the music genre "zydeco" shows that 'r' there is tapped. It's from French «zarico», from «les haricots» (the beans), a phrase in a song. Also, the 'h' in «haricot» is "aspirated", which implies that the 's' is not lié, except that in Louisiana, it is.

[@CleverNameTBD]

@@pierreabbat6157 yup! We aspirate a lot of Hs. As far as the false liaison, a lot of people grew up illiterate and weren't taught "proper" French in schools, especially because les américains literally beat it out of us. So a lot of kids grew up hearing le z'ouiseu instead of les oiseaux. At least that's one theory. Louisiana creole language (more similar to creole in Martinique than Haiti) is extremely close to our variety of French and since we all cohabitated, there was some crossover between the two languages

[@wilsonkrm]

Je suis très heureux de voir cette vidéo! J'aime beaucoup le français mais suis brésilien. Your study is very well done and taught me a couple of things about Portuguese (such as latin origin of words). Parabéns! 🎉

[@manfredneilmann4305]

... "cette vidéo

[@wilsonkrm]

@@manfredneilmann4305 merci

[@pauloaraujo3106]

This video was awesome, pal! I'm portuguese native speaker and I have english as my second language. I study french since few months and due similarities between portuguese/french and plus, due the french inheritance in the modern english vocabulary, these factores has become the main alie to me to get the french fastier :)

[@Julian-tf8nj]

As someone who has studied both French and Brazilian Portuguese over the years, this is gold! Merci/Obrigado 😁

[@gustavorosseline]

You should note that Portuguese had a very huge French influence throughout centuries, until up to the 19th century that perdured. Portuguese nobles would imitate how French speakers would speak if they spoke Portuguese, they almost began to transform Portuguese to sound more French-like, as everything sprouting out of France would be considered of class, royalty and noble. In 1808, fleeing Napoleon's threat of invasion, the Portuguese king Don João VI transferred the capital of the empire from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, where he fled to with his entire court, bringing the new way of speaking Portuguese to the region, this is why Rio's accent is SO different from almost every other accent in Brazil, as they elongate their vowels, exaggerate on the gutural R and speak in a specific melodic tone. Although today not as much similar to French as it was back then, it definitely left a huge mark on their lexicon and accent. The same didn't happen to another close by city, São Paulo, which at the time spoke Língua Geral, a mix of Portuguese and Tupi languages, that gave them a completely different way of speaking, different melody, intonation, lexicon and accent (retroflex R, soft S and far more nasal); same about Salvador da Bahia, Brazil's first capital, hugely influenced by African languages (Yoruba, Fon, Kimbundo, Ketu, Bantu languages in general, too). Portuguese is BEAUTIFUL and although I'm suspicious of saying it's my favourite, as it's my mother language, I could not pretend it isn't infinitely diverse and beautiful, and what makes it difficult to learn is also what makes it easier to learn, as you can pronounce things completely different by mistake and it would probably still accepted as just closer to a specific accent, but the hard part is learning in one accent and then not understanding others because of how much phonetics can change. Shoutout to your channel, you have always been the best!

[@lalalabizola]

Other similarities: J --> pronounced as /ʒ/ in both languages. G --> pronounced as /g/ before A, O, U and when you add a U in front of a E or I. Pronounced as /ʒ/ before I and E. C --> pronounced as /k/ before A, O, U. Pronounced as /s/ before I and E. CH --> pronounced as /ʃ/. H --> pretty much always silent (and) in the beginning of words. Ç and SS --> always pronounced as /s/. S --> pronounced as /z/ when in between vowels. GN (fr) and NH (pt) --> the same sound (ɲ) but written in different ways. I'm pretty sure there are even more similarities but I can't remember them right now.

[@buntoonbuntoon3210]

It is so easy to spot Brazilian Portuguese. You'll hear the sound of "de" pronounced as "ji" everywhere.

[@donaldklopper]

Wonderful video ... I am intermediate with (Brazilian) Portuguese, and just beyond beginner with French, and I've picked up a lot of what you mentioned in the video. Without learning some Portuguese first, learning French would have been *A LOT* harder than what it is for me now. Sure, they're very different, but what a pleasure to learn a new French word, only to realise that I already know the (very similar) word in Portuguese. It helps tremendously to store knowledge to long term memory.

[@leontnf6144]

😄It's interesting how despite German and French coming from totally different language families, they still share some interesting features. As highlighted in the video, in daily speech and writing the Simple Past tense isn't used in French when referring to past actions. It is the same too in German, where Simple Past is only common in formal/literary publications. In daily speech/writing people will only use the Present Perfect tense. Another similar feature shared would be the lack of Continuous tense in both languages. In German too, when referring to an ongoing action in the present, the Simple Present is used, often together with an aspect time marker like 'now' or 'at the moment'.

[@ghenulo]

Um, German and French are both part of the Indo-European language family. I don't know where one would get the idea that they come from totally different language families.

[@Satan-lb8pu]

@@ghenuloThey obviously meant proto-germanic and latin

[@luizfelipetr]

Sentia muita falta desta comparação e agora vai se tornar realidade 🎉 video mais experado por mim neste canal... valeuu produtor ❤

[@murilogabrielli6369]

The verb haver (which has the same origin as avoir) is also used as an auxiliary verb, in Portuguese. In Portugal, as a matter of fact, is more commonly used than ter. In Brazil it might also be used in formal written language (although it sounds very old fashioned). The continuous tenses in Portugal ar not usually formed with the present participle (with the endings ando, endo and indo), like in Brazil. The common form is to use the preposition a followed by the infinitive. Thus, "I am having lunch" in Brazil would be "(eu) estou jantando" and, in Portugal, "(eu) estou a jantar".

[@Blisolda]

The auxiliary "haver" in Portugal is not more common than "ter". In fact, it's quite more formal and literary than "ter". "Eu já o tinha lido" is more common than "Eu já o havia lido", though both are correct. And the most formal structure of all, "Eu já o lera".

[@masacatior]

The future tense used to employ the verb "haver" as an auxiliary verb but later became part of the main verb. Cozinhará ← Há de cozinhar (he/she will cook). On the other hand, in colloquial speech, the verb "ir" (to go) can be used to make future tense: "A gente vai cozinhar" (We're going to cook).

[@fs400ion]

Missed opportunité to show how Québec French and Portugese have even more similar nasal sounds! Québec way of saying "Train" is quite close to "Trem"

[@adairjoseartes3645]

Great video! I speak Brazilian Portuguese and I'm studying French. Thanks for the information on both languages.

[@mancillat]

What a great way to explain the difference between "ser" and "estar" in Portuguese. I always have a hard time when trying to explain it to English-native speakers. Will definitely borrow your way of explaining from now on haha

[@leonardo.s.m]

as a portuguese speaker i can understand spanish and italian almost perfectly... but when it comes to french it's really hard to pick up some phrases

[@Yostheou]

It's so interesting how both languages share many similarities, although they're almost completely mutually unintelligible.

[@jhonnyrock]

Mutually unintelligible, but individually intelligible, an important distinction! 😊

[@Yostheou]

@@jhonnyrock That's it, cheers mate! 😅😉

[@LuisKolodin]

exactly! they are unintelligible but even so I find them closer to each other than Spanish or Italian. grammar, nasals and liaisons make them really close.

[@applejellypucci]

they're not completely unintelligible. Chinese and French are for instance.

[@LuisKolodin]

@@applejellypucci I'm Brazilian and I couldn't understand any full sentence in French before having classes. Isolated words, ok. I find French can't be understood by Portuguese native speakers without any lesson. After some weeks of lessons, it becomes much easier. We do understand a lot of Spanish with no previous lesson, and Italian needs very few lessons to be understood by us.

[@lucasdias3474]

Je suis brésilien et j'apprends le français. Je me considère intermédiaire dans l'idiome, mais j'ai encore beaucoup à apprendre. J'adore ces deux belles langues 😍❤

[@salex01_]

As a native French speaker, I understand about 5% of spoken and 60% of written Portugese. I learned Italian at school. Speaking both French and Italian allows me to understand 75% of spoken and 95% of written Spanish but I still struggle with Portugese (mainly because of the different latin roots and the pronunciation). Romanian is less complicated.

[@MegaJellyNelly]

Romanian is easier for you??

[@matteoleone4023]

Why don't you say "hello everyone, welcome to the langfocus channel, my name is Paul!" anymore? That was the signature intro!

[@Langfocus]

It hasn’t been for around 2 years. lol

[@jeankcio]

I’m Brazilian who speak French as a second language. Since I speak both languages I think they’re pretty much alike. Not as much as Spanish to Portuguese, yet more than English to Portuguese. But before studying French I couldn’t understand anything listening to the language though I could understand something reading it

[@fatalerror11]

Como você aprendeu francês, amigo?

[@jeankcio]

@@fatalerror11comecei com aulas em turma na universidade e depois segui com aulas particulares. Se tiver alguma federal na sua cidade elas costumam ter cursa de idiomas aberto a preço barato mesmo pra quem não é aluno.

[@felipemedeiros6679]

Le portugais (do Brasil) et o francês são minhas deux langues maternas. Phonétiquement parlant, são bem diferentes. Na escrita, no entanto, percebe-se beaucoup de semelhanças. Bravo pelo vídeo. Adorei.

[@luizbomfim2840]

esse uso misto que vc fez, me lembra uma língua que criaram que mistura todas as línguas latinas. Se chama interlingua. kzbin.infocOP0cdcXUkk

[@ZadenZane]

I learned some Spanish a few years ago (after eight years of French lessons) and found Spanish grammar to be very similar to French. French irregular verbs were also irregular in Spanish and were conjugated in the same way... so I'm guessing Portuguese would be similar. As for mutual intelligibility, I couldn't understand any Spanish, Italian or Portuguese from French (beyond the odd word or two). Yes you can kind of fight through the written language and see lots of half-familiar words but you don't understand how those words are being used. Having said that I've heard that Romance languages are very easy to pick up when you already know one.

[@xrenzo1991]

Nice video, Paul! Thanks once more. Greetings from Brazil!

[@mariusvr]

Some of different words presented may have alternative somewhat cognate words in the other language. For instance, for the French ville, you presented Portuguese cidade, but there's also vila (a small town; a distinction also present in English: city x village). For maison, casa, but there's also mansão (a big luxury house - at least in Brazilian Portuguese). And for table, mesa but there's also távola (an old and seldomly used word - most of its usage happens in Literature, like in "Os Cavaleiros da Távola Redonda", the knights of the round table). It's quite likely that there are similar examples the other way round, but speaking no French at all, I couldn't tell

[@ricmag4183]

And don't forget that those words come from the French language... The English word "city" comes from the French word "cité" ("cidade") The word "mansão" is derivating from the Old French "mansion" which became "maison" (and the English word "mansion" is then a French word). Same origin of the Modern French word "manoir". The English words "village" and "table" are in fact French words ("village", "table"). ;)

[@mariusvr]

@@ricmag4183 I believe it's true that the relevant English words come from French. But the relevant Portuguese ones don't. As one would expect, they come directly from Latin

[@davb11]

I always thought European Portuguese was way harder to understand until I watched the movie Cidade de Deus 😂 Both can be sometimes hard to understand

[@lucasoliveira9834]

"Cidade de Deus" is not the standard accent of Brazilian Portuguese. The accent in this movie is specific to the state of Rio de Janeiro. Furthermore, the movie includes several specific informal slang terms from the environment of Rio de Janeiro's communities. Brazil has various other accents, such as the Paulista, Paulistano, Paraense, Paranaense, Paraibano, Maranhense, Recifense, Bahiano, Gaúcho, Mineiro, Cearense, etc.

[@HuaMoa-px9px]

​@@lucasoliveira9834 Não todo o estado de Rio de Janeiro, na verdade, uma boa parte dele entretanto não tudo rsrs

[@believeinpeace]

Languages are so fascinating and your videos are so perfect! Thank you Paul!!

[@Langfocus]

It's my pleasure! Thanks for the kind words!

[@Diogo_-tx1zi]

@@LangfocusPortuguese Flag for the Portuguese language, stop this nonsense

[@tim-tim-timmy6571]

I am a native French speaker. I can get some Brazilian Portuguese but I barely understand anything of what is spoken un Portugal.

[@RobertLedermann]

I always have a lot of pleasure watching your videos., I have enjoyed this one in particular (by the way I am a native French speaker). I didn't realize Portuguese and French were so close. Many thanks!

[@nylesgregory2120]

Dear Paul - I hope you read this. I'm 60 yo and moved to Madeira, Portugal. After viewing half/Doz. of your Language videos, I have no idea how you are able to mine the depth of historical intel required to highlight such concentrated 24K Gold for each Country and their origins??? I have a Post-Grad in Public Admin., but have learned more about languages in the past 24 hours than I knew about (language structures) of my native American. I'm often left floored how radically different other cultures communicate. Thank you for serving to provide the Source-Material. Simply invaluable in the scope of your presentations.

[@Langfocus]

Thank you for the kind words, Nyles!

[@Vithosi]

As a Brazilian from Rio de Janeiro, I can understand 60% of written French and maybe 40% spoken. Also, I think Paul was quite clever to choose the Portuguese accent from Rio. In my opinion, it is the closest to French pronunciation.

[@rafaelcastro3455]

Com todo respeito, o sotaque carioca é o pior de se entender , mas se ele quiz fazer parecer com o francês , então está tudo certo

[@Brasileiro-qd4ww]

sotaque carioca=pobreza extrema do Brasil.

[@Brasileiro-qd4ww]

Por isso que é feio, lembra um favelado com um fuzil na mão, sei lá pra mim o carioca é o pior do Brasil.

[@vervideosgiros1156]

​@@rafaelcastro3455É essa a ideia do vídeo... Se ele quer mostrar as similaridades entre as duas línguas, obviamente utilizou o dialeto mais semelhante.

[@oliveranderson7264]

Very similar but not enough for mutual intelligibility. French speakers can probably gain a decent grasp of spoken Portuguese with a few months of exposure and practice but the same isn't true for Portuguese speakers who need considerable more time to bridge the gap between spoken and written French, making cognates harder for them to spot. Portuguese speakers often struggle with /ø/, /œ/, consonant clusters involving R like /vR/, whereas French speakers struggle with nasal diphtongues, the tapped R and pronouncing the two types of "a" that portguese distinguishes. Overall, they're still very close, especially compared to Romanian or Romansh but not as close as Spanish is to Portuguese or Catalan/Italian are to French.

[@sohopedeco]

On the other hand, Portuguese speakers are a lot more exposed to French than vice-versa. It's not uncommon for some people to know some "fun facts" about French before they start learning.

[@oliveranderson7264]

@@sohopedeco Good point. I knew that was true for Portuguese people, Angolans and Guinnea-Bissauans due to proximity to French speaking nations, would you say it's the same for the other lusophone countries like Brazil or Cape Verde ?

[@willyzemlya]

13:18 Pain🇬🇧: 😫💢 Pain🇫🇷: 😋🍞

[@lionyx98]

My brazilian friend sent me this video, cool one 👋🏻 cheers from France 🇫🇷

[@Mercure250]

I love how the city of origin of the Portuguese speaker was specified, but not that of the French speaker, but it doesn't matter to me because French is my native language and the French speaker said where they come from anyways (they live in Bordeaux, but ultimately come from Vichy) 4:54 In French, we have the old-fashioned word "quérir", meaning "seek", which sounds very literary, and isn't used in normal speech at all. But you can find it in dictionaries, and it is used in older texts. 7:46 While "ville" is the more common word, the word "cité" is also relatively common. It usually carries the meaning of a bigger city (especially as opposed to a town, which would also be called "ville"). It's a bit literary here in Québec, but in France, it seems it's commonly used as an informal way to say "city". There's even the verlan form "téci". 11:25 "trem" kinda sounds more like how Québécois people would pronounce "train", since our /ɛ̃/ is more closed than in European French. Plus, the alveolar trill is more common here, though it is a lot less common than it used to be, being replaced by the usual uvular fricative. 21:23 "en train de" is an interesting expression. It derives from the other meaning of "train", other than the mean of transportation, which is something like "pace", "course", "flow". So it's kind of like saying "in the flow of" or something like that. But yeah, "in the middle of" is a more natural translation in English for this expression. While Spanish and Italian feel definitely closer to French to me, I still find Portuguese fairly understandable in its written form, especially since I have learned some Spanish. Basically impossible in its spoken form, though.

[@ricnyc2759]

"Anything that makes us laugh" in the 2 languages: French: "Tout ce qui nous fait rire". Portuguese: "Tudo que nos faz rir". If you train your ears you can see how similar the 2 languages are. If you just literally keep the word "anything" it will translate as: "quelque chose" and "qualquer coisa".

[@jorgecandeias]

The trilled R did not disappear from European Portuguese. It's still used by many people, often at the same time as the fricative R. I, for instance, use both; some words come out with the trill, some others tend to become guttural. Interestingly, those two examples are spoken differently by me. I use the trill in terrível but the fricative in guerra. Don't ask me why.

[@pauvermelho]

Me too When I'm angry some words might came out with the Spanish R

[@jorgecandeias]

@@pauvermelho it ain't Spanish, though. It's ours. But I know what you mean. :)

[@andreiaiosif2534]

I, as a Romanian, understand why. The first e in terrivel is like a Romanian î (or â) but extremely short, is almost impossible to pronounce rr the other way in this position. European Portuguese can make 2-3 syllables in one. My favourite example is „verdade”, EP pronounce it as vrdad (1syllable), BP as ver-dadji or even ver-da-djii.

[@pixadordelterrat2725]

Native Catalan and Spanish speaker here, it feels like I am half way of the continuum and I realize about the differences in my two languages when Paul spots them between French and Portuguese. It's weird.

[@jimmywalker8354]

This was an awesome video. I learnt Brazilian Portuguese after your video on it in Nov 2020. Now I'm learning French. With regards to the present continous in Portuguese and Spanish, it is common to hear people just use the simple present, just like in French.

[@cunhaladm]

I love the fact we are just the reference for the Portuguese language instead of Portugal hahaha

[@greenrobot5]

It's funny how in French there are many consonants that are silent and it's considered beautiful, but if you do that in Spanish you're considered uneducated or vulgar

[@jhonnyrock]

Love these videos and this channel! Thanks for being awesome! Also have you ever done a video on Classical Latin? That would cool!

[@marcossouzadias8824]

For me, as a Brazilian, Spanish is the easiest language to understand. Then Italian. And then French. French when you know some basic words, spoken slowly or reading a text - you can get the gist. But understanding normal conversation, or a TV show , is almost impossible.

[@danielgreen1475]

As someone who's learning both languages this video is really interesting! I already speak Portuguese to a basic conversational level and I've definitely noticed a lot of similarities between the two languages.

[@mukbangsareawesome6335]

A wonderful, informative video as always. I notice though this time is a straightforward lesson. What I love about your videos is your quick wit and sense of humor and the skits you used to do in the intros. Please don't lose that. The world needs its humor and joy back.