Learn about the Portuguese alphabet
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Intro |
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| Michael: Is the Portuguese alphabet the same as the English alphabet? |
| Ana Clara: And what are the differences? |
| Michael: At PortuguesePod101.com, we hear these questions often. Here is a typical scenario: Cristina Costa, a kindergarten student, is studying the alphabet with her mom, Clara. She sees an unfamiliar letter and asks, |
| "What letter is that?" |
| Cristina Costa: Que letra é essa? |
| Dialogue |
| Cristina Costa: Que letra é essa? |
| Clara Costa: É o ç (cê cedilha). |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Cristina Costa: Que letra é essa? |
| Michael: "What letter is that?" |
| Clara Costa: É o ç (cê cedilha). |
| Michael: "It's ç." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In the conversation, Cristina asks about the letter |
| Ana Clara: ç. |
| Michael: This letter contains a cedilla, or |
| Ana Clara: cedilha, |
| Michael: and it is commonly found in the Portuguese language. This is merely one of several key differences between the alphabet used in Portuguese versus the one used in English. |
| Michael: We will go over these differences soon, but first, let's mention some similarities. |
| Michael: Both languages utilize the Latin alphabet, which makes learning to read and write in the opposite language fairly easy to do. Furthermore, although the Portuguese alphabet did not include the letters |
| Ana Clara: K, W, and Y |
| Michael: prior to 2009, those letters are now included, despite only appearing in foreign words or names. |
| Michael: Now let's focus on some of the differences between the alphabets. Although both English and Portuguese utilize digraphs, or pairs of letters which together represent unique sounds, those pairings, and the sounds that they make, are unique. The most common Portuguese digraphs include |
| Ana Clara: ch, lh, nh, rr, ss, qu, and gu. |
| Michael: Another difference is the use of diacritics in Portuguese, as could be seen in the conversation between Cristina and Clara regarding the letter |
| Ana Clara: ç (cê cedilha). |
| Michael: Diacritics in Portuguese are various accent marks that can denote the meaning of a word, the syllabic emphasis of a word, or the pronunciations of specific letters. This includes the cedilla (ç), like in the female name |
| Ana Clara: Conceição. |
| Michael: the acute accent (á, é, í, ó, ú) as in |
| Ana Clara: pé, "foot." |
| Michael: the circumflex accent (â, ê, ô) as in |
| Ana Clara: pôde, "could." |
| Michael: the tilde (ã, õ) as in |
| Ana Clara: cãibra, "cramp." |
| Michael: and the grave accent (à) as in |
| Ana Clara: às 4 horas, "at 4 o'clock." |
| Michael: This is why it's so important to pay attention to accent marks in any written context: It can dramatically change the meaning of a word or an entire sentence. As a Portuguese learner, it's critical to learn how a letter's sound changes when an accent mark appears above the letter. This will greatly help you to improve not only your reading skills, but your speaking skills as well. |
| Practice Section |
| Michael: Let's review the conversation in detail. Try to respond to the following prompts by saying their Portuguese translation out loud. Ana Clara will then model the correct answer. Try to repeat after her with the focus on your pronunciation. |
| The first prompt is, "What letter is that?" |
| Ana Clara: Que letra é essa? |
| Michael: Did you get it right? Listen to Ana Clara again and repeat after her. Remember to focus on your pronunciation. |
| Ana Clara: Que letra é essa? |
| Ana Clara: Que letra é essa? |
| Michael: The next prompt is, "It's ç." |
| Ana Clara: É o ç (cê cedilha). |
| Michael: Listen to Ana Clara again and repeat after her. |
| Ana Clara: É o ç (cê cedilha). |
| Ana Clara: É o ç (cê cedilha). |
| Cultural Insight/Expansion |
| Michael: We can only use the letter Ç before the letters A, O, or U. It's grammatically incorrect to use Ç before the letters E or I. |
| Ana Clara: This is because the letter C is pronounced the same way as Ç before the letters E or I, as in esqueci or esquecer. |
| Michael: It's not necessary to add the diacritical mark to indicate the correct sound. |
| Ana Clara: Notice that this isn't true in the words cocar and coçar, for example. Just replacing C with Ç changes both the meaning and the pronunciation. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Ana Clara: Até a próxima! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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