About Portuguese

People all over the world strive to learn the true “language of love”. It can easily be argued that the real vernacular you need to learn in this case is the Portuguese Language, Brazilian Portuguese in particular. Brazilian Portuguese is one of the Romance languages, originating from Latin. While the language grew in Europe, more people speak Portuguese in Brazil today, than in Portugal. Ever since European settlers landed in South America many centuries ago, Portuguese has flourished significantly, and adopted a very unique dialect, throughout Brazil.

Obviously Brazil has its own rich and distinct historical and cultural background. This is why even though Brazilian Portuguese is not technically a completely different language than European Portuguese; there are plenty of differences between the two. If you are planning to visit Brazil, an enriching experience that everyone should enjoy at least once, it is important that you specifically study the Brazilian Portuguese language.

If you speak English, you will find that learning to speak Brazilian Portuguese is not incredibly challenging. The Portuguese alphabet uses the same 26 letters that English speakers are familiar with, although several of the letters may have a pronunciation that feels quite foreign. Many of the vowel sounds in Portuguese are pronounced quite differently. There are also many notable differences in pronunciation between Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese.

Like the other Romance languages, the Portuguese language uses diacritic marks to accompany some letters in order to indicate pronunciation. Brazilian Portuguese uses the circumflex accent much more frequently than its European counterpart. Brazilian Portuguese also uses the letter “ü”, which does not appear in European Portuguese. A major distinction of the Portuguese language in Brazil is that the Portuguese accent in Brazil has clearer vowel sounds with more nasalization in the pronunciation than in either English or European Portuguese.

When learning how to speak Portuguese, many English speakers struggle with the grammar. This is because Portuguese nouns are each assigned a gender. When using proper Portuguese grammar, the adjectives and verbs used must match the gender of the noun, whether it is masculine or feminine. The verb must also be conjugated to indicate first, second or third person, as well as tense.

If you are considering learning the how to speak the Brazilian Portuguese Language, go for it. It is not a very difficult language to learn, and the process can be quite enjoyable. If you find an online resource that will help you practice regularly, you can quickly learn how to speak this beautiful and romantic language.