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Normally Brazilians have issues with the german R as spoken in the North of Germany. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNU6ZLaZ7Z8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v

Normally Brazilians have issues with the german R as spoken in the North of Germany. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNU6ZLaZ7Z8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNU6ZLaZ7Z8

marcodiego 5y ago
Indeed, this 'r' sound where the vibration lies deep into the throat is not part of our phoneme repository. I have no difficulty with it though.
jventura 5y ago
It’s just a regular “r” for us pt-pt natives... :)
- pelasaco 5y ago
  Yes in Portugal, I tend to see a lot of similarities with German by the spoken Portuguese.. Like "Ei" sounding like "Ai" and "P" sounding like "B" in the beginning of sentences.
  - ratww 5y ago
    I was really surprised at how close the alphabet letters are pronounced in German and Portuguese.
    - pelasaco 5y ago
      me too. I grew-up between Germany and Brazil and now I live mainly in Portugal. In the beginning I was amused by that too. Now I can really speak PT-PT. Even "Ja" can be used to say yes.
    - chefandy 5y ago
      Though I don't speak Portuguese myself, my immediate family roots are Azorean and grew up among the huge Azorean population surrounding New Bedford and Fall River, so I've heard it regularly for my entire life. I lived a bit further north during High School and regularly encountered folks from Russia and the Ukraine. I thought I was crazy for thinking spoken pt-PT and Russian sounded similar from a distance. However, my best friend who grew up in St. Petersburg and has a degree in linguistics said he often does a double-take when hearing pt-PT speakers on the street! He had some sort of technical explanation for it (that didn't stick in my head being a non-linguist and (sadly) monolingual.)
      - wenc 5y ago
        It’s because Pt-Pt is a stressed timed language vs Br-Pt which is a syllable timed language. Pt-Pt drops a lot of unstressed vowels whereas Br-Pt almost all syllables are pronounced. Langfocus did a video on why (European) Português sounds like Russian. https://youtu.be/Pik2R46xobA https://youtu.be/Pik2R46xobA
pportela 5y ago
Yup, I'm a brazilian living in northern germany, and one of the words I struggle with the most is "rechts". It's just really difficult to get that 'r' sound right.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ratww 5y ago
  "Rechts" also has the "ch" sound which is not as foreign per se to speak, but kind of deceptive and maybe too subtle to Portuguese speakers. I got the R quickly since it's more obvious, but for the ch it took me a bit longer to even notice the difference between my ch and the German ch.
bkantt 5y ago
Similarly and for the same reasons, they have a lot of trouble combining the Spanish R with the Spanish G or J sound. Spanish words such as "jarra," "Jorge," or "rojo" tend to be very difficult even for Lusophones who are advanced Spanish speakers. But I agree that Portuguese is a lot more phonetically complex than most (if not all) Western European languages.

Normally Brazilians have issues with the german R as spoken in the North of Germany. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNU6ZLaZ7Z8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNU6ZLaZ7Z8

marcodiego 5y ago

Indeed, this 'r' sound where the vibration lies deep into the throat is not part of our phoneme repository. I have no difficulty with it though.

jventura 5y ago

It’s just a regular “r” for us pt-pt natives... :)

pelasaco 5y ago
Yes in Portugal, I tend to see a lot of similarities with German by the spoken Portuguese.. Like "Ei" sounding like "Ai" and "P" sounding like "B" in the beginning of sentences.
- ratww 5y ago
  I was really surprised at how close the alphabet letters are pronounced in German and Portuguese.
  - pelasaco 5y ago
    me too. I grew-up between Germany and Brazil and now I live mainly in Portugal. In the beginning I was amused by that too. Now I can really speak PT-PT. Even "Ja" can be used to say yes.
  - chefandy 5y ago
    Though I don't speak Portuguese myself, my immediate family roots are Azorean and grew up among the huge Azorean population surrounding New Bedford and Fall River, so I've heard it regularly for my entire life. I lived a bit further north during High School and regularly encountered folks from Russia and the Ukraine. I thought I was crazy for thinking spoken pt-PT and Russian sounded similar from a distance. However, my best friend who grew up in St. Petersburg and has a degree in linguistics said he often does a double-take when hearing pt-PT speakers on the street! He had some sort of technical explanation for it (that didn't stick in my head being a non-linguist and (sadly) monolingual.)
    - wenc 5y ago
      It’s because Pt-Pt is a stressed timed language vs Br-Pt which is a syllable timed language. Pt-Pt drops a lot of unstressed vowels whereas Br-Pt almost all syllables are pronounced. Langfocus did a video on why (European) Português sounds like Russian. https://youtu.be/Pik2R46xobA https://youtu.be/Pik2R46xobA

pportela 5y ago

Yup, I'm a brazilian living in northern germany, and one of the words I struggle with the most is "rechts". It's just really difficult to get that 'r' sound right.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ratww 5y ago
"Rechts" also has the "ch" sound which is not as foreign per se to speak, but kind of deceptive and maybe too subtle to Portuguese speakers. I got the R quickly since it's more obvious, but for the ch it took me a bit longer to even notice the difference between my ch and the German ch.

bkantt 5y ago

Similarly and for the same reasons, they have a lot of trouble combining the Spanish R with the Spanish G or J sound. Spanish words such as "jarra," "Jorge," or "rojo" tend to be very difficult even for Lusophones who are advanced Spanish speakers. But I agree that Portuguese is a lot more phonetically complex than most (if not all) Western European languages.