Brazilian Portuguese Language Course

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Psi-Lord
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Postby Psi-Lord » 2005-07-31, 9:34

svenska84 wrote:Thanks! Yeah, that's what my impression has been. For instance, on the Ruth Lemos video, she says "elas" before "precisão" whereas if that were Spanish, the pronoun would almost certainly not be said in such a situation.

- precisam

This is something that even some native speakers will often misspell. :) In verbal forms where you have an unstressed [ɐ̃w], you spell it -am (while -ão is used for the stressed [ɐ̃w]). Therefore (stressed syllables underlined):

precisam
precisaram
precisavam
precisariam

but

precisarão
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Postby Kirk » 2005-07-31, 21:09

Psi-Lord wrote:
svenska84 wrote:Thanks! Yeah, that's what my impression has been. For instance, on the Ruth Lemos video, she says "elas" before "precisão" whereas if that were Spanish, the pronoun would almost certainly not be said in such a situation.

- precisam

This is something that even some native speakers will often misspell. :) In verbal forms where you have an unstressed [ɐ̃w], you spell it -am (while -ão is used for the stressed [ɐ̃w]). Therefore (stressed syllables underlined):

precisam
precisaram
precisavam
precisariam

but

precisarão


Thanks! :) Told you I couldn't write Portuguese ;) So that's good to know.
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'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.

I eat prescriptivists for breakfast.

maɪ nemz kʰɜ˞kʰ n̩ aɪ laɪk̚ fɨˈnɛ̞ɾɪ̞ks

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Postby Pittsboy » 2005-08-01, 12:04

Psi-Lord wrote:
svenska84 wrote:Thanks! Yeah, that's what my impression has been. For instance, on the Ruth Lemos video, she says "elas" before "precisão" whereas if that were Spanish, the pronoun would almost certainly not be said in such a situation.

- precisam

This is something that even some native speakers will often misspell. :) In verbal forms where you have an unstressed [ɐ̃w], you spell it -am (while -ão is used for the stressed [ɐ̃w]). Therefore (stressed syllables underlined):

precisam
precisaram
precisavam
precisariam

but

precisarão


And remeber that in "older" Portuguese, "precisam" used to be spelt like "precisão" :D
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~~Enrico Fermi (1901 - 1954)~~

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Postby Psi-Lord » 2005-08-01, 13:16

Pittsboy wrote:And remeber that in "older" Portuguese, "precisam" used to be spelt like "precisão" :D

Oh, was it? That I didn't know. :) Very interesting.
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Postby alois » 2005-08-01, 21:51

Hi Svenska,

I think Psi Lord did pretty well in explaining you about the pronouns usage in B-Portuguese, but perhaps he's talking about more of a formal language. I think that what happens with B-Portuguese is the same that happens with French (and English too): the language is losing its post-verbal person/tense/mood marks and the distinction is being made before the verb:

Je parle
Tu parle[s]s[/s]
Il parle
On parle
Vous parlez
Ils parle[s]nt[/s]

Also, in colloquial B-Portuguese, no distinction is usually made between singular and plural forms:

Eu falo
(Vo)cê fala
Ele fala
A gente fala
(Vo)cês fala[s]m[/s]
Eles fala[s]m[/s]

So, as you can see, all pronouns but "eu" are needed to avoid misunderstandings (even though I don't think I would left "eu" aside either, its always pronounced, at least in my region).

Most tense and mood marks too:

eu ia falar (rather than falaria)
eles ia[s]m[/s] falar (rather than falaria[s]m[/s])

eu vou falar (rather than falarei)
(vo)cês vão falar (rather than falarão)


Also, forgive me for the delay in the lessons. The course is not over. In fact, I should have started it now because I think I'll have more free time now. I was studying for a lot of things and wasn't able to take them over.

Please, let me also know what you're thinking about it and how I can improve it.

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Postby FNORD » 2005-08-01, 22:15

Hefestos wrote:Also, in colloquial B-Portuguese, no distinction is usually made between singular and plural forms:

Eu falo
(Vo)cê fala
Ele fala
A gente fala
(Vo)cês fala[s]m[/s]
Eles fala[s]m[/s]

If anyone did that, everybody I know would mock them. People usually use the verbs correctly.

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Postby alois » 2005-08-02, 0:02

The language (lingua) I'm talking about is the colloquial one, (fast-)spoken in the streets, not the one you see written in the books.

E aliás, que minha resposta não seria das mais educadas se um desses otários elitistas viesse me tirar pelo meu português "errado", ah disso vc pode ter certeza. :twisted: :twisted:

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Postby FNORD » 2005-08-02, 1:40

Hefestos wrote:The language (lingua) I'm talking about is the colloquial one, (fast-)spoken in the streets, not the one you see written in the books.

Who talked about books? I rarely hear anyone talking like that.

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Postby Kirk » 2005-08-02, 7:15

FNORD wrote:
Hefestos wrote:The language (lingua) I'm talking about is the colloquial one, (fast-)spoken in the streets, not the one you see written in the books.

Who talked about books? I rarely hear anyone talking like that.


This is an interesting little debate. Thanks for the information and comments, Hefestos and Fnord. Of course, now I'm slightly confused--I wonder what other Brazilians have to say about this. All I think I can reasonably conclude at this point is that pronouns are used more often than in Spanish. If I knew nothing about Portuguese or its history, I would guess that its stronger preference for pronouns might be indicative of the fact there is less morphological distinction on the verbs, but that's just a guess.

Also, I'm interested primarily in spoken norms, as I'm already aware of the distinctions in verbs for the written language--I just wonder how much that corresponds to spoken norms.

This could also possibly be an issue of dialectal diffrerence, couldn't it?
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'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.

I eat prescriptivists for breakfast.

maɪ nemz kʰɜ˞kʰ n̩ aɪ laɪk̚ fɨˈnɛ̞ɾɪ̞ks

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Postby Psi-Lord » 2005-08-02, 8:16

svenska84 wrote:This is an interesting little debate.

Interesting indeed, but (as you may guess) discussions regarding such points of the language can often get even more heated than the English threads on grammar we've had lately.

svenska84 wrote:Also, I'm interested primarily in spoken norms, as I'm already aware of the distinctions in verbs for the written language--I just wonder how much that corresponds to spoken norms.

For me, it's one of those points with which most people will disagree between themselves. If I talk to a close friend ignoring the distinction between singular and plural as Hefestos pointed, it's okay; if a university professor, the manager of an important company, a lecturer or someone people usually expect to be more educated address his students, subordinates etc. speaking like that, chances are he'll be looked down on. You're quite unlikely to get a job in e.g. a call centre if you speak like that, and you'll probably never see that being used in writing even by educated speakers who actually speak like that. Full lack of agreement is probably one of the most stigmatised points in the language, and speakers will often be seen as uneducated or second class in quite a few situations.

It doesn't happen on its own either. I mean, if you do that with verbs, but not with nouns and adjectives, you'll probably sound a bit funny. From my personal experience, people who have this as their natural norm will also have a much larger number of such popular / colloquial / non-normative elements in their speech. In a way, it's like this would be the current evolutionary stage of Brazilian Portuguese¹ if it wasn't for normative grammar and formal education.

svenska84 wrote:This could also possibly be an issue of dialectal diffrerence, couldn't it?

That too, but I believe it's not so easy to define it, as it also seems to depend on speech level, environment, context, formal education, even personal preferences.

¹ I always had the impression that's also something that happens more often a central region of Brazil (São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso do Sul, Goiás), and not throughout the country, but I may be wrong about it.
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Postby Kirk » 2005-08-02, 8:27

Psi-Lord wrote:
svenska84 wrote:This is an interesting little debate.

Interesting indeed, but (as you may guess) discussions regarding such points of the language can often get even more heated than the English threads on grammar we've had lately.

svenska84 wrote:Also, I'm interested primarily in spoken norms, as I'm already aware of the distinctions in verbs for the written language--I just wonder how much that corresponds to spoken norms.

For me, it's one of those points with which most people will disagree between themselves. If I talk to a close friend ignoring the distinction between singular and plural as Hefestos pointed, it's okay; if a university professor, the manager of an important company, a lecturer or someone people usually expect to be more educated address his students, subordinates etc. speaking like that, chances are he'll be looked down on. You're quite unlikely to get a job in e.g. a call centre if you speak like that, and you'll probably never see that being used in writing even by educated speakers who actually speak like that. Full lack of agreement is probably one of the most stigmatised points in the language, and speakers will often be seen as uneducated or second class in quite a few situations.

It doesn't happen on its own either. I mean, if you do that with verbs, but not with nouns and adjectives, you'll probably sound a bit funny. From my personal experience, people who have this as their natural norm will also have a much larger number of such popular / colloquial elements in their speech. In a way, it's like this would be the current evolutionary stage of Brazilian Portuguese¹ if it wasn't for normative grammar and formal education.

svenska84 wrote:This could also possibly be an issue of dialectal diffrerence, couldn't it?

That too, but I believe it's not so easy to define it, as it also seems to depend on speech level, environment, context, formal education, even personal preferences.

¹ I always had the impression that's also something that happens more often a central region of Brazil (São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso do Sul, Goiás), and not throughout the country, but I may be wrong about it.


Thanks for your comments! You explained the situation well--I can think of some parallels with English as spoken here, where it's possibe even the most educated people do it but it depends on context, and it would probably sound funny in a more formal setting. Makes sense. Also, features like these may often be stigmatized yet still relatively common--to the point that many people may do it and not even realize it, or at least not realize how often they do it. At least with English (and I would assume this would apply to Portuguese or any other language with written standards, too) people tend to believe they speak exactly as they write or often that they speak "just like the newscasters" when in fact neither is the case.

I remember in my beginning linguistics class that my professor asked the class to raise their hands if they ever used [ɪn] instead of [ɪŋ] (actually, [iŋ] here because of front-vowel raising before [ŋ], but that's another story) in the "-ing" form of verbs, and very few people raised their hands, yet everyone does it sometimes in informal speech (where it's not very stigmatized) it's just that most people are unaware of it.

Back to pronouns in BP, as I said before my guess would be that the higher frequency of pronouns would have to be caused by something and not just be a random development--and that would most probably be the likelihood of some differences in verbal morphology to be dropped or neutralized. If we take a look at Spanish or Italian, as far as I know, I can't think of any dialects of either language (tho they could exist theoretically) where distinctions in verbal morphology are dropped, thus Spanish and Italian almost never use pronouns before verbs unless there's a specific reason to distinguish people, which is relatively rare. Also, even the loss of a couple or few morphological forms may prompt the usage of pronouns in all cases, as may be seen in French historically. In most cases, spoken French has 4 verbal forms which sound the same and 2 which don't, and pronouns are used even for the morphologically unique pronouns.

je mange [mɑ̃ʒ]
tu manges [mɑ̃ʒ]
il mange [mɑ̃ʒ]


nous mangeons [mɑ̃ʒɔ̃]
vous mangez [mɑ̃ʒe]
ils mangent [mɑ̃ʒ]

So, I wouldn't find it surprising that if a couple or few had been dropped in spoken Portuguese, that pronoun usage all around would increase as a result.

Anyway, a fascinating topic--I had been unaware of this phenomenon till recently, as my experiences with Portuguese are usually with the written language, which is as we all know not necessarily the best representation of informal speech, even of the most educated people.
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'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.

I eat prescriptivists for breakfast.

maɪ nemz kʰɜ˞kʰ n̩ aɪ laɪk̚ fɨˈnɛ̞ɾɪ̞ks

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Postby Stan » 2005-10-09, 16:58

Olá, me chamo Stancel e tenho 16 anos. Sou dos Estados Unidos. Eu falo espanhol e inglês.

dançar
eu danço
você dança
ele/ela dança
nós dançamos
vocês dançam
eles /elas dançam

andar
eu ando
você anda
ele/ela anda
nós andamos
vocês andam
eles /elas andam

correr
eu corro
você corre
ele/ela corre
nós corremos
vocês correm
eles /elas correm

saber
eu sei
você sabe
ele/ela sabe
nós sabemos
vocês sabem
eles /elas sabem

beber
eu bebo
você bebe
ele/ela bebe
nós bebemos
vocês bebem
eles /elas bebem

entender
eu entendo
você entende
ele/ela entende
nós entendemos
vocês entendem
eles /elas entendem

sair
eu saio
você sai
ele/ela sai
nós saímos
vocês saem
eles/elas saem
if I was President,
I'd get elected on Friday
assassinated on Saturday
buried on Sunday

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Postby Stan » 2005-10-09, 20:28

The grammar looks interesting :wink: , but the pronunciation :shock: too many nasalized vowels

will learning Portuguese mess up my Spanish? I don't want to be nasalizing my Spanish 8)

does anyone know any good resources for helping with Portuguese pronunciation?

why are the end letters of "tarde" and "noite" shown as silent in your transcription Hefestos? it says "[bo6’taGdZ]" and "[bo6’noj.tS]" , shouldn't it be "[bo6’taGdZi] and "[bo6’noj.tSi]"?

Obrigado. :wink:
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I'd get elected on Friday

assassinated on Saturday

buried on Sunday

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Postby bender » 2005-10-09, 22:10

Stan wrote:why are the end letters of "tarde" and "noite" shown as silent in your transcription Hefestos? it says "[bo6’taGdZ]" and "[bo6’noj.tS]" , shouldn't it be "[bo6’taGdZi] and "[bo6’noj.tSi]"?

Obrigado. :wink:


I think Hefestos won't mind if I try to answer this question.

For him, in his dialect, the final unstressed vowel [i] might disappear after [dZ] and [tS]. "[bo6’taGdZi] and "[bo6’noj.tSi]" are closer to the standard anyway.
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Postby Stan » 2005-11-13, 17:03

no more lessons?

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Postby alois » 2005-11-14, 2:37

I plan to take over them again as my vacation begins (perhaps December 15th or so).
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Postby culúrien » 2005-12-29, 18:15

I want to learn portuguese! I attempted it before, but I would like to give it a go. I´ll start from the beginning.

Quiero aprender portugués! Antes de lo intenté , pero me gustaría aprenderlo! Comenzaré del comienzo.
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Postby culúrien » 2005-12-29, 19:07

Of course, I won't be studying it seriously. But for a fun distraction why not.

Claro que si, no lo estudiaré seriamente, pero para una diversión, por qué no?
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Postby nettchelobek1 » 2006-05-31, 6:24

a fun distraction? you study almost all Unilang languages, are there just a fun distraction? :shock:
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Postby Dminor » 2006-07-01, 22:55

Am I just being an idiot, or does Timon say "Hatuna matata"? :para:
काव्यशास्त्रविनोदेन कालो गच्छति धीमताम् । व्यसनेन च मूर्खाणां निद्रया कलहेन वा


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