Within the Portuguese language, there are some similarities and differences from English. Both languages contain consonants and vowels, however, the phonetics of some of these letters differ from each other, because of certain accents and placements within words. In regards to vowels, the English language has twelve phonemes while the Portuguese language contains seven phonemes. This essentially means the English language is challenging for Portuguese speakers and other non-native The Portuguese language also distinguishes between vowel and consonant sounds, so there are twenty consonant sounds. While we look at the English alphabet’s vowels, we see only five letters, and we also see five letters in Portuguese, however, depending on the phonology, these letters may sound differently. This is what is meant by phonemes: different sounds that mean something different depending on the way you pronounce them.
In the Portuguese language, the different pronunciations are typically clear as long as you know phonology rules, such as which syllable each letter is in, as well as the what each accent does to change the sound of the letter. For example, if one were to say ‘brigade’ in English, the ‘-de’ at the end is an alveolar plosive sound. In contrast, in the Portuguese language, if one were to say ‘unidade,’ they would pronounce the second ‘d’ as a ‘j’ sound and include the ‘e’ as well. However, the first ‘d’ still is a plosive alveolar sound. This is because the second ‘d’ is part of the last syllable followed by an ‘e’ so it is pronounced this way. In my opinion, the English language is much more vague in terms of how letters are pronounced, because there seems to not be a consistent pattern in phonology along with many exceptions to the rules.
The Portuguese language has open and closed vowels for the letters a, e, and o which differ slightly to the English-speakers ear, however, once one speaks the language enough, they are able to distinguish between the two. By working with Dixon and Gabi, I have become much more attuned to such discrepancies. For example, the open ‘ó’ sounds like the ‘o’ in ‘off’ while the closed ‘ô’ sounds slightly more terminated. Dixon showed that if you say ‘o’ and keep your mouth open, that is the open vowel and if you say ‘o’ and end with a closed mouth, that is the closed ‘o’. Makes sense, right? The Portuguese language also uses a lot of softer, more nasally sounds. The harsher sounds in English and less so in Spanish, are even more softened in Portuguese.
The letters k, w, and y are also fairly uncommon in native Portuguese language words. Words that contain these three letters are typically only in nonnative-accustomed words. For example, the word ‘bracket’ in English is also ‘bracket’ in Portuguese, and the word means the same, it is only pronounced with a Portuguese accent. Gabi’s mom is a dentist in São Paulo and said the word was taken from English, because they did not have a word for ‘bracket’ in terms of braces. This is an example of the adopted words containing either k, w, and y.
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