Portuguese speakers David Shepherd Distribution BRAZIL, PORTUGAL, ANGOLA, MOZAMBIQUE, GUINEA- BISSAU, CAPE VERDE ISLANDS, SAN TOME E PRINCIPE, Goa, Damao, Diu, East Timor, Macau. Introduction Portuguese is a Romance language closely related to Spanish. Educated speakers of European Portuguese (henceforth EP) have little trouble understanding each other; this variety also serves as the model for the lingua franca of Goa, Macau and the former African colonies. The prestige dialect in Portugal is that of the educated classes from the Coimbra-Lisbon region. Portuguese is also the native language of approximately 97% of Brazilians. Despite its size, Brazil shows few major variations in dialect in comparison with most European coun- tries. The prestige variety of Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth BP) is that of Rio de Janeiro, The contrasts between European and Brazilian Portuguese are very much greater than those between British, American or Australian varieties of English. The pronunciation of the two varieties is very different; there are numerous divergences of vocabulary (for example, EP has more words of Arabic origin than BP, which has borrowed an increasingly large number of words from Indian languages and American English); and there are some grammatical differences. Despite these points of contrast, the two varieties are mutually compre- hensible. Phonology General The English and Portuguese vowel systems are quite different. While English has twelve pure vowels, BP has nine (EP eight plus one schwa /al), all of which can be nasalised. 113,Portuguese speakers Among the features of Portuguese which give rise to a Portuguese accent in English are: = Frequent nasal vowels = The insertion of intrusive vowels between consonants (especially in BP). = For BP speakers ally, syllable-timed rather than stress-timed delivery, with over-emphatic pronunciation of most unstressed sy lables. Vowels t I |e |« |e! jal | ot ai] D/O} sav} au | Ia ala ur A|3r }9 e9)09 ava Shaded phonemes have equivalents or near equivalents in Portugues and should therefore be perceived and articulated without great diffi culty, although some confusions may still arise. Unshaded phonemes may cause problems. For detailed comments, sce below. fiz! tends to be pronounced too short, and is confused with //: rich for reach; hit for heat, etc. 2. /e/ is confused with /e/: head and had. 3. /a:/ is shortened and confused with /ze/: aunt and ant; can’t and cant. 4. /v/ is confused with /o:/: caught for cot, or spot for sport; or even with /a/: hut for hot. 5S. fof is confused with /ui/: fool for full. 6. /A/ may be pronounced as /e/: lack for luck, or even, because of orthographic interference, as /ux/: mood for mud. 7. Unstressed vowels are often given their full value, especially by BP speakers: Ann for an; thee for the. On the other hand, unstressed vowels at the ends of words may become whispered and almost inaudible: sit for city; cough for coffees ‘offs’ for office.Portuguese speakers Diphthongs ‘There are fewer diphthongs in Portuguese than in English. The greatest problems arise with /19/ and /eo/, which tend to be confused: bear and hair. Shaded phonemes have equivalents or near equivalents in Portuguese, and should therefore be perceived and articulated without great diffi- culty, although some confusions may still arise, Unshaded phonemes may cause problems. For detailed comments, see below. 1. The ‘dark’ // in final position or before a consonant is often pronounced as a vowel similar to /u/: ‘botiu’ for bottle, and ‘heeoo’ for heel. . Ipl, /k/ and /t/ are unaspirated initially in Portuguese, and may be confused with /b/, /g/ and /d/: peg and beg; Kate and gate; tin and din. . Initial and medial /t/ and /d/ are both pronounced quite forcefully and may be confused: tale and dale; latter and ladder. But when followed by /ir/, /\/ or /e/, they are often pronounced as affricates, almost like /t{/ and /d3/: ‘cheam’ for team; Jean for dean. 4. There is also confusion between /t/ (a short flap) and /1/ (a short trill): better and bearer; heating and hearing. 5. Vowels before final /m/, /n/ and /y/ are nasalised, often to the point where the final consonant audible. 6. An initial /1/ is an unvoiced will or (BP) fricative; in BP learners it may sound similar to a strong initial b: red and head; right and height. 7. Final /2/ does not occur in Portuguese, and may be replaced by /s/ (rice for rise) or (with EP speakers) by /{/ (bash for has). 8. /0/ and /0/ are realised either as /s/ and /z/, or as /t/ and /d/, leading to confusions such as sinker or tinker or ‘dinker’ for thinker, and breed or breeze for breathe. 115Portuguese speakers 9. Aff and /d3/ are pronounced /f/ and /5/, leading to confusions between, for instance, chair and share or pledger and pleasure. 10. Initial /h/ has no equivalent in Portuguese and is either omitted (ear for hear, as for has), or inserted unnecessarily because of over- compensation: ‘High ham is oldest friend’ for I am his oldest friend. 11, Few consonants can occur finally in Portuguese, and so a vowel is often added: ‘parkie’ for parks ‘cabbie’ for cab. Clusters between words may be simplified: ‘widis’ for with this. Consonant clusters he range of consonant clusters is much wider in English than in Portuguese, often causing the insertion of extra vowels by Portuguese speakers to ‘a (‘closis’ for clothes). BP speakers tend to find particularly difficult initial clusters with s (‘estream’, ‘estudy’), while EP speakers tend to simplify final clusters. Influence of spelling on pronunciation Spelling and pronunciation are very closely related in Portuguese. Mistakes will be made at all levels of competence. A common error is to pronounce the letters g (before i or e) and j as /3/ in words like general or jury, by analogy with Portuguese gelo, caju etc. Rhythm and stress EP is a heavily stress-timed language. Speakers of EP find it reasonably easy to perceive and produce stresses correctly in English, but their pronunciation of unstressed syllables may be excessively reduced. BP syllable-timed, like Spanish, and this leads to difficulties of the following kind for BP speakers: — inappropriate stress in long words and compounds, e.g. *poli'tical demonstra'tors, *a telephone ‘box; *a tea ‘cup. — inappropriate stress on auxiliary verbs, articles, conjunctions, pre- positions, etc., suggesting an unintended emphasis *T saw them yesterday. * They were happy. *It was his book, not his bag | wanted. — Perceiving unstressed words and syllables. 116Intonation Declarative sentences are given a marked low fall, often making the last word inaudible. All English question tags tend to be pronounced with a rising tune, irrespective of meaning. Juncture There is a tendency, where there are doubled consonants, to pronounce both and add an intrusive vowel, for example in this stop, at that time. Orthography and punctuation Portuguese speakers have considerable difficulty with English spelling. At all levels there is a tendency to represent English sounds (learned orally) with their standard Portuguese spelling forms. The following areas of error are typical: 1. All words ending in consonants (except I, m, s, z and r) tend to be given a final vowel sound. This vowel is often included when writing English. *She is a cookie. . Where the phonemes /1/ or /ix/ occur: *‘Inglish’ for English *‘clined’ for cleaned *I have bin. 3. With the diphthong /at/: *traying’ for trying *laying tor lying *She is dating a ‘nayce’ gay. 4, With the phoneme /f/: *‘finiched’ for finished *‘choes’ for shoes 5. Where words are similar in both languages, beginners will tend to use the Portuguese spelling; this often leads to words being written with a single instead of a double consonant (eg. “dificult, *apropriate, *eficient). 6. Adjectives of nationality do not have capital letters in Portuguese: *portuguese *english wv 117Grammar General ‘The Portuguese grammatical system has much in common with English and many other western European languages. There are similar ‘parts of speech’; Portuguese adds ans to plural nouns, and has definite and indefinite articles, regular and irregular verbs, auxiliary and modal verbs, active and passive forms, and past, present and future tenses. ‘There are perfect verb forms, although the present perfect has a more limited application in Portuguese, and informal BP does not have perfect progressive tenses. Portuguese is inflected in much the same way as French, Italian and Spanish, which means that the word order can be somewhat freer than in English. Questions and negatives; auxiliaries 1. In Portuguese, question forms are marked by intonation, and not by the use of auxiliaries (there is no equivalent of auxiliary do) or (in ‘yes/no questions) by changes of word order: You know John? He is married? 2. Overgeneralisation of do causes mistakes in indirect questions: *Please tell me what did he say. “She couldn’t explain where he does work. 3. The negative form in Portuguese is marked by placing the word ndo before the main or auxiliary verb, independent of tense: *He no would like it. 4. The double negative is used in Portuguese: “He doesn't know nothing. *T haven't seen him nowhere. 5. Short answers to questions in Portuguese are formed by repeating the verb of the question: “Do you like dancing?’ **Yes, like.’ or **Like.’ 6. There is only one question tag in Portuguese, namely nao 6 (verdade)? (literally Is it not truth?). The equivalent, isn’t it2, is used indis- criminately in English. *They want to go at seven o'clock, isn’t it? There is In BP the verbs haver and ter (the formal and colloquial equivalents of to have) are used to express there is/are etc. EP speakers use only haver always in the singular. 118Portuguese speakers * There arehwere a man from Scotland next door. * Had lots of people at yesterday's match. * Has wonderful beaches in Rio. *Exists a lot of problems. Time, tense and aspect A, Pas 1c Portuguese has simple past, present perfect, and past perfect tense forms. 1. Like English, Portuguese uses the present perfect for recent actions and events involving the present. The weather has been terrible (lately). T haven't seen him. 2. But where the equivalent of already can be added, a past tense is common: *[ already finished the exercise. 3. Where the equivalent of ever can be added, the simple past is used: *Did you (ever) go to London? (for Have you (ever) been to London?) 4. To express the idea of duration, the simple present is used with ha = it is): *It is years that I don’t see him. 5. The presence of an adverbial referring to a finished or unfinished time-span has no relevance to tense choice in Portuguese: *Thave been to Rome last spring. *[ didn’t visit my mother this week. 6. There is no present perfect progressive in spoken Portuguese. The simple present or present progressive are used in most equivalent situations: *L amt here since five o'clock. *Lam studying English for five years. *She is living in Manchester since 1981. B. Present time 1. BP has two commonly-used present tense forms: one roughly equi- valent to the English simple present (e.g. Ele percebe — He under- stands), and the other equivalent to the English present progressive (e.g. Ele esta trabalhando — He is working). Problems arise, however, with verbs (mainly stative verbs) which take the latter construction in Portuguese but not in English. *She is not understanding. 419Portuguese speakers 2. EP forms its present progressive form with estar a + infinitive (literally ‘to be at to do something’). *"What are you to do now?" ‘Lam to read the newspaper.’ Since this structure is used with both stative and active verbs, EP speakers, too, may confuse simple and progressive forms in English. 3. Portuguese can also use the equivalent of go as a present progressive auxiliary, leading students to misuse going 10. ‘What's your son doing now?” **He’s going to look for a job.’ (for ‘He’s looking for a job.’) C. Future time Students may use future verb forms after conjunctions of time: *T will be there when you will need me. ‘The future tense is used in Portuguese more often than in Englis express guesses and suppositions. There's the door. * Will it be Peter? *How many hours will she work a day? (for How many hours do you suppose she works a day?) Modal verbs Where English uses cart to talk about skills, Portuguese uses only the main verb: *He swims. (for He can swim) The English use of a special form (without fo) of the infinitive after modals has no Portuguese equivalent: “He must to do it now. The complex distinctions between must and should, must and have to, can and may and so on are as difficult for Portuguese speakers as for other learners. Conditionals Because of developments in modern Portuguese grammar, especially in the spoken language, students may use parallel verb forms in the two halves of conditional sentences. *If Lsee him, | tell him. “If Lwent to London, | visited the British Museum. “If you had started on time you hadn't missed the train. 120Relatives Portuguese has one word que corresponding to relative who and which. *1 spoke to the man which seemed to be in charge. “It’s a ring who belonged to nvy grandmother. Learners have difficulty understanding and using English clauses with zero relative pronoun (like The car he bought broke down in the first week. The passive voice In general the passive functions in a very similar way in Portuguese and English. Elementary students have the usual problems in constructing the forms correctly. More complex structures may cause difficulty: * Your application is considered. (for . . . being considered) *The meeting has postponed. (for . . . has been postponed) Portuguese sometimes uses reflexive verbs where English uses passives: * English speaks itself here. In Portuguese the indirect object of an active verb cannot, as in English, function as the subject of a passive verb. Learners therefore have difficulty with sentences like I was given a watch. Causative uses of have and get do not have Portuguese equivalents: He told someone to paint his house. (for He had/got his house painted.) Non-finite forms 1. There is no equivalent in Portuguese for the substantival use of the -ing form (gerund). The infinitive is used instead: *Do you mind to wait for a few minutes? *T'm tired to listen to her complaints. *She stopped to work at five o'clock after to finish her report. 2. Portuguese infinitives are often preceded by a preposition such as de or a. In cases where a Portuguese infinitive has no preposition, students may drop to before the English equivalent. *1 tried telephone you. *She promised pay everything. 3. The English ‘object + infinitive’ structure does not have a Portuguese equivalent: *She wants that you phone her. (for She wants you to phone her.)Word order 1. Portuguese word order is generally freer than English, and it is common to move a non-subject topic element to the front of the senten (*) Cakes I like! 2. The verb follows the question word in indirect speech in Portu- guese: *L wonder where is your office. *Lasked who was her friend. 3. Adverbs and adverbial phrases can separate a verb from its object: *[ like very much samba. *He wanted a lot to go to England. *[ visited on Sunday afternoon her in her bouse. 4, Declarative word order is used in exclamations with como ( = how): *How he is clever! 5. Personal pronouns may be placed before, after or between elements of the verb, depending somewhat on the variety of Portuguese: *He me explained the theory. (BP) *He explained me the theory. (EP) *T asked what to do to him. (tor Lasked him what to do.) 6. EP can use pseudo-cleft sentences introduced by Quem (= Who). * Who gave me the present was John. 7. Adjectives follow nouns in Portuguese: *Tt was a problem very difficult. 8. The difference in noun phrase word order can lead to misunder- standings: administrative activities may be understood as adminis- tration of activities; few moving parts can be understood as little movement of the parts. 9. Phrasal verbs do not occur in Portuguese; the word order with pronoun objects causes problems: The heating’s still on. *Can you turn off it? 10. Prepositions cannot be detached from their objects in Portuguese. This may lead learners to use over-formal or unnatural question structures: With whom did she go? Relative and passive structures like the following are also found difficult: I hated the people I was working with. He can’t be relied on. 122Articles and countability 1. In Portuguese the definite article is used with the following: —nouns used ina general sense: * The bees produce the hon * The life is difficult. proper nouns: * The Paolo is a friend of the Maria’s parents. — names of meal “He didn’t eat at the breakfast, the lunch or at the dinner. the equivalents of next and last: *I hope to meet her the next Sunday. *T saw him the last weekend. the names of streets *T bought it in the Oxford Street. words for ‘institutions’ used in a general sense, where prefers a possessive pronoun or no arti *to go to the church / the school / the bed * in the hospital 2. Some typical mistakes reflecting Portuguese expressions without articles: *He arrived on tenth of May. *to have right to do something *to feel need to do something *to have strength to do something *You have reason. (meaning You are right.) english 3. Some uncountable English nouns have countable equivalents in Portuguese: *Lasked him for an advice and he gave me many informations about furnitures. 4. After the equivalents of much, how much and so much, Portuguese can use the uncountable. * We have much problem this year. “Thad never seen so much tree. gular form of a countable noun, as if it was Determiners 1. There are no equivalents for any or the an in another: *That does not make difference. * We visited him in other town. 2, In Portuguese, the equivalent of all can be used with singular countable nouns, and there is no equivalent for eacl: or every, or for compounds such as everything: 123*We went to see him all Tuesday. (for . . . every Tuesday) * He understands all. 3. Articles and other determiners are commonly used before pos- sessives, especially in EP: *She wanted to borrow the my car. *One my uncle is a solicitor. *Do you know this my cousin?