The Strange Sounds of Brazil

Four months before I left London (back in 2009) I started taking weekly Spanish lessons in preparation for a five month trip to South America. My teacher was Ivette, a lovely Chilean woman and although 16 lessons isn’t a lot, she managed to get me to a reasonable standard so that when I arrived in Argentina I was able to order beers, follow directions and make very rudimentary conversation.

The next four months brought adventure, misadventure and discovery. I made my way through Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia before deciding that five months wasn’t going to be enough. I tore up my return ticket and continued my journey through Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua (where I met the woman who later became my wife), Guatemala and finally to Mexico.

The extreme southerly and northerly points of my trip – Spanish all the way!

 

The distance between my most northerly and southerly points is more than 5,000 miles (8,000km) and although there were many, many changes along the way, the one constant was the language. Of course, there were plenty of differences in accent, slang and dialect. For example, most of the Spanish speaking world would pronounce a double L like the English Y, so that Parilla (the word for grill) sounds like ‘pa-REE-ya’. But in Buenos Aires I discovered that Argentinians say something closer to ‘pa-REE-zha‘. It might not seem like a big difference, but it was enough that my Chilean-style pronunciation was greeted with confusion.

Despite these regional variations, the underlying language remained essentially the same, allowing me to build on the start I had made in London. By the time I reached Mexico, 8 months into my trip, I had reached a level that could be described as conversational.

Then I went to Brazil.

My first glimpse of the vast Amazon rainforest as I flew from Bogotá in central Colombia to Leticia, a remote border town where Colombia, Peru and Brazil meet.

When drawing up my initial travel plans I had made a conscious decision to avoid Brazil. With only 5 months (or so I thought) to travel, it seemed intimidating – too huge, too difficult. More than anything my trepidation stemmed from the fact that I knew nothing of Portuguese other than that it was supposed to be much harder than Spanish.

Surveying the massive Amazon River from the ground. This was a fitting introduction to the vast scale of Brazil and the many wonders that lay ahead.

 

Initially I was lulled into a false sense of calm – I picked up a newspaper and discovered that written Portuguese looks very similar to Spanish – great! However, my relief evaporated when I got into a taxi. I couldn’t understand a thing the driver was saying and he couldn’t understand me! Furthermore, I found I had no idea how to make many of the noises that seemed to be integral to Brazilian Portuguese – weird nasal vowel sounds that are nothing like the crisp Spanish to which I had grown accustomed.
Many people describe Brazilian Portuguese as sounding like Russian. I remember thinking this myself at first, but now I can’t really hear it – perhaps I have stopped hearing the language as just sounds and now hear the words. To be honest, my Portuguese is pretty awful – I’ve been here for a year and have been taking lessons for 6 months and really I should be better. But it’s not an easy language – in fact many Brazilians will tell you that most Brazilians make mistakes, especially when writing!

Below is a short clip of a fellow estrangeiro (a foreigner, in this case a US journalist) speaking about his experience of learning Portuguese and visiting Brazil for the first time. I hope Portuguese speakers will find the whole clip interesting, but for the rest of you, skip forward to the 3 minute mark to hear him discuss the pronunciation of “Copacabana” – I’m sure it comes as no surprise that Barry Manilow wasn’t even close! Give it a try, it’s tricky!

For more practice, click here to listen to one of Brazil’s favourite singers, Caetano Veloso, singing Superbacana – Copacabana gets plenty of mentions…

As well as the strange sounds of Brazilian Portuguese, I have also been baffled by plenty of words and exclamations that Brazilians use everyday. Sometimes I will have to halt a conversation to ask for clarification on a particular noise made, on other occasions there will be a strange code/phrase written in an email that requires an explanation. Here are a few of my favourites – click the links (in pink) to hear a Carioca (native of Rio) say the word:

  • Aiii![EYE!] – Portuguese version of the English “Oww!”.
  • A-Ching!  – [a-CHING!] – Brazilians don’t say “Atchoo!” when they sneeze – they say “Aching!”.
  • Ai-Ai… – [EYE-eye…] – This is said with a shrug of the shoulders and a disconsolate sigh of resignation as if to say “Ah well” or “Hey ho”. When to use: The horse you bet on comes in last.
  • Caraca! – [ca-RACK-a] – An exclamation of surprise or disbelief. Other favourites are “Caramba!” and “Nossa!”.
  • Êêêê![Ehhhhh!] – An exclamation of excitement/happiness.
  • Kkk… – [written only] – Happily this has nothing to do with the guys in pointy hats, this one is used in an email/chat to respond to something you found hilarious, simulating laughter. When to use: “Bruno got so drunk last night he jumped up on the bar and danced like a chicken” – “Kkk!”
  • Pombas![POM-bush!] – An exclamation of surprise which literally means “Doves!”.
  • rs – [written only] – This is shorthand for riso, meaning laughter. It is the Brazilian equivalent to “lol”, to indicate laughter or joke.
  • Uhul![woo-HOO!] – Victorious exclamation which sounds just the same as Homer Simpson’s catchphrase. But the way they spell it shows how differently letters are pronounced in Portuguese.
  • Uaauu! – [Wow!] – Again, this sounds just the same as the English “Wow!” and is used in the same way, but would you know it if you saw it written down?

Finally I thought I’d leave you with four words that have quite different meanings. “Peace”, “Country”, “Parents” and “Breads”: Paz, País, Pais,  Paes. Click here to hear all four phrases in order. Hopefully this will give you an idea of the challenge I face as I continue my attempts to understand the strange sounds of Brazil.

7 replies
  1. carina
    carina says:

    I went to Portuga last week, some days at the Algarve (Lagos) and five days in Lisbon. I thought I'd proudly make use of me Portunol (Prtuguese aquired in two weeks in Brazil – my Spanish once was but is not anywhere near to conversational anymore) and asked for my room keys in a sound which is something like "treshvaintsh". The receptionist just looked and me and said in this complaining tone: "that was Brazilian Portuguese!" Fail again … ;-)

    Reply
  2. Tom Le
    Tom Le says:

    Hi Carina, ha ha! Pronunciation is a minefield isn't it? When I mention a word in Portuguese on the blog I try to include a phonetic version in [square brackets] but have already been scolded for sounding like a Carioca! Actually I took it as a compliment! :)

    I'm really looking forward to visiting Portugal one day but I'm sure I'll have people shaking their heads at me and telling me I'm saying it wrong!

    Reply
  3. Simon and Eleanor
    Simon and Eleanor says:

    English has quite a lot of homophones as well: peas/piece/peace, flue/flew/flu, right/rite/wright/write. I guess they're (they're/their/there) a nightmare for people learning either language.

    Reply
  4. Tom Le
    Tom Le says:

    Ha ha! Yes, very good point – and even some native English speakers (speaking from experience here!) have to pause occasionally when deciding whether to use "who's" or "whose".

    For me I think producing those strange sounds is the tricky thing. But again, that knife cuts both ways. I have noticed most Brazilians find the "th" sound in "thief" very tricky.

    Reply
  5. Phil
    Phil says:

    Great post and I totally agree that Portuguese is harder than Spanish, mainly because of the pronunciation. The nasals are tricky, and I had a terrible time with the sound of “an.” My very first Pimsleur lesson had the word “americano” and I kept wondering why the native speaker was mispronouncing the “-cano” part, since I had the Spanish pronunciation so firmly rooted in my mind. I honestly thought it was just her own idiosyncratic pronunciation, so I didn’t try to emulate it until I heard other speakers pronouncing “an” the same way in words like “grande,” “banco,” “antes,” etc.

    I love hearing Portuguese spoken by a native, or a proficient student of the language, but I think it’s harder to pronounce correctly than any of the other major Romance languages, including French. For someone who has learned Spanish first, there’s a lot of pronunciation “unlearning” that you have to do in order to pronounce Portuguese correctly. I still mix the sounds sometimes :(

    Reply
    • tomlemes
      tomlemes says:

      Hey Phil, I still struggle to say Copacabana properly – it’s that “bana” at the end. I sometimes practice it over and over as I walk down the street on my own – people mutter “gringo louco” and hurry away! ;)

      The relationship between Spanish and Portuguese is interesting. I’m sure that knowing some Spanish helped me learn numbers and the letters of the alphabet in Portuguese, but as you say, there are plenty of things to unlearn too.

      Reply
  6. Marcos
    Marcos says:

    Here’s something that might actually help you pronounce the ã sound:

    Coh-Pah-Kah-Buh-Nah

    Notice that you pronounce Buh the same way as Duh

    ;)

    Reply

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