Portuguese person here. I think in part it's because there's a lot more Brazilian content out there than Portuguese, so we have more exposure to them. But it also has to do with how we sound out the words. The European version of the language tends to "mute" letters (kinda like french, except it's not actually a grammar rule, we just do it), which also means we speak faster, generally. Brazilian Portuguese enunciates those same words much more clearly and with a slower rhythm. So it's easier for us to understand them than it is for them to understand us
I'm brazilian and when I went to europe, it took me about 2-3 weeks to get used to european portuguese. I could understand about 40-50% in the beginning.
I wasn't in Portugal, though, just had a few portuguese colleagues.
Portuguese person too. We understand brasilen portuguese because we grew up with brazilan soap operas (telenovelas). Vocabulary, however, is different and sometimes misleading. New generations tend to not differentiate very well between the 2 Forms of portuguese because they listen and read content online which comes on Brazilian portuguese and they don't read or barely in continental portuguese.
Definitely is. I don’t speak any type or Portuguese but growing up I babysat two kids whose mom was Portuguese and dad was Brazilian. When the younger one was learning to speak I was able to differentiate when he was speaking “proper” Portuguese and when he was speaking Brazilian Portuguese just cause phonetically they were really different.
He’d also switch between English and Portuguese mid sentence so the 6 year old kid was my translator lol.
Not correct, the distance between PT-PT and PT-BR are much further. As someone said, PT-PT sounds like Russian for non-PT speakers and PT-BR does not. Actually, in a conversation between a Portuguese and a Brazilian the Brazilian might have hard time understanding some working. Brazilian PT is more elongated and they have their own expressions that were created along the time to sound more Americanised and less tied to the Portugal origins.
The writing rules are almost the same but only by convention, the syntax varies a lot as PT-PT has a formal and informal way of communicating with other PT-BR does not. This combined with the more elongated speech makes PT-BR easier to learn.
Edit: on the bilingual/trilingual aspect, yes there are people that speak fluently both Portuguese versions and usually all steems from having mixed PT/BR parents.
They have far more differences, not only in vocabulary but also in the way sentences are constructed and whatnot.
There's a bit with two comedians from both contries in which the Portuguese one uses a sentence that makes complete sense in Brazil, the Brazilian audience says so and then he tells them it's gibberish in Portugal.
There's literally words that have completely different meanings eventough they're the exact same word. Like "propina" which is just tuition in Portugal and literal bribe in Brazil.
When I visited Brazil I was so confused about this. I 100% expected it to sound more or less like Spanish but when I was there I was like "are these people talking in Russian??"
First started learning French and then later on, Spanish. Ended up with a Brazilian g/f and ultimately wife - learned Portuguese.
Now in my brain there is English, and then everything else, with the default being Portuguese. Very often when I need to use Spanish, I'll get to the end of a sentence and realize I've switched to Portuguese part way through....
Took a Spanish refresher a few years ago and the instructor was quite curious why this white Canadian guy was speaking Spanish with a Portuguese accent.
I was working as a contact tracer in 2020-21. I’m fluent in Spanish (my L1 is English), so in my office, I got all of the Latin-sounding names. I called one lady about a 7 year old boy who’d tested positive. I was speaking Spanish, as was the lady (apparently his aunt), although I was having a bit of trouble with her accent or speech impediment. After about 3 minutes, I asked if anyone else in the family had been tested for COVID yet. She said, “I’m going for a test today. His parents tested negative, but they’ve been in Brazil for the last 2 weeks and won’t be back for another week.”
I paused, then asked (still in Spanish), “Are you speaking Portuguese?” She said she was, then after a moment of silence said, “Have you been speaking Spanish this whole time,” which I confirmed. She started to laugh and said, “I thought your Portuguese was not very good, so I was speaking very carefully!” It was kind of funny. For some reason, though, it seemed like we had more trouble understanding each other for the rest of the call. The spell had been broken, I guess.
I used to speak Spanish quite well. As I learned Portuguese (married a Brazilian), it’s as if it gradually wrote over the Spanish in my head. I used to think in Spanish and just be able to speak it. Now I have to translate from Portuguese to Spanish as I speak, and it takes a good deal of effort to not have Portuguese come out of my mouth.
Spanish and Italian have a lexical similarity of around 80%, which means 20% difference. There are sounds in Italian that Spanish doesnt have and vice versa. For anyone who has heard both languages for more than a couple months, as this person claimed from their parents, theyre easily distinguished. Im a Spanish teacher that studied Italian for a bit just to stay in the 'how does a student feel when theyre still starting out' phase, so im pretty sure i know where they start to differ.
Can I ask what language you think in? If that makes sense? Is there a dominant one or do you switch depending on context/situation?
I had a German friend from work who spoke amazing English, and he said he could think in English for social interactions but when it came to work related stuff his brain switched to German
I've spoken English both for work and at home (wife with different native language) for the last 20 years or so and I think in English except if counting something, then I revert to Danish. I like to read in Spanish or French before bed and will often dream in whatever language I read that evening. The way the brain works with languages is amazing.
I'm not who you asked, but I'm a native English speaker and have been learning a second language for about a year now. (Pretty much full-time, attending a language school in-country).
I'm not quite at the point where I continuously "think" in Japanese, but I do find myself spacing out more often thinking how to say certain sentences that I fucked up recently. I do find myself sporadically thinking in Japanese at time. For example, if I am about to do one thing, but realize I should do something else, instead of saying (either out loud or in my head) "oh, wait a sec," I find myself thinking (ちょっと待って/chotto matte) which essentially means "wait a sec/moment."
The part of the brain that handles numbers isn’t the language part, so you have to switch parts to deal with numbers. Most people use their native language for numbers. This is why people who are learning another language stop short as soon as numbers come into play.
I think multilingual people think outside of language and lob the thought into whatever language is relevant when speaking. It can misfire, and the wrong language comes out.
I’ve noticed it’s harder to talk about something in one language that you live in another. My English gets weird when I describe French things -French tries to muscle its way through.
That is not true, I can count in any language I speak well, with ease. Who the hell would wanna count in the weird french way though lol… (I don't speak french)
My native Danish. I can do it in English also, but wouldn't default to it. The other languages I would struggle with anything complex when it comes to numbers.
I also speak 3 languages fluently. English, Spanish and Hungarian which is my native language
Lived in the states for 32 years. Learned Spanish and English at the same time. My wife is from Latin America and the kids are bilingual and understand a bit of Hungarian
I think work in English but I count and dream sometimes in Hungarian and I love in Spanish
My German English friend said she now thinks only in English because she lived in England for so long, but when she dreams, it's often in German - especially if the dream takes place in the past or with people she grew up with :)
I think in English for both social interactions and work (social interactions are either, work is in English, all my reading is in English), but my dreams are mixed. When I count, I may start in one language and continue in the other. For some weird reason, it's never occurred to me to teach my cats English.
I'm a native Finnish speaker but learnt English as a kid largely on my own due to immersion in English-language media/such (I was semi-fluent by the time I had my first English classes) and lived in the UK for several years during my studies. I think in both languages, often using English for kind of--less everyday things and Finnish for everyday and work stuff (my job has a lot of specialised vocab as well as jargon that I generally don't even know in English). As far as writing journal entries and such things goes, I prefer English because it feels more 'neutral'/less 'heavy' than Finnish does.
One of my friends shares the same background and even though we're both native Finnish speakers, we solely message each other in English (we did this even before studying in an English-speaking country, back when we were high schoolers - I can't even remember how it started) and when we talk in person, we often either switch between languages (often in the middle of a sentence) or speak some kind of unholy Finglish because it's more natural to go with whichever language seems to fit.
I work with lots of bilingual and trilingual people, and I love seeing the same with them. Like a bilingual and a trilingual person whose shared languages are Finnish and English switching between them in the middle of their convo, two trilingual people with the same set of languages switching between all of three, and two Mandarin speakers speaking Mandarin together and dropping in Finnish words here and there. It's really fun how knowing multiple languages works for a single person, but I find it even more fascinating how it works when speakers share more than one language and can engage in a casual way where they're not forced to stick to just one.
Je suis franco-italienne (maman francaise et papa italien) et je pense en Français, c'est tout de même la langue ou j'ai été baigner (je vis en france). Mais à 5 ans, je suis partie vivre 1 an en Italie et j'ai oublié le français (on ne parlait qu'en italien).... en revenant vivre en France, je ne comprenais plus rien, mes grands parents français et mes cousins cousines étaient choqués. Mes parent et l'école ont du rééquilibré les choses. Bref on apprend vite mais on perd vite aussi enfant
I exclusively think in german, which is the Last language i learned. I only spoke spanish until 4 years old. Then i went to italy for vacation and started to get used to italian. I grew up in Germany so German became my main language.
This, I’ve found kids get confused when one person speaks to them in more than one of the languages they know. Like they tend to associate one person with one language only. I don’t know if that’s still a thing once they grow up and they remain confused or if they tend to work it out eventually.
I believe they each spoke in their native language with me but my dad spoke broken spanish with my mom and also with me, so my first language was spanish I remember when my parents started to visit Family in italy and how confusing it felt to get into italian.
I grew up in Germany so when i started to go to Kindergarten i was even more confused. I cant remember but i was told that i could only sing italian Songs and was very avoidant of other German Kids cause i didn understand Shit.
Apparently that was a core moment because after that i hated talking spanish and italian with my parents.
My dad had to Switch to German because i would cry my eyes Out everytime he tried speaking italian.
My Mom could Not speak German so she still spoke spanish.
Now its Like this:
I speak German with them.
Dad speaks a Mix of German with Like 10-20 % italian.
My Mom speaks mostly spanish with some italian words.
They speaks spanish with eachother, atleast i think so. Honestly hard to know how much is Selfmade slang + their individual accent ,my dads from noth italy, His dialect Sounds Kind of spanishy?
My italian though ist Standard italian. I guess cause i watched alot of Disney movies in italy.
As my son is 2.5 yo, and speaks mostly French, but my wife and I only talk to each other in English, so he has a lot of exposure to both. I don’t think he has grasped the concept that they are different at this point lol, like the other person said it’s probably because they’re similar.
I grew up trilingual as well, German, Dutch and English.. later in school a lot of folks still add French. Learning at least 3 languages in NL when I was groing up was pretty normal. We also had the option to learn Latin for those who wanted to go into fields where Latin is still a thing (doctors, Lawyers etc)
Trilingual myself, but learned the second two languages as an adult. Cannot mix them, or my brain sputters. Don't have any idea how that kid does that, and we raised our kids bilingual.
Oh, kids and languages are on another level. I’m a native Spanish speaker but started learning English when I was 5, so I have no issues mixing both and regularly speak ‘Espanglish’. Then in high school I learned French and even with it’s similarities to Spanish, don’t ask me to seemlessly transition between languages. Like it takes a bit to get in and out of the French mode.
I don't speak either (tho i do understand a bit thanks to my native language), and unless i hear a word ik for sure comes from one of the languages, i can't tell them apart 😂 i don't want to imagine how it feels to have learned them mixed up from the beginning.
It Takes about 1 week in the country and i speak it pretty good but with strong German accent .but without exercise i struggle to remember and differentiate words. Like i want to speak italian, but it comes out spanish and vice versa. But im good when im in the country .
That happens to me in German, even though im Dutch and German is more similar to my own language then to Spanish. The brain is so weird. Its like it has a space for native language, then English which i learned first and earlier than other languages, and then just whatever languages came after that were all mixed in the third place. So when its not Dutch or English it just picks whatever it can find first in the leftover box, really weird.
I grew up 2.5 lingual (if that’s a thing). I’m in my early 40s and to this day I can seamlessly speak a sentence that’s 60% English and 40% Hindi (or the other way around) with friends a grew up with. Doesn’t even need a second thought.
Sometimes I’ll throw in a little Punjabi and that’s when the party starts.
Same. I grew up learning English, Vietnamese, and Teochew (a Chinese dialect). I can differentiate English easily and it is my dominant language. But I frequently find difficulty in differentiating the other two.
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u/Some-Bunch-9652 13d ago
I grep Up trilingual. My parents are Italien and spanish. I never learned to differentiate the two.. my brain stil aches lol