6 Fascinating Facts About the Portuguese Language

 

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 6 Fascinating Facts About the Portuguese Language

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It is hard to underestimate the importance of the Portuguese language. Even though many people are believing that Portuguese is only spoken in Portugal and Brazil, it is very far from the truth. The language has Galician roots coming from the northwest of Spain. As a complex mixture of several dialects, expressions coming from Latin, and even French, Portuguese can be safely considered an ancient language with a lot for you to discover. 

  • Only 5%! It might sound surprising but only five percent of people that speak Portuguese live in Portugal. Considering that we have over 200 million native Portuguese speakers, it appears that only 9.2 million live in Portugal. Now the greatest number of native speakers live in Brazil. Portuguese is also an official language in Mozambique. Since the language has a unique distribution across Europe, South America, Asian countries, and even Africa, it is considered as one of the fast-growing languages used for international communication.  
  • The endings of each Portuguese verb! Just imagine that each verb tense represents six different conjugations depending on pronouns. Just to give an example: if we say "I drive / she drives / we drive" and so on, saying the same thing in Portuguese would have six different endings based on who we talk about it. This Grammar rule will be familiar for those who learn Spanish, yet might come as a shock for foreigners. While it is not as challenging as tonal Chinese, only certified translators can handle Portuguese documents. Looking for an expert to assist you, you can find more in this review and see the various services. Remember that any legal or official documents will not contain the local dialects and must keep up to the language standards. 
  • Galician connection. People who speak Galician (Northern Spain) can understand and write Portuguese without trouble. 
  • The 23 letters! Can you imagine that there were no "W" "Y", and "K" in Portuguese until 2009? The "K" sound would be swapped for "qu-" (sounding like the beginning of "cube"). Speaking of "w" and "y" sounds, they were absent. Now when the Portuguese-speaking countries finally signed an "Orthographic Agreement", all of the spelling rules became standardized with the inclusion of new letters. It has helped to avoid numerous Grammar omissions. 
  • European Portuguese & Brazilian Portuguese. While it can be easily compared to British and American English, there is even more lexical and semantic distance in this case. The main difference is the use of respectful “vós”, which would be more akin to the German ‘Sie” when talking to a teacher, an official, or an older person. Now European Portuguese speakers prefer the modern equivalent of “tu” (you), while Brazilians still use the older, more polite forms. 
  • Different spelling conventions. Brazil and Portugal had two different spelling standards until 1990 when two countries decided to accept a single orthography. Many minor rules have finally made it easier for translators and educators to work with the documents and rules between the countries.
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