Differences between Malay and Indonesian

The differences between Malay (Bahasa Melayu or Bahasa Malaysia) and Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) are slightly greater than those between British English and American English. They are mutually intelligible, but with differences in spelling, pronunciation and vocabulary.

For non-native speakers of the two languages, Malay and Indonesian may seem almost identical, but for native speakers, the differences can lead to incomprehension when used in formal conversation or written communication. These differences also affect broadcasting business in relation to foreign language subtitling, for example DVD movies or TV cable subscriptions. In order to reach out to a wider audience, sometimes both Indonesian and Malay subtitles are displayed in a movie side by side with other language subtitles.

Orthography

Before the 20th century, Malay was written in a modified form of the Arabic alphabet known as Jawi. After the 20th century, Malay written with Roman letters, known as Rumi, has almost completely replaced Jawi in everyday life. The romanisations originally used in Malaya (now part of Malaysia) and the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) reflected their positions as British and Dutch possessions respectively.

In Indonesia, the vowel in the English word 'moon' was formerly represented in Indonesian as oe, as in Dutch, and the official spelling of this sound was changed to u in 1947.

Similarly, until 1972, the initial consonant of the English 'chin' was represented in Malay as ch, whereas in Indonesian, it continued to follow Dutch and used tj. Hence the word for 'grandchild' used to be written as chuchu in Malay and tjoetjoe in Indonesian, until a unified spelling system was introduced in 1972 (known in Indonesia as Ejaan Yang Disempurnakan or the 'Perfected Spelling') which removed most differences between the two varieties: Malay ch and Indonesian tj became c: hence cucu.

Indonesian abandoned the spelling dj (for the consonant at the beginning of the word 'Jakarta') to conform to the j already in use in Malay, while the old Indonesian j for the semivowel at the beginning of the English 'young', was replaced with y as in Malay. Likewise, the velar fricative which occurs in many Arabic loanwords, which used to be written 'ch' in Indonesian, became kh in both languages.

However, oe was retained in some proper names, such as the name of the first President, Sukarno (written as Soekarno), and his successor Suharto, (written as Soeharto). The ch and dj letter combinations are still encountered in names such as Achmad and Djojo (pronounced as Akhmad and Joyo respectively), although the post-1972 spelling is now favoured.

Although the representations of speech sounds are now largely identical in the Indonesian and Malay varieties, a number of minor spelling differences remain, usually for historical reasons. For instance, the word for 'money' is written as wang in Malay, but uang in Indonesian, the word for 'try' is written as cuba in Malay, but coba in Indonesian, the word for 'because' is written as kerana in Malay, but karena in Indonesian, while the word for 'cake' is written as kuih in Malay, but kue in Indonesian.

Pronunciation

Pronunciation also tends to be very different, with East Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia speaking a dialect called Bahasa Baku, where the words are pronounced as spelt and enunciation tends to be clipped, staccato and faster than the Malay spoken in the Malay Peninsula, which is spoken at a more languorous pace. Many vowels are pronounced (and were formerly spelt) differently in Peninsular Malaysia: tujuh is pronounced (and was spelt) tujoh, pilih as pileh, etc., and many final as tend to be pronounced as schwas.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary differences

Indonesian differs from Malay in having words of Javanese and Dutch origin although Indonesian is based on Malay in Riau province (Bahasa Melayu Riau). For example, the word for 'post office' in Malay is "pejabat pos" (in Indonesian this means 'post officer'), whereas in Indonesian it is "kantor pos", from the Dutch word for office, kantoor. There are also some Portuguese influences: in Indonesian, Christmas is known as "Natal", whereas Malay uses "Krismas", derived from English. There are also instances where the Malay version derives from English pronunciation while the Indonesian version takes its cue from Latin. The Latin preference of the (older) Indonesian intellectuals in these instances may be ascribed to the influence of their classical-oriented education when Gymnasiumschools were established during the Dutch colonial period : compare Malay kualiti, kuantiti, majoriti, minoriti and universiti with Indonesian kualitas, kuantitas, mayoritas, minoritas and universitas.
The relatively large share of Islamic (Arabic or Persian) loan words shared by Malay and Indonesian often poses no difficulty in comprehension and usage, although some forms may have developed a (slightly) different meaning or have become obsolete either in Malay or in Indonesian, e.g. , khidmat, wakil (see below).

False friends

Besides vocabulary differences, there are also a number of false friends in both languages. As these words are in quite common use in either or both of the languages, misunderstandings can arise.

Sample

Indonesian text sample

^[1] Ensiklopedia, atau kadangkala dieja sebagai ensiklopedi, adalah sejumlah buku yang berisi penjelasan mengenai setiap cabang ilmu pengetahuan yang tersusun menurut abjad atau menurut kategori secara singkat dan padat.

Kata 'ensiklopedia' diambil dari bahasa Yunani; enkyklios paideia () yang berarti kumpulan instruksi atau pengajaran yang lengkap. Maksudnya, ensiklopedia adalah sebuah sarana pendidikan lengkap yang mencakup semua bidang ilmu pengetahuan. Seringkali ensiklopedia disalahartikan sebagai kamus. Hal ini disebabkan karena ensiklopedia-ensiklopedia awal memang berkembang dari kamus-kamus.

Malay text sample

^[2] Ensiklopedia, atau kadangkala dieja sebagai ensaiklopedia, merupakan koleksi maklumat atau himpunan fakta mengenai setiap cabang ilmu pengetahuan yang tersusun menurut abjad atau menurut kategori secara singkat dan padat.

Kata 'ensiklopedia' diambil daripada bahasa Yunani εγκύκλιος παιδεία, egkyklios paideia (a circle of instruction) yang bererti sebuah lingkaran atau pengajaran yang lengkap. Ini bermaksud ensiklopedia itu merupakan sebuah pendidikan sempurna yang merangkumi semua aspek ilmu pengetahuan. Seringkali ensiklopedia disalahertikan sebagai kamus. Mungkin ini kerana ensiklopedia-ensiklopedia awal memang berkembang daripada kamus.

Translation

Encyclopaedia, or occasionally spelt as ensiklopedi/ensaiklopedia, is a collection of books containing explanations about all branches of science that are compiled according to the alphabet or according to the category briefly and densely.

The word 'encyclopaedia' is taken from Greek enkyklios paideia (ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία), which means a circle of instructions or a complete teaching. It means that the encyclopaedia is a complete educational material that includes all science aspects. Often encyclopaedias are confused with dictionaries. One reason is that early encyclopaedias were actually developed from dictionaries.

Convergence of vocabulary

The Malay language in Malaysia is not pervasively used in all spheres of life compared to Indonesia. Competition from the English language, the emotional attachment of Malaysian Malays to the language and the desire by non-Malays to preserve the use of their mother tongues are probably the reasons for this state of affairs. As a result, the Malay language in Malaysia is not as dynamic as the Indonesian language in the introduction of new words through adaptation from other languages especially English. Many Malays are adverse to the 'Malay-ing' of English words. They rather prefer to find obscure Malay words or words from the Malay archipelago that are equivalent to the English term. For example, the English word 'plaster' or stucco would have been easily Malayised both in terms of pronunciation and common usage. However the word 'lepa' (spread) is used instead. Many new words introduced in Malay are taken from Indonesian due to this preference. For example, the word canggih (complicated) is a Javanese word that is used for translating 'sophisticated' to denote a higher status meaning (as in a sophisticated lady) instead of the Malay equivalent of 'rumit' (complicated). These words are usually adopted some ten years after their popular use in the Indonesian media.

Trivia

During the May 1998 Revolution, when calls for political reform or reformasi in Indonesia led to the resignation of President Suharto, Malaysian satirists Instant Cafe lampooned a government broadcast in which 'Malaysians are reminded that reformasi is an Indonesian word, which has no equivalent in Bahasa Melayu.'

References

External links

• The Malay Spelling Reform, Asmah Haji Omar, (Journal of the Simplified Spelling Society, 1989-2 pp. 9–13 later designated J11)
• The MALAY LANGUAGE in MALAYSIA and INDONESIA: from lingua franca to national language Asmah Haji Omar article in The Asianists' ASIA

ko:말레이인도네시아어 id:Perbedaan antara Bahasa Melayu dan Bahasa Indonesia ms:Perbezaan antara Bahasa Melayu Piawai dan Bahasa Indonesia nl:Verschillen tussen Indonesisch en Maleisisch

Differences between Slovak and Czech languages

Linguistically, the Czech and Slovak languages form a language continuum, eastern Slovak dialects then blend into the Rusyn language. Czech exists in two different forms (excluding the Moravian dialects): literary Czech and colloquial Czech. The standard Slovak language is closer to literary Czech, especially in phonology and morphology. The differences between parts of the vocabulary of some Slovak dialects are rather big, comparable to the differences between standard Slovak and Czech. The description below sums the main differences between standard Slovak and Czech.

• Slovak graphemes that do not exist in the Czech language are ä, ľ, ĺ, ŕ and ô (see Pronunciation). Czech graphemes that do not exist in the Slovak language are: ě, ř and ů.
• Slovak has the following phonemes which Czech does not have: , , , (this one only in higher-style standard Slovak, or some dialects), and the diphthongs , , , ; and on the contrary, Czech has .
• Czech uses peculiar pitch contour, not present in Slovak (or Moravian dialects).
• Slovak, unlike Czech, uses palatalization more frequently (that is, is phonetically "softer")
• The phonetic assimilation and a kind of "liaison" are much stronger in the Slovak language
• The Slovak grammar:
  • is somewhat simpler (that is more regular) than Czech literary language grammar, since the present-day Slovak language standard was codified only in the 19th century.
  • has different declension and conjugation endings and paradigms
  • has 6 morphological cases (see Slovak declension) - the vocative (officially not considered a separate grammatical case anymore) is almost lost, while the Czech vocative is well alive
• Some basic Slovak is similar to the Czech language, and a few (almost) identical words have different meaning. The differences are mostly of simple historical origin (for example the word hej mentioned below was used in Great Moravia). As for professional terminology, except for biology (esp. all names of animals and plants), the Czech terminology was mostly taken over (in Slovakized form) for practical reasons. The Czech-Slovak Dictionary of Different Terms (1989, Prague) contains some 11.000 entries (without professional terminology):
  • Examples of basic different words are: to speak (SK hovoriť – CZ mluvit), yeah (SK hej – CZ jo), if (SK ak – CZ jestli, jestliže, -li), Good bye (SK do videnia – CZ na shledanou), January (SK január – CZ leden), cat (SK mačka – CZ kočka), to kiss (SK bozkať – CZ líbat), now (SK teraz – CZ teď, nyní), goods (SK tovar – CZ zboží), he/she/it is not (SK nie je - CZ není) and so forth.
  • Examples of typical small differences: endings (SK -cia, -dlo, -ť, -om – CZ -c(i)e, -tko, -t, -em), expressions (SK treba, možno – CZ je třeba, je možné / je možno), prepositions (SK na – CZ k, pro) . . .
  • Examples of words with different meanings : SK topiť (to melt) – CZ topit (to heat), SK horký (bitter) – CZ horký (hot) . . .
• The Czech language has no equivalents for many Slovak words and vice versa. Examples of no Czech equivalents: prepositions (popod, ponad, sponad. . . ), verbs (ľúbiť, povynechávať, skackať, siakať,. . . ), nouns (kúrňava, kaštieľ, hoľa, grúň). . ., pronouns (dakto, voľakto, henten,. . . ) etc.
• The Czech language does not have the Rhythmical Rule (see Pronunciation)
• Slovak uses the passive voice formed like in English less than the Czech, and prefers the passive voice formed using the reflexive pronoun sa (like in Romance languages) instead
• Slovak has many dialects, while in the Czech Republic, many dialects have disappeared, especially in the Bohemian part of the Czech Republic.

cs:Rozdíl mezi češtinou a slovenštinou de:Unterschiede zwischen der tschechischen und der slowakischen Sprache sl:Razlike med češčino in slovaščino

Differences between Spanish and Portuguese

Portuguese and Spanish are among the most widely spoken languages in the world today. Although they are closely related, to the point of having a considerable degree of mutual intelligibility, there are also important differences between them, which can pose difficulties for people acquainted with one of the languages who attempt to learn the other. Both are part of a broader group known as West Iberian, which contains also several minor languages or dialects with fewer speakers, all of which are mutually intelligible among themselves to some degree.

There are also some significant differences between Brazilian and European Portuguese as there are between British and American English or Spanish in Spain and Spanish in Latin America and the United States. This article notes these differences below only where:

• Both Brazilian and European Portuguese differ not only from each other, but from Spanish as well
• Both Spanish and Latin American Spanish differ not only from each other, but also from Portuguese.
• Either Brazilian or European Portuguese differs from Spanish with syntax not possible in Spanish (while the other dialect does not)

Samples

Portuguese and Spanish share a great number of words that are either spelled identically (although they may be pronounced quite differently), almost identically (though they may be pronounced more or less the same) or similarly predictable. Consider for example the following paragraph, taken from the , by Manuel Seco, and compare it to the Portuguese rendition below, noting the extensive lexical similarity and the only slight changes in word order:

Pero, a pesar de esta variedad de posibilidades que la voz posee, sería un muy pobre instrumento de comunicación si no contara más que con ella. La capacidad de expresión del hombre no dispondría de más medios que la de los animales. La voz, sola, es para el hombre apenas una materia informe, que para convertirse en un instrumento perfecto de comunicación debe ser sometida a un cierto tratamiento. Esa manipulación que recibe la voz son las "articulaciones".

Porém, apesar desta variedade de possibilidades que a voz possui, seria um instrumento de comunicação muito pobre se não se contasse com mais do que ela. A capacidade de expressão do homem não disporia de mais meios que a dos animais. A voz, sozinha, é para o homem apenas uma matéria informe, que para se converter num instrumento perfeito de comunicação deve ser submetida a um certo tratamento. Essa manipulação que a voz recebe são as "articulações".

Some common words are however quite different in the two languages, for instance:

Vocabulary

Overview

Vocabulary differences between the two languages arose from various factors:

• Orthography: some words are spelled differently, in spite of having the same origin and similar pronunciation: compare Spanish mayor with Portuguese maior "bigger/larger", or Spanish Miño with Portuguese Minho.
• Divergent phonetic evolution: ya / já "already", veces / vezes "times", visión / visão "vision", ojalá / oxalá "hopefully".
• Substratum differences. Spanish kept most of the Mozarabic vocabulary of Arabic origin, while Portuguese did not have a Mozarabic substratum as large, and in many cases replaced it eventually with Latin roots: albañil / pedreiro "stonemason".
• Influences from other European languages during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Portuguese received a great deal of French influence, while Spanish was more autonomous and Mediterranean-oriented.
• Influences from other languages (Amerindian, African, or Asian). For example, compare the Spanish and Portuguese main words for:

"pineapple": piña (from the Spanish word for "pine cone") or ananás / abacaxi or ananás (from Tupi);

"tea", té (from Min Nan Chinese) / chá (from Cantonese).

• Semantic change, producing cognates that look similar but mean different things (false friends): diseñar means "to design" in Spanish, while its cognate desenhar means "to draw" in Portuguese.
• Words that have two forms in one language, but just one in the other: Portuguese criar corresponds to both Spanish crear "to create" and criar "to raise", while Spanish sueño corresponds to both Portuguese sonho "dream" and sono "sleep."

Days of the week

Unlike the other Romance languages, modern Portuguese does not use the Roman planetary system for the days Monday through Friday. Instead, it is numerical, and derived from Ecclesiastical Latin. The word feira (from Latin http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feria feria) refers to daily (Roman Catholic) religious celebrations; it is thus a false cognate to the word ''feira'' that refers to "fair" or "market." The days of the week in both languages are masculine, except the "feira" days in Portuguese, which are feminine.

| 
segunda-feira  

| 
terça-feira
| 
Tuesday

| 
quarta-feira
| 
Wednesday

| 
quinta-feira
| 
Thursday 

| 
sexta-feira
| 
Friday

| 
sábado
| 
Saturday

| 
domingo

In actual usage, the word feira is often dropped when not necessary to shorten:

Vou visitar-te na segunda. I'll visit you on Monday.

Cognates

Apart from a considerable number of false friends, there are also some cognate words whose meaning is broader in one language than in the other. Some examples:

"Todo" and "tudo"

The Spanish indefinite pronoun todo can mean "all/every", or "everything". Portuguese distinguishes between todo "all/every" and tudo "everything" (used when the referent is a neuter, an indefinite object or abstraction).

Todos los insectos tienen seis patas. (Spanish)

Todos os insectos têm seis patas. (Portuguese)

Todo(s) (os) inseto(s) tem/têm seis patas. (Brazilian)

Every insect has six legs.

El ladrón robó todo. (Spanish)

O ladrão roubou tudo. (Portuguese)

"The thief stole everything," or "The thief stole it all."

"Muy," "mucho," and "muito"

Spanish distinguishes the adjective mucho "much/many" from the adverb muy "very/quite". Portuguese uses muito for both (the cognate mui still exists in Portuguese, but it's rarely used in oral language.)

Saqué muchas fotos durante el viaje. (Spanish)

Tirei muitas fotos durante a viagem. (Portuguese)

I took many photos during the trip.

Las cerezas están muy maduras. (Spanish)

As cerejas estão muito maduras. (Portuguese)

The cherries are quite ripe.

As an adjective, muito is inflected according to the gender and number of the noun it qualifies, like mucho. As an adverb, it is invariable like muy. Thus, it would be incorrect to say *muitas maduras in the second example.

Cardinal numbers

The cardinal numbers are very similar in Spanish and Portuguese, but there is a difference in numbers one and two. Spanish has different words for un ("a", "an"; masculine singular indefinite article) and uno ("one"; numeral or pronoun); e.g. página uno "page one". In Portuguese, both words are the same: um. Spanish uno can also be used like the English generic "one", to represent an indeterminate subject. This is not possible with Portuguese um; the reflexive pronoun se is used instead. "Se" may be used in Spanish to form passive and impersonal constructions, as well.^[1]

Uno (or Se) debe pensar antes de actuar. (Spanish)

Deve-se pensar antes de agir (Portuguese)

One should think before acting.

This still applies in cases where a relatively indeterminate subject is genderized, such as the Spanish todos a una [voz] ("all at once," literally "all at one [voice]"). It should be rewritten in Portuguese without any cardinal number. For example, todos juntos "all together".

On the other hand, in Portuguese, cardinal number "two" inflects with gender (dois if masculine, duas if feminine), while in Spanish dos is used for both.

Uno más uno es igual a dos. (Spanish)

Um mais um é igual a dois. (Portuguese)

One plus one equals two.

Dos cabezas piensan mejor que una. (Spanish)

Duas cabeças pensam melhor que uma. (Portuguese)

Two heads think better than one.

Tengo dos hermanos y dos hermanas. (Spanish)

Tenho dois irmãos e duas irmãs. (Portuguese)

I have two brothers and two sisters.

"Y" and "e"

Spanish uses "y" (meaning "and") before all words, except those beginning with "i" and "hi," in which case it uses "e." Portuguese uses "e" regardless of the pronunciation of the following word.

sal y pimienta (Spanish)

sal e pimenta (Portuguese)

salt and pepper

judío e hindú (Spanish)

judeu e hindu (Portuguese)

Jewish and Hindu

Similarly, Spanish uses "o" (meaning "or") before all words, except those beginning with "o" and "ho," in which case it uses "u." Portuguese uses "ou" regardless of the pronunciation of the following word.

"Se", "si", "sí", and "sim"

In Portuguese, the word se can be a reflexive pronoun or a conjunction meaning "if". This may give the false impression that a Portuguese verb is pronominal when it is not. For example, Se ficou em Paris... means "If (he) remained in Paris..." When the conjunction se precedes a pronominal verb, it is common to have a double se in the sentence. Se se esqueceu da sua senha... "If you forgot your password..."

Miscellaneous

• Spanish extrañar (mainly in American Spanish) can mean "to find strange" or "to miss". Portuguese estranhar only means "to find strange".
• Raro can mean "rare" or "strange" in Spanish. In Portuguese, it just means "rare".
• Spanish todavía can mean "yet/still" or "however/nevertheless". Portuguese todavia means "however/nevertheless". In Portuguese, "yet/still" is "ainda" or "porém".
• Spanish (estar) embarazada means "(to be) pregnant." Portuguese (estar) embaraçada means "(to be) embarrassed".^[2]
• Spanish exquisito means "exquisite/sophisticated". Portuguese esquisito means "strange/weird".
• Experto in Spanish means "expert," in Portuguese esperto means "smart/intelligent". Expert in Portuguese is experto, perito or exímio.
• Spanish escoba is a broom. Portuguese escova is a brush.
• Spanish apellido (surname) is apelido in European Portuguese, and sobrenome in both Brazilian and European Portuguese. Spanish sobrenombre/apodo (nickname) is apelido/alcunha/codinome in Brazilian Portuguese, and alcunha in European Portuguese.

Prepositions

Contractions

The preposition a is identical to the feminine definite article in Portuguese. Thus, while a Ana would mean "to Ann" in Spanish, in Portuguese the same phrase would likely be interpreted as just "Ann". To include the preposition, the grave accent must be used (a + a = à). Thus, "I gave a gift to Ann" is Dei um presente à Ana. In European Portuguese, a is pronounced , while à is pronounced . This qualitative distinction is generally not made in Brazilian Portuguese.

Other Portuguese prepositions contract with articles or with personal pronouns, in some cases producing false friends: dos and no mean "two" and "no" in Spanish, but "of the" (de + os) and "in the" (em + o) in Portuguese. While Spanish also has the prepositional contractions al (a + el) and del (de + el), Portuguese has many more^[3] with prepositions a, de, em, por, and com.

Los museos del [de + el] mundo. (Spanish)

Os museus do [de + o] mundo. (Portuguese)

The museums of the world.

Es la silla de él. [does not contract] (Spanish)

É a cadeira dele. [de + ele] (Portuguese)

It's the chair of he. (literal translation) / It's his chair. (proper translation)

There are also non-obligatory contractions joining em and de with the indefinite article (num, dum, etc.) and de with aqui (daqui). Obligatory conmigo (Sp.)/comigo (Pt.), contigo, and consigo exist in both languages. Portuguese adds con(n)osco for nós, and convosco for vós. (In Spanish, these forms are archaic.) All Portuguese contractions involving either the definite article or the demonstrative pronouns include both the feminine and plural forms:

Obligatory "masculine singular" contractions in Portuguese:

• ao, pelo (por + o), do, dele, deste, desse, daquele, daqueloutro, no, nele, neste, nesse, naquele, àquele, àquiloutro

Three additional forms of each exist for feminine and plural.

Obligatory "non-genderized" contractions in Portuguese:

• disto, disso, daquilo, nisto, nisso, naquilo, àquilo

Personal "a"

Spanish employs a preposition, the so-called "personal a", before the direct object of a transitive verb (except tener) when it denotes a specific person(s), or domestic pet. It is not used for anonymous persons known only by their occupation or status (police, doctors, soldiers, etc.). In Portuguese, the personal a is most unusual. It is occasionally found in formal texts, like the Biblical commandment Amar a Deus sobre todas as coisas, "To love God above everything else", but it sounds archaic. Since direct objects are typically not preceded by a preposition, it is easy to tell them apart from indirect objects, which are always preceded by a preposition, and the analogue of leísmo is less of an issue than in Spanish. Laísmo and loísmo never occur in Portuguese.

As mentioned above, the preposition a is identical to the feminine definite article in Portuguese, which can create some confusion. For example, in the Spanish sentence He invitado (or better Invité) a Juana a cenar en nuestra casa ("I (have) invited Joan for dinner at our house)", a is a preposition (the personal "a"), but in the Portuguese version Convidei a Joana para jantar em nossa casa, it is a definite article. (The reason for the preterite tense in Portuguese is explained in the Present perfect section.)

"Ir a" versus "ir para"

Quite common in both languages are the prepositions a (which often translates as "to"), and para (which often translates as "for"). However, European Portuguese distinguishes between going somewhere for a short while versus a longer stay, especially if it is an intended destination, in the latter case using para instead of a. While there is no specified duration of stay before an European Portuguese speaker must switch prepositions, a implies one will return sooner, rather than later, relative to the context. This distinction is not made in English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, and the Spanish para cannot be used for this purpose.

Fui al mercado cerca de mi casa. (Spanish)

Fui ao mercado perto de/da minha casa. (European Portuguese)

Fui para o mercado perto de/da minha casa. (European and Brazilian Portuguese)

I went to the market near my house. [temporary displacement]

El presidente anterior fue exiliado a Portugal. (Spanish)

O presidente anterior foi exilado para Portugal. (European and Brazilian Portuguese)

The former president was exiled to Portugal. [permanent, or more lasting displacement]

Note, though, in the first example, para could be used in Portuguese if in contrast to a very brief period of time.

Não fico muito tempo, só um minuto. Tenho que/de ir para o mercado. (Portuguese)

I can't stay long, only a minute. I have to go to the market. [pending task or appointment]

In informal, non-standard Brazilian Portuguese, "em" (in its original form or combined with a given article in a contraction, yielding "no", "na", "numa", etc.), often replaces the preposition "a" from standard Portuguese.

Vou na padaria. (non-standard Brazilian Portuguese)

Vou à padaria. (standard Portuguese)

I'm going to the bakery.

Fui numa festa ontem. (non-standard Brazilian Portuguese)

Fui a uma festa ontem. (standard Portuguese)

I went to a party yesterday.

Such a construction is not used in Spanish or in European Portuguese.

"Hacia" and "para"

Spanish has the two different prepositions: para ("for") and hacia ("toward", originally a contraction of hace a, lit. "face to"). Of them, only para exists in Portuguese, covering both meanings.

Este regalo es para ti/vos. (Spanish)

Este presente é para ti/vocês. (Portuguese)

This gift is for you (singular/plural).

Aquel/Ese avión va para Brasilia. (Spanish)

Aquele avião voa para Brasília. (Portuguese)

That airplane flies toward Brasilia.

Both Spanish and Portuguese para, in the latter sense, can alternatively be replaced by rumbo a and rumo a, respectively (lit. "direction to", "rhumb to").

"Going to" future

Both languages have a construction similar to the English "going-to" future. Spanish includes the preposition a between the conjugated form of ir "to go" and the infinitive: Vamos a cantar "We're going to sing" (present tense of ir + a + infinitive). Usually, in Portuguese, there is no preposition between the helping verb and the main verb: Vamos cantar (present tense of ir + infinitive). This also applies when the verb is in other tenses:

Ayer yo iba a leer el libro, pero no tuve la oportunidad. (Spanish)

Ontem eu ia ler o livro, mas não tive oportunidade. (Portuguese)

Yesterday I was going to read the book, but never had the chance.

There are a couple of exceptions in which the preposition a is included in Portuguese. One could say Vamos a cantar "Let's sing" as a colloquial form of a motivational suggestion, equivalent to Vamos cantando.

The other is when you are referring to the specific moment where an imminent action not yet begun was cancelled. In this case, the use of a is equivalent to rumo a. (The imperfect tense of estar plus a gerund would have been used had the action already started.) For example:

Ontem eu ia a ler o livro quando de repente tocaram à campainha. (Portuguese)

Yesterday I was going to read the book when suddenly the doorbell rang.

Other differences in preposition usage

While as a rule the same prepositions are used in the same contexts in both languages, there are many exceptions.

Nuestros gastos de energía. (Spanish)

(Os) nossos gastos com/de energia. (Portuguese)

Our energy expenses.

Voy a votar por Juan. (Spanish)

Vou votar em/no João. (Portuguese)

I'm going to vote for John.

Grammar

Broadly speaking, the grammars of Portuguese and Spanish are not too far apart. Nevertheless, there are some differences between them which can be hurdles for people acquainted with one of the languages who attempt to learn the other.

Gender

Spanish has three forms for the singular definite article, el, masculine, la, feminine, and lo, neuter. The last is used with adjectives to form abstract nouns employed in a generic sense, and also to intensify the meaning of adjectives. In Portuguese, there is only o, masculine, and a, feminine. Literary Spanish has also three corresponding third person pronouns, él "he", ella "she", and ello "it", while Portuguese has only ele, masculine, and ela, feminine. Lo and ello have no plural forms, because los and ellos means the (plural, masculine) and they (masculine), respectively.

Some words are masculine in Spanish, but feminine in Portuguese, or vice versa. A common example are nouns ended in -aje in Spanish, which are normally masculine, and their Portuguese cognates ending in -agem, which are feminine. For example, Spanish el viaje "the voyage" (masculine, like French le voyage and Italian il viaggio) corresponds to the Portuguese feminine a viagem. Similarly, el puente, el dolor, or el árbol are masculine nouns in Spanish, whereas a ponte, a dor, and a árvore are feminine in Portuguese. On the other hand, the Spanish feminine la leche "the milk" corresponds to Portuguese o leite (masculine, like French le lait, Italian il latte). Likewise, nariz (nose) is feminine in Spanish and masculine in Portuguese.

Some Spanish words can be both masculine and feminine, with different meanings. Both meanings usually exist also in Portuguese, but with one and the same gender, so that they can't be differentiated unless further information is provided. For instance, the word orden 'order' can mean both 'harmonious arrangement' and 'directive', like its counterparts in English and Portuguese. But the Spanish word is masculine when used with the first meaning, and feminine with the second:

Me sorprendió el orden. (I was surprised by the order [i.e., by how orderly it all was].)

Me sorprendió la orden. (I was surprised by the order [i.e., by the directive that was given].)

In Portuguese, the equivalent word ordem is always feminine:

Fiquei surpreso pela ordem. (I was surprised by the order)

Without additional context, it is impossible to tell which meaning was intended in Portuguese and English.

Use of the definite article

In many varieties of Portuguese, personal names are normally preceded by a definite article, a trait also found in Catalan. This is a relatively recent development, which some Brazilian dialects have not adopted yet, most notably in the Brazilian Northeast. In those dialects of Portuguese that do regularly use definite articles before proper nouns, the article may be omitted for extra formality, or to show distance in a literary narrative. Compare, for example, English "Mary left", Spanish "María salió", and Portuguese "A Maria saiu". Note, however, that in the American Southwest dialect of Spanish, among other places, the definite article is used before personal names; thus, "La Maria salió" is commonly heard in these areas.

Portuguese also uses the definite article before the names of some cities and almost all countries except relatively new ones such as Cingapura (Singapore), and those which are related to or in Portuguese: "A França" but "Moçambique;" "o México" but "Angola." The major exception to the country rule is "o Brasil." In Spanish, country and city names are typically not accompanied by an article, although there are exceptions (e.g. los Estados Unidos de América, la China, el Japón, etc.) However, even in these cases, Spanish does not always require a preceding definite article.

Santiago es la capital de Chile. (Spanish)

Santiago é a capital do Chile. (Portuguese)

Santiago is the capital of Chile.

Él es de Costa Rica, que está en América Central. (Spanish)

Ele é da Costa Rica, que fica na América Central. (Portuguese)

He is from Costa Rica, which is in Central America.

Tengo un billete a los Estados Unidos de América. (Spanish)

Tenho um bilhete para os Estados Unidos da América. (Portuguese)

I have a ticket to the United States of America.

Portuguese omits the definite article in stating the time of day unless para as is used.

Son las nueve y quince. (Spanish)

São nove e quinze. (Portuguese)

It's nine fifteen.

In addition, in most dialects of Portuguese the definite article is used before possessive adjectives (like in Italian), which is not possible in Spanish. For instance, the sentence "This is my brother" is Este es mi hermano in Spanish, but may be Este é o meu irmão in Portuguese. Nevertheless, in some Brazilian dialects (mostly in the Northeast) the article is not used in sentences such as: Este é meu irmão (although it usually appears in sentences such as O meu irmão está lá ).

Possessives

In Portuguese, all possessive adjectives agree with the gender of the possessed being, while in Spanish this happens only with nuestro/nuestra "our" and vuestro/vuestra "your" [plural]. These adjectives are normally preceded by a definite article in Continental Portuguese, less so in Brazilian Portuguese, but never in Spanish.

Mi padre nació tres años antes de mi madre. (Spanish)

(O) meu pai nasceu três anos antes da minha mãe. (Portuguese)

My father was born three years before my mother.

Pienso que sus manzanas son mejores que sus tomates. (Spanish)

Penso que (as) suas maçãs são melhores do que os seus tomates. (Portuguese)

I think that their apples are better than their tomatoes.

On the other hand, possessive pronouns do show gender in Spanish, and they are different from the possessive adjectives. In Portuguese, they are the same as the adjectives (but in this case the definite article is mandatory in all dialects).

Mi casa es más grande que la suya. (Spanish)

A minha casa é maior que a sua. (Portuguese)

My house is bigger than yours.

Pronouns

Object pronouns

In Portuguese, third-person clitic pronouns have special variants used after certain types of verb endings, which does not happen in Spanish. The default object pronouns o/a/os/as change to lo/la/los/las when they follow a verb that ends in r, s or z, and to no/na/nos/nas when they follow a verb ends in a nasal sound.

In Brazilian Portuguese, these forms are uncommon, since the pronoun normally precedes the verb (i.e. você o mantenha in the above example), and third-person subject pronouns are used informally as object pronouns (mantenha ele), though the latter is technically incorrect. However, as it is not permitted to begin a sentence with an object pronoun, the above examples are, on rare occasion, used in Brazil as well.

Clitic personal pronouns

European Portuguese differs from Brazilian Portuguese with regard to the placement of clitic personal pronouns, and Spanish is in turn different from both of them.

• In Spanish, clitic pronouns normally come before the verb, except in the imperative, the infinitive, and the gerund. In verbal periphrases, they precede the auxiliary verb.
• In spoken Brazilian Portuguese, clitic pronouns normally come before the main verb. In verbal periphrases, they come between the auxiliary verb and the main verb. This occurs even with the imperative, the infinitive, the gerund, and the past participle.
• In European Portuguese, clitic pronouns may come before or after the verb, depending on the type of clause. In verbal periphrases, they may precede or follow the auxiliary verb, or follow the main verb (when this is in the infinitive or the gerund).

Mesoclisis

In European Portuguese, verbs in the future indicative or conditional tense may be split into morphemes, and the clitic pronoun is inserted between them, a feature known as mesoclisis. No comparable phenomenon takes place in Spanish:

Lo traerá. (Spanish)

Trá-lo-á. (European Portuguese and formal written Brazilian Portuguese)

He will bring it.

However, these tenses are often replaced with others in the spoken language. Future indicative is sometimes replaced by present indicative; conditional is very often replaced by imperfect indicative.

Combining pronouns in Spanish

The Spanish construction, se lo dio, means either "[He/she] gave it to [him/her]" or "[He/she] gave it to himself/herself". The expected pattern for the former would be *le lo dio, but such a construction does not exist. This is unique to Spanish.

• Latin: dedit illis illud → dedit illis illum (early Vulgar Latin) → dit illis illu (late Vulgar Latin)
• Spanish: dio (i)lli (el)lo → dio ge lo → diógelo (arch.) → dióselo → se lo dio
• Portuguese: deu (i)lli (l)o → deu lhe (l)o → deu-lho

Thus, modern Spanish makes no distinction between the reflexive pronoun se and the dative personal pronoun se. Note that this did not happen in old Spanish: diógelo, "he gave it to him", dióselo, "he gave it to himself". The ancient g sound (similar to that of English) was replaced with s in the 14th-15th centuries (cf. Spanish coger, "to catch", but cosecha, "harvest", Port. colher and colheita, both from Lat. colligĕre).

Use of stressed pronouns for inanimate subjects

In Spanish, stressed pronouns are never used for inanimate subjects (i.e. things, as opposed to persons or animals), not even for clarity or disambiguation purposes http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/SrvltConsulta?lema=pronombres%20personales%20tónicos. Portuguese knows no such restriction, so that stressed pronouns can either be used or dropped in reference to inanimate subjects:

¿Dónde están las llaves? Están en la mesa. (Spanish - pronoun is always dropped)

Onde estão as chaves? (Elas) estão na mesa. (Portuguese - pronoun is optional)

Where are the keys? They are on the table. (English - pronoun is required)

Verbs

"To be"

Spanish and Portuguese have two main copulas, ser and estar. For the most part, the use of these verbs is the same in both languages, but there are a few cases where it differs. The main difference between Spanish and Portuguese is in the interpretation of the concept of state versus essence and in the generalisations one way or another that are made in certain constructions. For instance,

Está prohibido fumar. (Spanish) [estar]

É proibido fumar. (Portuguese) [ser]

Smoking is forbidden.

La silla está hecha de madera. (Spanish) [estar]

A cadeira é feita de madeira. (Portuguese) [ser]

The chair is made of wood.

Sólo uno es correcto. (Spanish) [ser]

Só um está corre(c)to. (Portuguese) [estar]

Only one is correct.

Also, the use of ser regarding a permanent location is much more accepted in Portuguese. Conversely, estar is often permanent in Spanish regarding a location, while in Portuguese, it implies being temporary and/or something within the immediate vicinity (same house, building, etc.) See the first two examples below.

Secondary copulas are quedar(se) in Spanish and ficar in Portuguese. Each can also mean "to stay" or "to remain."

Nuestra oficina queda (or está) muy lejos. (Spanish) [quedar/estar]

O nosso escritório é (or fica) muito longe. (Portuguese) [ser/ficar]

Our office is very far away.

¿Dónde está (or queda) el aeropuerto? (Spanish) [estar/quedar]

Onde fica (or é) o aeroporto? (Portuguese) [ficar/ser]

Where is the airport?

Because the airport is obviously not anywhere nearby, ficar is used in Portuguese (most common), though ser can also be used.

Mi abuela se está quedando sorda. (Spanish)

A minha avó está ficando surda. (Portuguese)

My grandmother is becoming deaf.

Me quedé dentro de la casa todo el día. (Spanish)

Fiquei dentro de casa todo o dia. (Portuguese)

I stayed (or "was") inside the house all day.

As explained in the next section, the Spanish sentence implies that staying inside the house was voluntary, while Portuguese and English are quite ambiguous on this matter without any additional context.

Reflexive verbs

Reflexive verbs are somewhat more frequent in Spanish than in Portuguese, especially with actions relating to parts of the body:

Guillermo se quebró la pierna jugando a la pelota. (Spanish)

O Guilherme quebrou a perna jogando bola. (Brazilian Portuguese)

O Guilherme partiu a perna a jogar à bola. (European Portuguese)

William broke his leg playing football.

When the same verb in Spanish becomes pronominal, voluntary action is implied:

Pablo quedó en París. (Spanish)

Paul stayed in Paris [an accident may have forced him to].

Pablo se quedó en París. (Spanish)

Paul stayed in Paris [because he decided to].

Both sentences above would generally be rendered in Portuguese as "O Paulo ficou em Paris." If necessary for clarity, though, this could be expanded as either "O Paulo teve que/de ficar em Paris." (Paulo had to stay in Paris.) or "O Paulo decidiu ficar em Paris." (Paulo decided to stay in Paris.).

Auxiliary verb of perfect tenses

In Spanish, compound perfect tenses are constructed with a verb derived from Latin habere. This also used to be the case in Portuguese, but in recent centuries the verb ter (to have), from Latin tenere, has been steadily overtaking haver. However, the latter is still used with some frequency in writing, and formal speaking. While ter is used as an auxiliary by other Iberian languages, it is much more pervasive in Portuguese. Note that most Portuguese verb tables only contain ter with regard to the perfect tenses.

Yo ya había comido cuando mi madre volvió. (Spanish) [imperfect form of haber]

Eu já havia comido quando a minha mãe voltou. (formal Portuguese, used also informally by some Brazilians) [imperfect form of haver]

Eu já tinha comido quando a minha mãe voltou. (informal and standard Portuguese) [imperfect form of ter]

I already had eaten when my mother returned.

Imperfect subjunctive versus pluperfect indicative

A class of false friends between the two languages is composed of the verb forms with endings containing -ra-, such as cantara, cantaras, cantáramos, and so on. Spanish has two forms for the imperfect subjunctive, one with endings in -se- and another with endings in -ra- (e.g. cantase, cantara; were I to sing), which are usually interchangeable. In Portuguese, only cantasse has this value; cantara is employed as a pluperfect indicative, i.e. the equivalent to Spanish había cantado (I had sung). Although there is a strong tendency to use a verb phrase instead in the spoken language, like in Spanish and English (tinha cantado), the simple tense is still frequent in literature.

Present perfect

In Spanish, as in English, the present perfect tense is normally used to talk about an action initiated and completed in the past, which is still considered relevant or influential in the present moment. Consider the examples below:

No, gracias. Ya he cenado. (Spanish) [present perfect]

Não, obrigado. Já jantei. (Portuguese) [preterite perfect]

No, thank you. I have already dined. [present perfect]

He ido a España dos veces. (Spanish) [present perfect]

Fui a Espanha duas vezes. (Portuguese) [preterite perfect]

I have been to Spain twice. [present perfect]

¿Ha oído usted las últimas noticias, señor? (Spanish) [present perfect]

O senhor ouviu as últimas notícias? (Portuguese) [preterite perfect]

Have you heard the latest news, sir? [present perfect]

In each of these sentences, Portuguese uses the preterite instead of the present perfect. In Portuguese, the present perfect (pretérito perfeito composto) is used for speaking of events which began in the past and were repeated regularly up to the present. Normally, it conveys the connotation that the event in question is likely to keep happening in the future (though this is not a necessary condition for the Portuguese present perfect to be used). A few examples:

Últimamente, he ido al cine todos los sábados. (Spanish) [present perfect]

Ultimamente, tenho ido ao cinema todos os sábados. (Portuguese) [present perfect]

Lately, I have been going to the cinema every Saturday. [present perfect continuous]

He pensado en pedirle matrimonio. (Spanish) [present perfect]

Tenho pensado em pedi-la em casamento. (Portuguese) [present perfect]

I have been thinking of asking her to marry me. [present perfect continuous]

As the last two examples suggest, the Portuguese present perfect is often closer in meaning to the English present perfect continuous. See also Spanish verbs.

Personal infinitive

The Latin imperfect subjunctive has become the personal infinitive in Portuguese, stemming from the Latin pluperfect subjunctive. It remains the subjunctive in all other Romance languages except Galician. The use of a personal infinitive is mandatory (with respect to impersonal infinitives) whenever the subjects of two clauses in a sentence are different. In most cases, it can be replaced by a subordinate finite clause, which frequently occurs in formal situations.

La recepcionista nos pidió que esperáramos. (Spanish) [imperfect subjunctive]

A recepcionista pediu para esperarmos. (Portuguese) [personal infinitive]

A recepcionista pediu que esperássemos. (Portuguese, more formal) [imperfect subjunctive]

The receptionist asked that we wait. (Sp. + formal Pt.) / The receptionist asked (for) us to wait. (Pt.)

The Portuguese perfect form of the personal infinitive corresponds to one of several possible Spanish finite verbs.

Alguien nos ha acusado de haber robado un bolígrafo. (Spanish)

Alguém nos acusou de termos roubado uma caneta. (Portuguese)

Somebody accused us of having stolen a pen.

On some occasions, the personal infinitive can hardly be replaced by a finite clause and corresponds to a different structure in Spanish (and English):

Tu hábito de fumar junto a una ventana es desagradable. (Spanish: "Your habit of smoking close to a window is unpleasant.")

O hábito de fumares à janela é desagradável. (Portuguese, using personal infinitive. Literally, "The habit of [you] smoking at the window is unpleasant.")

(O) teu hábito de fumar à janela é desagradável. (Portuguese, using impersonal infinitive. Literally, "(The) Your habit of smoking at the window is unpleasant.")

There are a few confusing aspects of the personal infinitive. It is not used in counterfactual situations, as these require the imperfect subjunctive. "If we were rich..." is Se fôssemos ricos..., not *Se sermos ricos... Also, it is conjugated the same as the future subjunctive (see next section), provided the latter is not irregular (ser, estar, ter, etc.) The personal infinitive is never irregular, though the circumflex accent may be dropped in writing on expanded forms (such as pôr) ^[4].

In the first and third person singular, the personal infinitive appears no different than the unconjugated infinitive.

É bom eu/ele esperar um bocadinho. (Portuguese)

It is good that I/he wait(s) a bit.

The above rules also apply whenever the subjects of the two clauses are the same, but independent of each other.

Para que llegáramos temprano, necesitaríamos apresurarnos. (Spanish) [imperfect subjunctive]

Para chegarmos cedo, precisaríamos nos apressar. (Portuguese) [personal infinitive]

For us to arrive early, we will need to hurry.

As shown, the personal infinitive can be used at times to replace both the impersonal infinitive and the subjunctive. Spanish has no such alternative.

Future subjunctive

This tense developed by medieval Ibero-Romance is now old-fashioned in Spanish, but remains in vernacular use in Portuguese (in fact, it shows no signs of falling out of favour). It appears in subordinate clauses that denote a condition which must be fulfilled in the future, so that the main clause will happen. Spanish will use the present tense in this type of clause. Consider the following three sentences. (Latin is included as a term of comparison, since it never developed a future subjunctive itself.)

If I were king, I would end hunger.

Si essem rex, terminarem famem. (Latin) [past subjunctive]

Si yo fuera rey, acabaría con el hambre. (Spanish) [past subjunctive]

Se eu fosse rei, acabaria com a fome. (Portuguese) [past subjunctive]

The situation is counterfactual; we know that the speaker is not a king. All four languages use the past (imperfect) subjunctive here.

If I am elected president, I will change the law.

Si eligor praesidens, mutabo legem. (Latin) [present indicative]

Si yo soy elegido presidente, cambiaré la ley. (Spanish) [present indicative]

Se eu for eleito presidente, mudarei a lei. (Portuguese) [future subjunctive]

This second statement expresses a future possibility; the speaker may yet be elected president. Here, Spanish uses the present indicative tense, while Portuguese uses the future subjunctive.

For a different kind of example, a father speaking to his son might say:

When you are older, you will understand.

Quando eris major, comprehendes. (Latin) [future indicative]

Cuando seas mayor, comprenderás. (Spanish) [present subjunctive]

Quando fores maior, compreenderás. (Portuguese) [future subjunctive]

Not all subordinate clauses of this kind require the future subjunctive, however, and sometimes the present subjunctive is used where a beginner might expect to see the future subjunctive. Other times, both the present and the future subjunctive are acceptable, though they convey different nuances to the sentence.

The Spanish future subjunctive is, nevertheless, used in legal documents, and some sayings or idioms:

A los que leyeren, "To the readers" (lit. "To those who may read");

Adonde fueres, haz lo que vieres "Wherever you go, do as you see".

Orthography

Alphabet

• a b c ch d e f g h i j l ll m n ñ o p q r rr s t u v x y z

The traditional Spanish alphabet has 28 letters, while Portuguese has 23. Modern versions of recent years may add k and w (found only in foreign words) to both languages. Also, Spanish may omit rr,^[5] while Portuguese adds y (foreign). The five letters not included in traditional Portuguese are shown in bold type above, as neither digraphs nor the letter ç (with a cedilla) are counted separately.

With the reform in 1994 by the 10th congress of the Association of Spanish Language Academies, Spanish alphabetization now follows the same pattern as that of other major West European languages. Prior to this date, however, digraphs were independently alphabetized. For example, the following surnames would be put in this order: Cervantes, Contreras, Cruz, Chavez, Dávila. Many Spanish dictionaries and other reference material still exist using the pre-reform rule of alphabetization.

Different spellings for similar sounds

The palatal consonants are spelled differently in the two languages.

The symbols ll and ñ are etymological in Spanish, as the sounds they represent are often derived from Latin ll and nn (for those positions, Portuguese has simple l and n; cf. rodilla/rodela, peña/pena). The Portuguese digraphs lh and nh were adopted from Occitan, as poetry of the troubadors was the most important influence on Portuguese literature up until the 14th century. King Denis of Portugal, who established Portuguese instead of Latin as the official language, was an admirer of the poetry of the troubadors and a poet himself.

The letter y was used in Portuguese from the 16th to the early 20th century in Greek loans, much as in English (e.g., Psychologia Psychology, modern Psicologia). The orthographic reform in 1911 officially replaced it with i. The corresponding sound can be regarded as an allophone of the vowel i in both languages.

The exact pronunciation of these three consonants varies somewhat with dialect. The table indicates only the most common sound values in each language. In most Spanish dialects, the consonants written ll and y have come to be pronounced the same way, a sound merger known as yeísmo. A similar phenomenon can be found in some dialects of Brazilian Portuguese, but it is much less widespread than in Spanish.

The Portuguese letter ç with a cedilla originates from the Visigothic form of the letter z, and always takes the soft c sound. No word may begin or end with a cedilla. It also appeared in old Spanish but has since been reverted back to letter z. Example: calzado (Sp.), calçado (Pt)

Correspondences between word endings

Various word endings are consistently different in the two languages.

• Spanish -n corresponds to Portuguese -m when in word-final or before the letters p and b, because in Portuguese it is an orthography rule, these letters in Portuguese at syllable-final indicates only a nasalisation of the previous vowel (e.g. Spanish: jardín, algún; Portuguese: jardim, algum). In the plural, the m is replaced with an n (Spanish: jardines, algunos; Portuguese: jardins, alguns), because in these cases the m is not in word-final anymore. see the section on the vowels below.
• Common exceptions to the above rule concern the Spanish noun endings:
  • -án and -ano, which normally correspond to -ão or -ã in Portuguese (Irán/Irão/Irã; Iran, hermano/irmão; brother, and huérfano/órfão; male orphan);
  • -ana, which corresponds to -ã (hermana/irmã, sister; mañana/manhã; morning, huérfana/órfã; female orphan);
  • -ón / -ción or -cción / -sión, which usually correspond to -ão / -ção / -são or -ssão (melón/melão, melon; opción/opção, option, or corrección/correcção, correction; pensión/pensão, pension, or admisión/admissão, admission).
  • -on or -an, which corresponds to -ão in most monosyllables (son/são, they are; / tan/tão, as or so);

• Different singular word endings in Spanish (-ano, -án, -ón, and in monosyllables also -an and -on) usually correspond to just one singular word ending in Portuguese (-ão); however, the Portuguese plural ending varies (-ãos, -ães or -ões), usually denoting the archaic version of the word (which was often closer to Spanish):
  • -ãos, as in mão/mãos (Spanish, mano(s); English, hand(s));
  • -ães, as in capitão/capitães (Spanish, capitán/capitanes; English, captain(s));
  • -ões, as in melão/melões (Spanish, melón/melones; English, melon(s)).

• Notable exceptions to the above rule:
  • verão/verões (Spanish, verano(s); English, summer(s));
  • ancião, which allows the three plural forms: anciãos, anciães and anciões (Spanish, anciano(s); English, elder(s)).

• The 3rd person plural endings of the preterite indicative tense are spelled with -on in Spanish (pensaron, vivieron; they thought, they lived), but with -am in Portuguese (pensaram, viveram).

• Another conspicuous difference is the use of -z in Spanish versus -s in Portuguese at the end of unstressed syllables, especially when the consonant is the last letter in a word. A few examples:

|- | Álvarez, || Fernández, || Rodriguez, || izquierda, || mezquino | (Spanish) |- | Álvares, || Fernandes, || Rodrigues, || esquerda, || mesquinho | (Portuguese) |}

Accentuation and nasalization

Both languages use diacritics to mark the stressed syllable of a word whenever it is not otherwise predictable from spelling. Since Spanish does not differentiate between mid-open and mid-close vowels, and has no nasal vowels, it uses only one accent, the acute. Portuguese usually uses the acute accent ( ´ ), but also uses the circumflex accent ( ˆ ) on the mid-close vowels ê and ô and the stressed nasal â.

• á (acute) + ã (nasal) = â (circumflex)   Does not apply to other Portuguese vowels (though the circumflex is always stressed)

Although the Spanish y can be either a consonant or a vowel, as a vowel it never takes an accent. At the end of a word, the Portuguese diphthong ai is the equivalent of the Spanish ay, however, ai can have an accent on the i to break the diphthong into two separate vowels. Example: açaí (three syllables). Without the accent, the stress would fall on the last a, as in Spanish: Paraguai (Portuguese), Paraguay (Spanish)

Portuguese nasal vowels occur before n and m (see below) without an accent mark, as these consonants are not fully pronounced in such cases. The tilde (~), is only used on nasal diphthongs such as ão and õe, plus the final ã which replaces the am ending, as the latter is reserved for verbs. Example: amanhã /ama'ɲã/ (tomorrow).

• Initial and middle:   vowel + n + consonant (except h, p or b)     examples: antecedente, geringonça, mundo  
• Initial and middle:   vowel + m + p or b     examples: caçamba, emprego, supimpa, pomba, penumbra  
• Final:   vowel (i, o, or u) + m     examples: ruim, bom, algum

These do not alter the rules for stress, though note endings _im, _ins and _um, _uns are stressed, as are their non-nasal counterparts (see below). A couple of two-letter words consist of only the nasal vowel: em and um. Although words such as mundo (world) are spelled the same, Spanish vowels are never nasalized.

Portuguese has a change in the vowel sound between the unaccented and acute o. Thus, nós (/nɔs/ or /nɔʃ/) ("we") is pronounced differently from nos (/nus/ or /nuʃ/) ("us"). Spanish pronunciation makes no distinction between the two vowels in cómo, for example.

The grave accent ( ` ) is also used in Portuguese to indicate the contraction of the preposition a (to) with a few words beginning with the vowel a, but not to indicate stress. In other cases, it is the combination of the preposition and the feminine definite article; in other words, the equivalent of a la (to the) in Spanish. Às is used for the plural (a las in Spanish).

• a (prep.) + aquele = àquele (stressed syllable in bold)
• a (prep.) + a (def. article) + Argentina = à Argentina
• a (prep.) + as (pl. def. article) + Filipinas = às Filipinas

The accentuation rules (including those of predictable stress) of Portuguese and Spanish are similar, but not identical. Discrepancies are especially pervasive in words that contain i or u in their last syllable. Note the Portuguese diphthongs ei and ou are the approximate Spanish equivalent of e and o respectively, but any word ending with these diphthongs is, by default, stressed on its final syllable.

Compare the following pairs of cognates in which the stress falls on the same syllable in both languages:

|- | taxi, || viví, || bambú, || ansia, || seria, || sería, || jardín, || pensáis, || pensó | (Spanish) |- | táxi, || vivi, || bambu, || ânsia, || séria, || seria, || jardim, || pensais, || pensou | (Portuguese) |}

Semivowel-vowel sequences are treated differently in both languages when it comes to accentuation rules. A sequence of a semivowel adjacent to a vowel is by default assumed to be read as a diphthong (part of the same syllable) in Spanish, whereas it is by default assumed to be read as a hiatus (belonging to different syllables) in Portuguese. For both languages, accentuation rules consistently indicate something other than the default.

A consequence of this is that words that are pronounced alike in both languages are written according to different accentuation rules. Some examples:

• emergencia (Spanish), emergência (Portuguese)
• tolerancia (Spanish), tolerância (Portuguese)
• audacia (Spanish), audácia (Portuguese)
• ocio (Spanish), ócio (Portuguese)

Another consequence (though not very common) is that some words are written exactly the same in both languages, but the stress falls on different syllables:

• democracia (Spanish - rising diphthong at the end), democracia (Portuguese - the stress on -ci breaks the diphthong).

Phonology

Although the vocabularies of Spanish and Portuguese are quite similar, phonetically Portuguese is closer to Catalan or to French, and surprisingly it can sound to some people like a Slavic language due to the consonant clusters not found in other romance languages.^[6] It is often claimed that the complex phonology of Portuguese compared to Spanish explains why it is generally not very intelligible to Spanish speakers despite the strong lexical similarity between the two languages; Portuguese speakers have a greater intelligibility of Spanish than do the reverse.

One of the main reason this occurs is because of the number of vowel sounds that the two languages have. Spanish has one of the most basic phonetic systems of any language, with the basic 5 vowels. Portuguese on the other hand, has 8 vowel sounds + 5 nasal sounds (Brazilian Portuguese) to 9 vowel sounds + 5 nasal vowel sounds (European Portuguese).

The following considerations are based on a comparison of standard versions of Spanish and Portuguese. Apparent divergence of the information below from anyone's personal pronunciation may indicate one's idiolect (or dialect) diverges from the mentioned standards. Information on Portuguese phonology is adapted from Celso Pedro Luft (, 1971), and information on Spanish phonology adapted from Manuel Seco (, 1994).

Comparing the phonemic inventory of the two languages, a noticeable divergence stands out. First, Portuguese has more phonemes than Spanish, particularly vowels. Also, each language has phonemes that are not shared by the other.

Early phonetic divergence

Vowels

Spanish and Portuguese have been diverging for over a thousand years. One of the most noticeable early differences between them concerned the result of the stressed vowels of Latin:

¹The vowels and occur largely in complementary distribution.
²This diphthong has been reduced to the monophthong in many dialects of modern Portuguese.

As vowel length ceased to be distinctive in the transition from Latin to Romance, the stressed vowels E and O became ie and ue in Spanish whenever they were short (Latin petra → Spanish piedra "stone"; Latin moritur → Spanish muere "he dies"). Similar diphthongizations can be found in other Romance languages (French pierre, Italian pietra; French meurt/muert, Italian muore, Romanian moare), but in Galician-Portuguese these vowels underwent a qualitative change instead (Portuguese/Galician pedra, morre), becoming lower, as also happened with short I and short U in stressed syllables. The vowels and were correspondingly raised: in Spanish, they are mid vowels, while in Portuguese they are close-mid.

Portuguese also differs from Spanish in having five nasal vowels (), which, according to historical linguistics, arose from the assimilation of the nasal consonants and , often at the end of syllables. Syllable-final m and n are still written down to indicate nasalization, even though they are no longer fully pronounced. In other cases, nasal vowels are marked with a tilde (ã, õ). Not all words containing vowel + n have the nasal sound, as the subsequent letter must be a consonant in order for this to occur. (Exception: the digraph nh does not imply nasalization of the preceding vowel.) anel /a'nɛw/ (ring/non-nasal), anca /'ãka/ (hip/nasal).

The Portuguese monophthong ou can cause confusion for Spanish speakers depending on how it is used. For example, descansó (Sp) and descansou (Pt) (he rested) are pronounced similarly (despite the changes in spelling), while voy (Sp) and vou (Pt) (I go) appear to be similar, but have different vowel sounds. Interestingly, sometimes the opposite can occur, such as Spanish cosa (thing) changing to coisa in Portuguese.

Consonants

Some of the most characteristic sound changes undergone by the consonants from Latin to Spanish and Portuguese are shown in the table below.

*reconstructed

Peculiar to early Spanish (as in the Gascon dialect of Occitan, possibly due to a Basque substratum) was the loss of Latin initial F whenever it was followed by a vowel which did not diphthongize. Thus, Spanish hijo and hablar correspond to Portuguese filho and falar (from Latin filium and fabulare, respectively). Nevertheless, Portuguese fogo corresponds to Spanish fuego (from Latin focum).

Another typical difference concerned the result of Latin L and N in intervocalic position:

• When single, they were retained in Spanish but elided in Portuguese. Often, the loss of the consonant was followed by the merger of the two surrounding vowels (as in the examples in the table above), or by the insertion of an epenthetic vowel between them (Latin arenam → Spanish arena, Portuguese arẽa, today areia "sand").

• When double, they developed into the Spanish palatals ll and ñ. Indeed, the Spanish letter ñ was originally a shorthand for nn. In Portuguese, -LL- and -NN- just became single.

• When followed by the semivowel I, L coalesced with it into a j in Spanish. In Portuguese, L and N followed by semivowel I were palatalized into lh and nh, respectively.

Other consonant clusters of Latin also took markedly different routes in the two languages in their archaic period:

Learned words such as pleno, ocular, no(c)turno, tremular, and so on, were not included in the examples above, since they were adapted directly from classical Latin in later times.

The tables above represent only general trends with many exceptions, due to:

1. Other phonological processes at work in old Spanish and old Portuguese, which interfered with these.
2. Later regularization by analogy with related words.
3. Later borrowing of learned words directly from Latin, especially since the Renaissance, which did not respect the original sound laws.
4. Mutual borrowing, from Spanish to Portuguese or vice-versa.

Synaeresis

Portuguese has tended to eliminate hiatuses that were preserved in Spanish, merging similar consecutive vowels into one (often after the above-mentioned loss of intervocalic l and n). This results in many Portuguese words being one syllable shorter than their Spanish cognates:

|- | creído, || leer, || mala, || manzana, || mañana, || poner, || reír, || venir | (Spanish) |- | crido, || ler, || má, || maçã, || manhã, || pôr, || rir, || vir | (Portuguese) |}

In other cases, Portuguese reduces consecutive vowels to a diphthong, again resulting in one syllable fewer:

|- | a-te-o, || eu-ro-pe-o, || pa-lo, || ve-lo | (Spanish) |- | a-teu, || eu-ro-peu, || pau, || véu | (Portuguese) |}

There are nevertheless a few words where the opposite happened, such as Spanish comprender versus Portuguese compreender, from Latin comprehendere.

Different sounds with the same spelling

Since the late Middle Ages, both languages have gone through more sound shifts and mergers which set them farther apart.

Sibilants

The most marked phonetic divergence between Spanish and Portuguese in their modern period concerned the evolution of the sibilants. In the Middle Ages, both had a rich system of seven sibilants, paired according to affrication and voicing: , , , , , , and (the latter probably in free variation with , as still happens today in Ladino).

¹Before vowels. In the coda position, there are dialectal variations within each language, not discussed here.

After the Renaissance, the two languages reduced their inventory of sibilants, but in different ways:

• Devoicing in Spanish: the voiced sibilants written -s-, z and j/g became voiceless, merging with s-/-ss-, c/ç and x, respectively. In many dialects, also merged with (seseo). Later, the postalveolar fricative changed into the velar fricative . Spanish spelling has been updated according to these sound changes.

• Deaffrication in Portuguese: the affricates written ç/c, z, and ch became plain fricatives, merging with the sibilants s-/-ss-, -s-, and x, respectively. In spite of this, modern Portuguese has for the most part kept the medieval spelling.

Unstressed vowels

The history of the unstressed vowels in Spanish and Portuguese is not as well known as that of the stressed vowels, but some points are generally agreed upon. Spanish has the five short vowels of classical Latin, , one of the most common vowel inventories in world languages. It has also two semivowels, and , that appear in diphthongs, but these can be considered allophones of the vowels and , respectively. The pronunciation of the unstressed vowels does not differ much from that of stressed vowels.

The system of seven oral vowels of medieval Portuguese has been fairly well preserved in the closely related Galician language (several Galician dialects have, however, lost the nasal vowels). In Portuguese, unstressed vowels have been more unstable, both diachronically (across time) and synchronically (between dialects), producing new vowel sounds. The vowels written a, e and o are pronounced in different ways according to several factors, most notably whether they are stressed, and whether they occur in the last syllable of a word. The basic paradigm is shown in the following table (it has some exceptions).

¹These vowels occur in complementary distribution in Brazilian Portuguese. In European Portuguese, they have some minimal pairs.

Similar alternation patterns to these exist in other Romance languages such as Catalan or Occitan. Although it is mostly an allophonic variation, some dialects have developed minimal pairs that distinguish the stressed variants from the unstressed ones. The vowel , unusual in the Romance languages, is often elided in connected speech. It is not present in Brazilian Portuguese.

The orthography of Portuguese, which is partly etymological and analogical, does not indicate these sound changes. This makes the written language look deceptively similar to Spanish. For example, although breve (brief) is spelled the same in both languages, it is pronounced in Spanish, but in Portuguese. In the vast majority of cases, the only difference between the Portuguese final e and i is the stress, as both are pronounced as i. The former is unstressed, and the latter is stressed without any diacritical mark.

Other pronunciation differences

Since no distinction is made anymore between the pronunciation of b and v, Spanish spelling has been reformed according to classical Latin. In Portuguese, the spelling of these letters is based on pronunciation, which is closer to medieval Latin and modern Italian. This leads to some orthographic disparities:

• Compare for example Spanish gobierno, haber, libro with Portuguese governo, haver, livro.
• The endings of the imperfect indicative tense of 1st. conjugation verbs (with infinitives ending in -ar) are spelled with b in Spanish (cantaba, cantabas, cantábamos, and so on), but with v in Portuguese (cantava, cantavas, cantávamos, etc.)
• The Spanish adjectival suffix -ble, as in posible (also used in English, "possible"), corresponds to -vel in Portuguese: possível.

In Spanish, the plosives b, d, g are usually realized as "soft" approximants . While the same pronunciation can sometimes be heard in Portugal, most speakers of Portuguese pronounce these phonemes consistently as "hard" plosives . This can make a Portuguese sentence like vou comprar umas botas sound like vou comprar umas potas to a Spanish speaker.

See also

• Portuguese language
  • History of Portuguese
  • Portuguese dialects
  • Portuguese grammar
    • Portuguese personal pronouns
    • Portuguese verb conjugation
  • Portuguese orthography
  • Portuguese phonology
  • Wikipedia in Portuguese: List of contracted prepositions
• Spanish language
  • History of the Spanish language
  • Spanish dialects and varieties
  • Spanish grammar
    • Spanish determiners
    • Spanish verbs
  • Spanish orthography
  • Spanish phonology
• Preterite
• Romance languages
  • Romance copula
• Subjunctive mood
• Vulgar Latin
• West Iberian languages

References

Notes

Bibliography

• Carrasco González, Juan M. Manual de iniciación a la lengua portuguesa, 1994, Editorial Ariel, S.A., Barcelona
• Estrela, Edite (1993) Editorial Notícias
• Lindley Cintra, Luís F. ''Nova Proposta de Classificação dos Dialectos Galego-Portugueses'' Boletim de Filologia, Lisboa, Centro de Estudos Filológicos, 1971.
• Luft, Celso Pedro. Novo Manual de Português. São Paulo, Editora Globo, 1990 (13th edition) pp 43–53
• Mateus, Maria Helena & d'Andrade, Ernesto (2000) The Phonology of Portuguese ISBN 0-19-823581-X
• Seco, Manuel. . Madrid, Espasa, 1996 (4th edition) pp 81–94
• Squartini, Mario (1998) Verbal Periphrases in Romance — Aspect, Actionality, and Grammaticalization ISBN 3-11-016160-5
• Vázquez Cuesta, Mendes da Luz, (1987) Gramática portuguesa, 3rd. ed. ISBN 84-249-1117-2
• Contrastive Romance Phonetics at Orbis Latinus
• ''História da Língua Portuguesa em Linha'', Homepage of the Instituto Camões

External links

• Aspectos Comparativos entre o Espanhol e o Português (in Portuguese)
• List of Spanish-Portuguese false friends
• Contrastive Romance Lexicology at Orbis Latinus
• A recording of the sibilants, as they would have been pronounced in medieval Spanish and Portuguese.
• Tá Falado! — Brazilian Portuguese Pronunciation for Speakers of Spanish

pt:Diferenças entre o castelhano e o português ru:Сравнительный анализ испанского и португальского языков