this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2024
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Linguistics Humor

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[–] BigDaddySlim 27 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

And Portuguese is a mix of French and Spanish, but if it was mixed together by drunk who didn't know either of those languages

I'm struggling learning Portuguese is what I'm trying to say

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I usua'y joke that it's like Ita'ian but whẽ' you just woke up ã'd your tõ'gue did not, so you prõ'õu'ce thĩ's mostly the sã' except for a few missĩ' cõsõ'ãts.

[I usually joke that it's like Italian but when you just woke up and your tongue did not, so you pronounce things mostly the same except for a few missing consonants.]

Serious now. If you want some help feel free to ask. I'm a native speaker.

[–] BigDaddySlim 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That's actually pretty accurate lmao

My girlfriend speaks Portuguese natively so she helps me with it, but there's only so much she can do when my body also isn't accustomed to the nasal vowels, and I'm also an idiot lol

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

You probably aren't an idiot, it's just that language learning is harder than it looks like.

If you have a really hard time with the nasal vowels, worst hypothesis it's fine to simply pronounce an oral vowel + [ŋ]. You won't sound native, but it sounds less off than simply omitting the nasalisation or using [m] or [n] instead.

Watch out for the vowel height of /ã/; depending on the dialect it's between [ɐ̃] and [ə̃], but it's certainly not [ã].

[–] trolololol 1 points 1 week ago

Nasals are easy, just raise your hands, position two fingers around your nose, and press it shut.

It's a bit tiring but exactly the same results as closing the air passage between your nose and throat.

[–] Dagnet 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Portuguese is my native language and I struggle with it. Hell, I have an easier time with english. German tho, is impossible to learn in one lifetime

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

German here. Can confirm.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Portuguese is like catalan which is like occitan (southern French). If you know one of the Latin languages, Portuguese shouldn't be too hard, really.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Portuguese shouldn’t be too hard, really

To read? Absolutely. To understand, even though I speak some other Romance languages? Just no.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Ah yeah that's fair enough. But then again that's true of all the languages I've learnt.

Learning spoken English with the BBC accent and then landing in Ireland and dealing with all the local accents... that was some craic alright!

[–] Valmond 2 points 1 week ago

Just learn 3-4 latin languages, and latin ofc and you should be ready to go