Although Brazilian Portuguese originated from European Portuguese, both the dialects have evolved over the time and differ significantly today. You cannot expect a person who is well versed in Brazilian Portuguese to be proficient in European Portuguese as well due to the generous number of differences found in both. Here are 3 most common differences between both the dialects:
- Differences in the spellings used in Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese are plentiful. European Portuguese is similar to Spanish. For example the English word “truck” is “caminhão” in Brazilian Portuguese and “camião” in European Portuguese.
- The Brazilian Portuguese vocabulary is also different from the European Portuguese. While words from European Portuguese are mostly found in languages like Spanish, those in the latter are closely related to South America. Like in Spanish, pineapple is written as “ananas” in Brazilian Portuguese and as “abacaxi” in European Portuguese. The latter is derived from Tupi, an indigenous language of the Tupi people of Brazil.
- Another important point of difference between the two dialects is that while in Brazilian Portuguese the object pronoun is followed by the verb, in European Portuguese the verb precedes the object pronoun with a dash in-between.
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