# Portuguese and Italian - mutual intelligibility



## Ayazid

Olá pessoal

There are already many threads about mutual intelligibility of Portuguese with its "brother" (or we could say cousin xD) Castelhano language, but another interesting matter is mutual intelligibility of Portuguese and another related Romance language - Italian. Unfortunately, I haven´t read many notions about this no less interesting issue yet. The Italian language (at least its official Toscano version) is usually considered to be intelligible with Castelhano up to some degree (some native speakers of Castelhano even consider it to be easier for understanding in its spoken form than the spoken Português). Personally, I know here in the Czech republic some Italian and Portuguese students who communicate among themselves in somehow odd mix of English and their proper languages, but my impression is that the communication only in their native languages doesn´t work so well, because they turn to (well, broken  ) English quite often. 


My question for native speakers of Portuguese is: Can you understand written and spoken Italian (or/and its dialects) up to some degree?


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## MOC

I would say up to some degree, but not enough to mantain a long running conversation, and it would be even harder to mantain a meaningful conversation. 

I can understand anything that's written in Italian because I'm used to it since I often read italian newspapers at home on the internet. 
I can understand spoken italian if it isn't too fast, but i get lost if it is.

Now, I'm someone who studies/has studied (by own will or not) several languages, so I'm quite used to adapt to other languages, but I would say in general people in Portugal would have lots of trouble understanding italian, if they weren't studying it. They would understand something of it though.


ADDING: We once had an italian guy at our place and the type of conversation you described was the same we usually had. We talked in our native languages for a while but always ended up changing to english during the conversation, when it started to get harder and if we wanted to speed up.


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## Vanda

I don't know at what point my growing among Italians, Italian songs, studying Latin and things like that have to do with my intelligibility of Italian, as long as they don't speak really fast! 
Chatting on msn with some Italians that don't have any further contact with Pt language, I observe that they have difficulty in understanding words that in my point of view look very alike Italian.
This is a very interesting subject and I am eager to know what people have to say about it!


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## Alandria

I understand only some words of Italian speakers. It  is not a intelligible language for me.


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## uchi.m

When I used to have cable TV, I often watched the international channels. There was the RAI International channel, too, among those channels, and as a language enthusiast, I liked to watch it as some sort of challenge to check how much of it I could catch -- I have never been to an Italian language class before, nor have I had a live contact with the language, so it was definitely a challenge. 

Given that the images displayed on TV really help on providing the context, I often didn't have much trouble with spoken Italian, although I was always lost myself when it was hard to figure out what the context was, despite the images. In my opinion, written Italian, on the other hand, is harder to understand when compared to written Spanish.


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## MOC

uchi.m said:


> In my opinion, written Italian, on the other hand, is harder to understand when compared to written Spanish.



Do you find spoken Italian to be easier to understand than spoken Spanish?


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## uchi.m

MOC said:


> Do you find spoken Italian to be easier to understand than spoken Spanish?



Sorry, my last post was misleading.

Well, when comparing both spoken Italian and Spanish, I think Spanish to be a little bit easier to catch. But as long as you know what the conversation topic is about, I think you can manage to understand what your Italian counterpart says in Italian.


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## kurumin

Eu entendo o italiano [toscano] melhor que o português lusitano (falado)...
Estudei italiano por um ano...

Acho o italiano um idioma muito difícil e o fato de muitos italianos não gostarem de falar o italiano da Toscana (o padrão), preferindo outros dialetos (e até línguas, como o vêneto) não ajuda...

Em teoria, o italiano tem 7 vogais, mas na prática tem apenas 5.
Só na Toscana se fala o italiano PURO que aprendemos nas aulas de italiano. O italiano dos dicionários
que pronuncia VENTI (com E aberto; ventos) e VENTI (com E fechado; vinte) 
Mas, a tv italiana (RAI) prefere o dialeto romano (accento romano e dialetto romanesco)....ou os sotaques muito carregados do Norte (Rede Mediaset)...

Se você quer estudar o italiano ouvindo Laura Pausini, você está frito, porque ela canta com um forte sotaque
_romagnolo_, que ao ouvido Toscano soa mais espalhol que o italiano (toscano) padrão...Por exemplo ela não pronuncia as vogais fechadas e abertas, mas usa as vogais médias, típicas do espanhol (e o _romagnolo_). Até acho que Laura
canta melhor em português que em italiano


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## Ayazid

From my talks with some of these Italian/Portuguese/Spanish students came to my knowledge also some other noteworthy things:

1) Both Italians and Portuguese consider Spanish to be easier for understanding than the other language (Italian or Portuguese).

2) One of the Spanish students, originally Catalan, considered spoken Italian to be easier than spoken Portuguese, mainly due to her greater familiarity with Italians than with Portuguese (she also noted that mutual Portuguese-Spanish relations are generally rather formal and not very brotherly and that for example in her native Catalonia is rather rare to meet a Portuguese person, speak nothing of Brazilians).

3) One of the Italians expressed his opinion that his knowledge of the Southern Italian Neapolitan dialect (due to his partially Neapolitan origin) somehow helped him to understand spoken Portuguese better, because Portuguese is according to him closer to Napoletano than to Standard Italian.


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## Odinh

Ayazid said:


> 2) One of the Spanish students, originally Catalan, considered spoken Italian to be easier than spoken Portuguese.


 
Which one of the Portuguese varieties? As far as know, Spaniards consider Brazilian Portuguese easier to understand.


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## Ayazid

Odinh said:


> Which one of the Portuguese varieties? As far as know, Spaniards consider Brazilian Portuguese easier to understand.


 
Well, just the European variant ... She is not familiar with the Brazilian one.


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## ronanpoirier

Well... once I learned how to form the plural in Italian and the compound past, I may say I understand 90% of it in a written form. Spoken Italian is a different story, but I understand it better than Spanish.


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## Pedrovski

Definitely not mutually intelligible for me. I met two Italian erasmus students a while back, and when they spoke to each other in their native language I felt like I was listening to Greek.  
Written Italian I can understand reasonably well, although I'm slightly biased given that I had 5 years of french back in high school.


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## MOC

Pedrovski said:


> Written Italian I can understand reasonably well, although I'm slightly biased given that I had 5 years of french back in high school.



That's odd. Your learning of french made you understand written Italian?


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## Pedrovski

MOC said:


> That's odd. Your learning of french made you understand written Italian?



It probably helped, yes. I believe written Italian has a lot of similarities with written French (but are incredibly different in their spoken forms).  
I'd even venture in saying that Italian is a mixture of written French sprinkled with spoken spanish, after having been "processed" in the linguistic mixer.

Ok, perhaps an unfitting analogy, and I kind of lack the authority to speculate about it because I know very little about Italian.


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## MOC

I asked just out of curiosity, because the reason why I can understand Italian without ever studying it is because of its similarity with Spanish, and not french.


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## Ayazid

As for the similarity of Napoletano and other South Italian Dialects with Portuguese, what comes to my mind are certainly its definite articles *o* and *a* instead of classical Italian *il* and *la*, so "il Tuo Nome" becomes "o nomme tujo" in Napoletano ("j" is pronounciated like y).


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## signoremele

I've studied a little Brazilian Portugese, and Id say that the spoken form is very different from "Standard Italian". I had trouble understanding some of the wierd consonant shifts like the word "rico" in Brazilian Portuguese  sounds like "Hico" in English,(r->h)  it was hard for me to make the association with the related Italian word,   which is written and pronounced "rico"   But after that, once i got to learn the changes in consonants, (d->j, t->ch) it got easier, and my italian certainly helped me learn easier. 

dave

One thing that I couldn't get over  was the frequent use of "fica" in portuguese ! my italian ears couldn't beleive it ....


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## Vanda

Bem-vindo aos fóruns Signoremele, 

That funny thing about Portuguese and Italian: fica. I have a funny embarrassing moment to tell - not mine - about it.


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## signoremele

Obrigado para a boa vinda.

dave


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## BlueWolf

I remember I could understand some written Portuguese, since Italian and Portuguese are sometimes even closer than Italian and Spanish, but in general Spanish has always been more understandable. The spoken language is an other thing. I could understand nothing of Portuguese before I started to study it.


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## Odinh

Portuguese and Italian have some words in common different from the equivalent in Spanish. 

For example: porta (port) - puerta (esp) - porta (it).


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## Ayazid

Just a few days ago, I got some quite interesting opinions about this topic from an Italian professor who spend 1 month in gaúcho city Caxias do Sul in Rio Grande do Sul (the city itself is mostly inhabited by descendents of Italians). Although he speaks only Italian and English he was able to understand considerable part of what the people there were telling him in Portuguese and this Portuguese-Italian communication also worked quite well in the other way around. However, when he visited on some occasion Rio de Janeiro he was forced to spend much bigger effort to understand *anything* said to him in carioca accent. Or more exactly, as he said he understood: "quasi niente". He also pointed out the fact that many older people in this area still use Italian Veneto dialect (however, the younger ones don´t). Also some other experiences about this subject which I have read or heard rather confirm the fact that Sulista and Paulista accents are generally easier for Spanish and Italian speakers to understand than those from Rio de Janeiro northward. 

Myself, being learner of Portuguese I consider (begginer, of partially lusófono origin, if that counts  ) Nordestino and carioca sotaques to be dificílimos de entender (certainly not much easier than European Portuguese, which is usually considered to be the most difficult Portuguese variant for understanding). It´s rather frustrating that in the same moment when I am able to "pick up" most or at least big part of words spoken in a Italian movie, even without knowing their meaning, I struggle to understand meaning even of the shortest sentences from some Brazilian or Portuguese one . However, I believe that romper estas barreiras durante aprendizagem da língua de Luís de Camões, os meus antepassados e a música mais linda do mundo inteiro vale a pena, não é?  (well, that´s going off-topic, so let´s stick to the first paragraph  )


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## Alandria

Ayazid said:


> Just a few days ago, I got some quite interesting opinions about this topic from an Italian professor who spend 1 month in gaúcho city Caxias do Sul in Rio Grande do Sul (the city itself is mostly inhabited by descendents of Italians). Although he speaks only Italian and English he was able to understand considerable part of what the people there were telling him in Portuguese and this Portuguese-Italian communication also worked quite well in the other way around. However, when he visited on some occasion Rio de Janeiro he was forced to spend much bigger effort to understand *anything* said to him in carioca accent. Or more exactly, as he said he understood: "quasi niente". He also pointed out the fact that many older people in this area still use Italian Veneto dialect (however, the younger ones don´t). Also some other experiences about this subject which I have read or heard rather confirm the fact that Sulista and Paulista accents are generally easier for Spanish and Italian speakers to understand than those from Rio de Janeiro northward.
> 
> Myself, being learner of Portuguese I consider (begginer, of partially lusófono origin, if that counts  ) Nordestino and carioca sotaques to be dificílimos de entender (certainly not much easier than European Portuguese, which is usually considered to be the most difficult Portuguese variant for understanding). It´s rather frustrating that in the same moment when I am able to "pick up" most or at least big part of words spoken in a Italian movie, even without knowing their meaning, I struggle to understand meaning even of the shortest sentences from some Brazilian or Portuguese one . However, I believe that romper estas barreiras durante aprendizagem da língua de Luís de Camões, os meus antepassados e a música mais linda do mundo inteiro vale a pena, não é?  (well, that´s going off-topic, so let´s stick to the first paragraph  )



Hum...
I tought that caipira dialect was the most dificult to understand for spanish and italian speakers. Do you know that dialect?

http://www.biblio.com.br/conteudo/AmadeuAmaral/modialetocaipira.htm

About the northeastern accent, i agree with you, but carioca accent?? Hum...  I don't think so, but if you think so... why would I negate it?


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## Ayazid

Alandria said:


> Hum...
> I tought that caipira dialect was the most dificult to understand for spanish and italian speakers. Do you know that dialect?
> 
> http://www.biblio.com.br/conteudo/AmadeuAmaral/modialetocaipira.htm
> 
> About the northeastern accent, i agree with you, but carioca accent?? Hum...  I don't think so, but if you think so... why would I negate it?




Yeah, I know that dialect, obviously not from personal experience but I have read about it and even heard some audio samples with speakers using the retroflexive "english" r. Something really unusual for Romance language! (or at least something what the majority of world population is certainly not aware of ) As for the lesser comprehensibility of the carioca accent for the Italian or Spanish speakers (and maybe also learners of Portuguese just  like myself) in comparison with the paulistano one, I don´t see any reason why you couldn´t negate it  We are not talking about personal taste ("I like this accent because ... and hate this one ..."), but rather concrete, factual things. Unfortunately I never talked with any Spanish or Italian person about the caipira sotaque however the different experiences of the Italian guy in Rio Grande do Sul and Rio de Janeiro are quite interesting, não é? On the hand I recall reading of experiences of some in this case Spanish speakers who found the accents spoken in Paraná and São Paulo (at least the city) quite intelligible. So, feel free to negate it and I am more than eager to read your opinions (em português, por favor ) if you don´t mind it, estamos aqui  para discutirmos juntos 

Abraços


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## manudayak

Well, I'm italian and I learnt brazilian portuguese. we need to distinguish portuguese from Brasil and portuguese from Portugal and the spoken language from the written language. An italian person finds easier to understand spoken portuguese from portugal and written portuguese from brasil than written portuguese from Portugal and spoken portuguese from Brasil. Itaians find hard to get portuguese from portugal because of the particles they put in the middle of the verbs while they find difficult spoken portuguese from Brasil because there people change the sound of some letters such as "l" which they pronounce u when it isn't followed by a consonant, just to name one (i.e. Brasil is pronounced Brasiu). For instance a word like "automatically" is written in the same way by italians, portuguese and brasilians (automaticamente) but said in a different way. 
Two people speaking their mother tongue talk quickly so it's normal that foreigners don't get what they are telling,!
Anyway we, italian people understand better spanish than portuguese and much better south american spanish than castellan from Spain! Expecially we sicilians and people from southern Italy. Maybe because of the old spanish domination that has left lots of words in our dialects.
That's the simple point of view of an italian guy!


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## Ayazid

manudayak said:


> Well, I'm italian and I learnt brazilian portuguese. we need to distinguish portuguese from Brasil and portuguese from Portugal and the spoken language from the written language. An italian person finds easier to understand spoken portuguese from portugal and written portuguese from brasil than written portuguese from Portugal and spoken portuguese from Brasil. Itaians find hard to get portuguese from portugal because of the particles they put in the middle of the verbs while they find difficult spoken portuguese from Brasil because there people change the sound of some letters such as "l" which they pronounce u when it isn't followed by a consonant, just to name one (i.e. Brasil is pronounced Brasiu). For instance a word like "automatically" is written in the same way by italians, portuguese and brasilians (automaticamente) but said in a different way.
> Two people speaking their mother tongue talk quickly so it's normal that foreigners don't get what they are telling,!
> Anyway we, italian people understand better spanish than portuguese and much better south american spanish than castellan from Spain! Expecially we sicilians and people from southern Italy. Maybe because of the old spanish domination that has left lots of words in our dialects.
> That's the simple point of view of an italian guy!



Olá manudayak

Firstly, thanks for your post! As for your remark about greater easiness of the Brazilian written Portuguese in comparison with the European one for an Italian person, it sounds rather strange to me since differences between both variants in the formal written language are quite small, unlike those in pronunciation. By the particles put in the middle of verb you mean mesoclisis (forms like "_comprá-lo-ei_" or "_dar-lho-ia"), _right? I think that use of the present continuous construct _estar a_ + infinitive (like _estou a fazer_), predominant in the European variant instead of the classical and Brazilian use of _estar_ + gerund could also make comprehensibility of the text for Italian speakers a little difficult. As for the pronunciation, I think that both variants have certainly its tricky parts, whereas the main difficulty in the European Portuguese seems to be the pronunciation of vowels and in the Brazilian one pronunciation of consonants. However, just as I said I think that both variants are far from being monolithic and some of their local subvariants are more (like the nordestino) and some less (sulista or paulista) difficult for comprehension. 

Anyway, thanks for your contribution and keep posting, we must save this thread from certain death from lack of interest!


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## Macunaíma

Ayazid said:


> (...) both variants are far from being monolithic and some of their local subvariants are more (like the nordestino) and some less (sulista or paulista) difficult for comprehension.


 
Just to clarify that Mr. Ayazid meant more or less difficult for comprehension _for himself_, of course, as all accents are perfectly comprehensible for native speakers or even proficient foreign speakers.


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## manudayak

Hi! 
Yeah, I meant the mesoclisis: those make it portuguese hard to get! Anyway I agree that written portuguese, both the brasilian and the european versions are not so difficult!
As for estar a + infinitive I can tell you that sicilian people can get it more than any other italian guy. And... lots of words in the sicilian dialect are very similar to the portuguese even though Sicily was dominated by Spaniards, strange! The more I study it the more I find new words that look like sicilian. For instance, the article is egual to the sicilian one even though it's written differently... "o palito" is "u palito" in sicilian! (both words have the same meaning!)
There's no doubt that the brasilian spoken portuguese is harder to understand for an italian but it sounds so sweet!


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## Ayazid

Macunaíma said:


> Just to clarify that Mr. Ayazid meant more or less difficult for comprehension _for himself_, of course, as all accents are perfectly comprehensible for native speakers or even proficient foreign speakers.



If you haven´t noticed yet, this thread is about mutual intelligibility of Portuguese and *Italian*. And yes, I was also talking about comprehensibility of Portuguese variants for persons learning Portuguese just as myself and also speakers of Castelhano. I really don´t see point of your ironically sounding post (*Mr.* *Ayazid?* ), neither I am sure that statements contained there are factually correct, since there are  *native speakers of **Português *who impugn the claim about perfect mutual intelligibility of all Portuguese accents without having some time to become familiar with them (of course, it doesn´t have to be séculos ) The same is true for proficient foreign speakers. I am not pretty sure if a person who learnt Portuguese in por exemplo Coimbra or Porto would understand perfectly everything said by a rural person from interior of Nordeste without spending some time there. I could quote some examples of both native speakers and learners who told me the exact opposite of what you have said and you could certainly do the same. We *can´t* make generalizations.

The purpose of this forum is to discuss things related to the Portuguese language in *friendly* and *serious* spirit without being offensive. All foreros should share their opinions, knowledge and experiences with each other and not ironical and virulent comments for petty reasons. If you don´t find this thread interesting or have not anything to say about that, nobody forces you to write here a single point. If you disagree with something written here feel free to response and correct what you consider to be factually wrong and explain your own view-point.

Até mais


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## Macunaíma

*Mr. Ayazid*,

I can't see where in post you found so much sarcasm. It wasn't intended to be sarcastic, not really! I just wanted to point out that the so-called "lesser comprehensibility" of accents like the nordestino was just a matter of personal opinion of a learner of the language, who, curiously, never writes an entire post in the language on which he makes such categorical remarks. I wouldn't have gone to the trouble of posting that if you had done so yourself.
Your point that a person from Coimbra (Portugal) might have trouble understanding someone from Cajazeiras (Paraíba) is correct, but by natives I meant Brazilians, only Brazilians, as we were talking about Brazilian accents. I can assure you that anyone from anywhere in Brazil is absolutely capable of understanding whatever accents spoken in Brazil, even if they don't like it (another matter of personal opinion). 
The gaúcho and paulistano accents may have features which make them easier for you to understand them, considering your mother tongue and your level of proficiency in Portuguese, perhaps? That by no means mean that nordestino accent is "of more difficult comprehension" --that, yes, would be a gross generalization, because you are speaking for yourself (or perhaps for learners whose first language is Czech ). Anyway, I think my post served the purpose if making that clear for the others who may take interest in the discussion.

*Sincerely yours*,

Macunaíma


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## Alandria

Macunaíma said:


> *Mr. Ayazid*,
> 
> I can't see where in post you found so much sarcasm. It wasn't intended to be sarcastic, not really! I just wanted to point out that the so-called "lesser comprehensibility" of accents like the nordestino was just a matter of personal opinion of a learner of the language, who, curiously, never writes an entire post in the language on which he makes such categorical remarks. I wouldn't have gone to the trouble of posting that if you had done so yourself.
> Your point that a person from Coimbra (Portugal) might have trouble understanding someone from Cajazeiras (Paraíba) is correct, but by natives I meant Brazilians, only Brazilians, as we were talking about Brazilian accents. I can assure you that anyone from anywhere in Brazil is absolutely capable of understanding whatever accents spoken in Brazil, even if they don't like it (another matter of personal opinion).
> The gaúcho and paulistano accents may have features which make them easier for you to understand them, considering your mother tongue and your level of proficiency in Portuguese, perhaps? That by no means mean that nordestino accent is "of more difficult comprehension" --that, yes, would be a gross generalization, because you are speaking for yourself (or perhaps for learners whose first language is Czech ). Anyway, I think my post served the purpose if making that clear for the others who may take interest in the discussion.
> 
> *Sincerely yours*,
> 
> Macunaíma




Macunaíma, eu acho que ele tem dificuldade de entender o sotaque nordestino, porque realmente é um sotaque reginal muito marcado, assim como o carioca. Foneticamente o nordestino realmente é bem diferente, é muito mais vocálico e muito, muito mais aberto do que qualquer sotaque dentro de toda a lusofonia. 

Talvez seja essa a percepção de Ayazid, embora eu ache que o dialeto caipira (aquele dos "brabões" mesmo) seja mais difícil de entender para estrangeiros, porque há MAIS ELISÃO do que qualquer outro sotaque brasileiro.

Vou postar outro artigo, só que dessa vez do sotaque nordestino:
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialetos_nordestinos


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## Macunaíma

Oi Alandria,

Eu nem vou discutir com você porque eu sei que você é _expert_ nesses lances de fonética, sotaques e tal, mas eu só quis ressaltar que o comentário do Ayazid não pode ser encarado como uma verdade científica, digamos assim. É um comentário pontual dele, um _achismo_. E você também não concorda que há uma enorme variedade de sotaques nordestinos, desde o sotaque de Gonzaguinha até o de Fernado Collor de Melo? No mais, eu acho que quem acha um determinado sotaque tão incompreensível assim deve estar em um nível bem básico, porque em média eles nem são _tãaaao_ diferentes assim ( não vale comparar o vaqueiro nordestino com o paulistano Joelmir Beting comentando política econômica na TV), de modo que quem tem dificuldade de entender um nordestino médio provavelmente tem dificuldade de entender um paulistano médio também, e vice versa. E, principalmente, eu quis também lembrar que a facilidade maior que ele tem em assimilar determinado sotaque pode não coincidir com a de pessoas cujas línguas maternas sejam diferentes da dele, logo ele não pode estar falando por "persons learning Portuguese". Um francês pode achar o sotaque nordestino mais fácil do que o sulista, e por aí vai. Senão, daqui a pouco a gente incorre no erro de achar que existem sotaques mais claros que os outros, e você sabe que não é assim, que isso é relativo, portanto, relativamente a mim, o sotaque paulista também é um sotaque marcado, e quem tem o sotaque mais inteligível sou eu, ponto final


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## jazyk

> Senão, daqui a pouco a gente incorre no erro de achar que existem sotaques mais claros que os outros, e você sabe que não é assim, que isso é relativo, portanto, relativamente a mim, o sotaque paulista também é um sotaque marcado, e quem tem o sotaque mais inteligível sou eu, ponto final


Hahahahaha. Adorei.

Jazyk


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## FranParis

Eu, por acaso, não tenho sotaque mas ás vezes a minha pronuncia é incompreensível...


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## manudayak

eu vou para o Brasil frequentemente e a primera vez fui pra là trez meses e viajei en todo o Pais. gostei muito dele e nao achei muita difficultade quando falavo com as pessoas. Todos os brasileiros sao maravilhosos e adorei falar com eles e morar com eles muito. Algumas vezes me falavam que meu accento era carioca, algumas vezes me falavam que meu accento era gaùcho. Penso que meu accento è muito gaùcho porquè sou italiano e aì moram muitas pessoas cuja origem è italiana e europeia em geral. Mas talvez meu accento è carioca porquè tenho um primo do Rio e assim acabo pra olhar muito o dialeto dessa linda parte do Brasil.


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## Ayazid

Macunaíma said:


> *Mr. Ayazid*,
> 
> I can't see where in post you found so much sarcasm. It wasn't intended to be sarcastic, not really! I just wanted to point out that the so-called "lesser comprehensibility" of accents like the nordestino was just a matter of personal opinion of a learner of the language, who, curiously, never writes an entire post in the language on which he makes such categorical remarks. I wouldn't have gone to the trouble of posting that if you had done so yourself.
> Your point that a person from Coimbra (Portugal) might have trouble understanding someone from Cajazeiras (Paraíba) is correct, but by natives I meant Brazilians, only Brazilians, as we were talking about Brazilian accents. I can assure you that anyone from anywhere in Brazil is absolutely capable of understanding whatever accents spoken in Brazil, even if they don't like it (another matter of personal opinion).
> The gaúcho and paulistano accents may have features which make them easier for you to understand them, considering your mother tongue and your level of proficiency in Portuguese, perhaps? That by no means mean that nordestino accent is "of more difficult comprehension" --that, yes, would be a gross generalization, because you are speaking for yourself (or perhaps for learners whose first language is Czech ). Anyway, I think my post served the purpose if making that clear for the others who may take interest in the discussion.
> 
> *Sincerely yours*,
> 
> Macunaíma




* Vossa Excelência, Senhor Macunaíma*

I am not pretty sure why you decided to call me Mr. since I am actually younger than you (currently I am 21), however I will take it as an act of forum courtesy  Unfortunately, in the context of your previous post it sounded quite ironical to me, since you only picked up and disputed a single statement (rather an impression) contained in my posts without commenting the rest or presenting your own opinion on the topic, like if you hadn´t found it interesting at all. I have to repeat that *the purpose of this thread is to discuss the mutual intelligibility of Portuguese and Italian*, more exactly mutual intelligibility of these languages for speakers without previous knowledge of the other language *and not remarks of mine or of any other persons about general comprehensibility of a specific Portuguese accent* for - myself or - whoever. Just as I wrote:



			
				Ayazid said:
			
		

> (well, that´s going off-topic, so let´s stick to the first paragraph  )



Anyway, I am sorry that being begginer learning Portuguese who never wrote an entire post in this language, I have commited the crime of expressing my personal impression, peço desculpa!  (trusting in your unfailing mercy)


Back to the topic of our thread!

Maybe we can´t speak about general comprehensibility of some Portuguese accent for all foreigners (more exactly learners of Portuguese and speakers of related languages), however I think (no, I don´t know it, I just think or more exactly *speculate*), that some Portuguese (more exactly Brazilian) accents are certainly intelligible for speakers of Italiano than other ones, especially the Sulista and Paulistano (slowly spoken, of course). Read what I wrote about experiences of the Italian guy in Rio Grande do Sul and Rio de Janeiro. The accents spoken in Southern Brazil in comparision with those spoken in Nordeste certainly posses some specific features which make them more comprehensible for speakers Italian and Spanish (languages with very similar phonology).

Alandria once wrote this interesting post summarising these features:



Alandria said:


> Sempre desconfiei que os estrangeiros tivessem mais facilidade em entender os sulistas no Brasil, a cada dia fico convencida disso, motivos:
> 
> O dialeto sulista é um dos menos nasais da língua portuguesa (alguns chegam a ser até menos nasais do que o português do norte de Portugal, juro).
> O dialeto sulista possui muitas vogais fechadas, se opondo ao nordeste, onde são super abertas.
> O sulista normalmente não chia, possui um S sibilante (com exceção dos florianopolitanos), se opondo ao Rio de Janeiro cujo S é chiante.
> O sulista tende a não elevar as vogais.
> 
> Ótimo exemplo de um sotaque sulista: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO6hIydHE3M



Another important feature of Sulista and Paulistano accent making them most probably more intelligible for Italian and Spanish speakers and unmentioned in this post is pronunciation of syllable-final and final r (in words like porta, amor, porque, ir etc.) as alveolar tap [r] and not  or [x] or their complete loss as it occurs in Nordestino, carioca and other sotaques in Northern and Central Brazil.

 Abraços


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## ronanpoirier

Ayazid said:
			
		

> Another important feature of Sulista and Paulistano accent making them most probably more intelligible for Italian and Spanish speakers and unmentioned in this post is pronunciation of syllable-final and final r (in words like porta, amor, porqu, ir etc.) as alveolar tap [r] and not  or [x] or their complete loss as it occurs Nordestino, carioca and other sotaques in Northern and Central Brazil.



Pode-se adicionar a favor do sotaque gaúcho:
- a pronúncia /l/ do L em final de sílaba;
-  a pronúncia /rr/ do RR ou R de início de sílaba (às vezes, ocorre /rr/ até mesmo em final de sílaba);
- a realização do E final como /ë/;
- a não-palatização de T, D e L antes de /i/ ou /j/;

PS.: as três primeiras colocações ocorrem bastante em todo o estado, com mais intensidade em certas áreas e menos intensidade noutras. A quarta colocação está desaparecendo mas ainda persiste nas áreas de fronteira (seja com a Argentina, o Uruguai ou Santa Catarina). L está se tornando /lh/ antes de /i/ ou /j/ e T e D estão se tornando ou /tsh/ e /dzh/ ou /th/ e /dh/ antes de /i/ e /j/.

PS².: estranhamente, nas colônias de italiano tem-se uma pronúncia /z/ para  J ou G antes de E/I. Podemos constatar tal fato nas charges do Radicci (personagem de charges do jornal mais lido por estas bandas). Meu pai diz que no tempo que ele morou numa colônia italiana, eles pronunciavam G e J como no inglês. Talvez tenha algo que ver com o dialeto, a região da Itália que os colonizadores desta ou daquela cidade vieram.

Esclarecendo os meus símbolos fonéticos:
/th/ = T palatizado ("t' " tcheco, "ty" húngaro)
/dh/ = D palatizado ("d' " tcheco, "dy" húngaro)
/lh/ = L palatizado (nosso "lh")
/rr/ = R inicial do italiano ou espanhol
/ë/ = um som entre um schwa e o /e/, não tão claro quanto o E final do espanhol ou italiano e nem tão fechado e rápido quanto o E final dos portugueses. É também (pelo menos para nós) o som do E pré-tônico quando a sílaba tônica não tiver um I ou um U tônico (mas esta é outra história).
Os outros símbolos seguem o IPA.

Espero ter contribuído com algo.


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## Outsider

ronanpoirier said:


> /lh/ = L palatizado (nosso "lh")


Parece que o nosso /lh/ não é uma consoante palatalizada no sentido sincrónico do termo, mas simplesmente palatal (embora certamente seja o resultado de uma palatalização no sentido diacrónico: L + I > LH).


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## Alandria

Na maior parte do Brasil o LH é um fonema palatal mesmo. Ou seja, o corpo da língua encosta no céu da boca.

Só aqui no espírito santo e na bahia é que tende a ser um [lj], ou seja, a palavra "Lhe" aqui é lida como [lje] nesses estados.


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## lozenge

Olá, desculpem o atraso em responder, só agora é que vi este tópico. Queria apenas acrescentar umas coisinhas relativamente ao assunto



kurumin said:


> Eu entendo o italiano [toscano] melhor que o português lusitano (falado)...
> Estudei italiano por um ano...
> 
> Acho o italiano um idioma muito difícil e o fato de muitos italianos não gostarem de falar o italiano da Toscana (o padrão), preferindo outros dialetos (e até línguas, como o vêneto) não ajuda...
> 
> Em teoria, o italiano tem 7 vogais, mas na prática tem apenas 5.
> Só na Toscana se fala o italiano PURO que aprendemos nas aulas de italiano. O italiano dos dicionários
> que pronuncia VENTI (com E aberto; ventos) e VENTI (com E fechado; vinte)
> Mas, a tv italiana (RAI) prefere o dialeto romano (accento romano e dialetto romanesco)....ou os sotaques muito carregados do Norte (Rede Mediaset)...


 
O “fiorentino” (não o Toscano) é sem dúvida o dialecto mais próximo ao Italiano padrão, porém podemos encontrar uns pormenores que não têm nada a ver com a língua-padrão. Repare bem que o dialecto toscano possui muitas variantes locais. O sotaque – e o dialecto- de Florença é levemente diferente do de Livorno, Pisa, Lucca, etc. etc.
Quanto ao “fiorentino” e ao Italiano padrão, ei-vos algumas das prinicipais diferenças:
- o “–c” intervocálico torna-se aspirado no fiorentino. Exemplo: ‘bicchiere di carta’ (copo plástico) em Italiano pronuncia-se ‘bikkiere di karta’ enquanto em fiorentino é ‘bihhiere di harta’
- a elisão da vogal final nos possessivos: “ la mi’ ‘asa” (a minha casa) “il mi’ ‘ane” (o meu cão)
- o facto de os nativos de Florença conjugarem a primeira pessoa plural com o “si” reflexivo, por exemplo: ‘ noi si va’ (fiorentino), ‘noi andiamo’ (Italiano, seria ‘nós vamos’ em Português)

Só isso 

Ciao a tutti, Davide


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## lozenge

Uma pequena correcção: 'bicchiere di carta' não significa copo plástico mas sim copo de papel. Escapou-me!


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## McBabe

They are SO mutually intelligable!

I don't speak Spanish (just Portunhol  ) and no-one understands my plight when I try to switch between speaking Italian and Portuguese with a mixed group of people. 

Everyone accepts Spanish and Italian as very similar, and yet look at me perplexed when I say I very easily get confused between the two.

After having spent 3 weeks in Italy I found it VERY difficult to go back to speaking Portuguese. 

Due to pronounciation, I'd say that Italians can easily understand Portuguese writing. If they can understand Spanish, there's not a great amount of difference. A lot of things, I think, are more similar in Portuguese and Italian, for example fare and fazer, dire and dizer...more similar than hacer and decir no? 

Anyway, I just simply had to voice my frustration about this! Portuguese admittedly is not as widely known by foreigners as Spanish is...but it really is very wearisome when I have to explain that yes, switching between Italian and Portuguese is as difficult as switching between Italian and Spanish. 

My favourite errors are: 

Ha instead of c'e'/ci sono, and so instead of solo/solamente. I nearly always do this when going from Portuguese to Italian. And given that ha and so are actual words in Italian, it results in utter rubbish!


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## fernandobn97007

Ciao! Não fique zangado comigo, pois só estou querendo entender. Não é verdade que Florença é uma cidade da Toscana? Como pode então "O fiorentino (não o Toscano)" na sua explicação abaixo?
Sempre soube que o Toscano é o mais próximo do italiano perfeito. Quem me disse foi uma amiga Toscana que vive em firenze.
Sei que existe diferenças na pronúncia entre as cidades como todo lugar no mundo. Sou casado com uma cidadã de Torraca, Campania perto de Sapri.




lozenge said:


> Olá, desculpem o atraso em responder, só agora é que vi este tópico. Queria apenas acrescentar umas coisinhas relativamente ao assunto
> 
> 
> 
> O “fiorentino” (não o Toscano) é sem dúvida o dialecto mais próximo ao Italiano padrão, porém podemos encontrar uns pormenores que não têm nada a ver com a língua-padrão. Repare bem que o dialecto toscano possui muitas variantes locais. O sotaque – e o dialecto- de Florença é levemente diferente do de Livorno, Pisa, Lucca, etc. etc.
> Quanto ao “fiorentino” e ao Italiano padrão, ei-vos algumas das prinicipais diferenças:
> - o “–c” intervocálico torna-se aspirado no fiorentino. Exemplo: ‘bicchiere di carta’ (copo plástico) em Italiano pronuncia-se ‘bikkiere di karta’ enquanto em fiorentino é ‘bihhiere di harta’
> - a elisão da vogal final nos possessivos: “ la mi’ ‘asa” (a minha casa) “il mi’ ‘ane” (o meu cão)
> - o facto de os nativos de Florença conjugarem a primeira pessoa plural com o “si” reflexivo, por exemplo: ‘ noi si va’ (fiorentino), ‘noi andiamo’ (Italiano, seria ‘nós vamos’ em Português)
> 
> Só isso
> 
> Ciao a tutti, Davide


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## Istriano

Não existe essa de ''italiano perfeito''. Infelizmente o italiano à moda toscana já era. Hoje em dia mandam o sotaque romano (diferente do _dialetto romano _ou ''romanesco'') e o _sotaque de Milão_ (diferento do _dialetto milanese_).

É o poder das emissoras de TV.

Hoje em dia se diz que o italiano moderno tem uma:

'vovó toscana' uma 
'mãe romana'  e  uma 
'madrasta _milanese_''


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## Libeccio

I'd like to chime in too!

An interesting historical note is that the Genoese were close competitors to Portugal and shared many trading routes. this is somewhat reflected in similar words and sounds between dialetto Genovese and Portuguese. Not enough to hold a conversation, but enough to pick out a few words.


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## Carfer

Libeccio said:


> I'd like to chime in too!
> 
> An interesting historical note is that the Genoese were close competitors to Portugal and shared many trading routes. this is somewhat reflected in similar words and sounds between dialetto Genovese and Portuguese. Not enough to hold a conversation, but enough to pick out a few words.


 
More to that, Genoese traders and seamen were a common sight in Portuguese ports and a few were actually high ranking officers in the Portuguese navy even before the Age of Discoveries. Actually the first Admiral of the Kingdom, at the beginning of the XIV century, was the Genoese Emanuel Pezzagno/Manuel Pessanha. And we shouldn't forget Bartolomeu Perestrelo, of the Italian Pallastrelli family, who was the first tennant of Porto Santo Island (Madeira) and Columbus, who lived in Portugal for a long time before joining Spain, was married to a daughter of Perestrelo and whose first son was born in Portugal. 
Besides seamen, we should also mention cartographers, geographers and, last but not least, representatives of the Italian bankers who were involved in financing maritime trade and expeditions and many other influential people.
Therefore, Portugal had a significant exposure to Italians and Italian at that time.
A friend of mine, a Spaniard married to an Italian who speaks correct Italian, has often told me how amazed she was about the similarities of Portuguese and Italian. In her opinion Portuguese idioms, for example, are closer to the Italian ones than to the corresponding Spanish idioms.


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## Nino83

I'd say that intelligibility of the Portuguese language from an Italian point of view depends on many factors. 

In writing Portuguese vocabulary was less influenced by Mozarabic than Spanish one and some phonological changes were more similar to the Italian ones (for example: filius --> /fi*ʎʎ*o/ (it.) /fi*ʎ*u/ (por.) /i*x*o/ (sp.)), so, from this point of view, Portuguese morphology is, often, the most similar to the Italian one. 
In spite of this, Portuguese vocabulary is quite different from the Italian one (which is very similar to the French one). 
So, in writing, despite the fact that French elided most of Latin final vowels and intervocalic consonants, Italians recognise more French words than Portuguese/Spanish ones (in writing). 
So often the lexical factor compensates the morphological one, so that all these languages have a similar level of intelligibility (Italians need to search some French words in vocabulary because these are so elided that are unrecognisable and Portuguese/Spanish ones because we don't know them). 
I think (it's my personal opinion) that for an untrained Italian reader, Spanish and Portuguese are a little more intelligible than French, in writing. 

In speech it's another story. Portuguese lexical advantage (compared to Spanish) is lost. 
Italian and Spanish (and also French) are syllable-rhythm languages, so we pronounce stressed and unstressed vowels in the same manner (/ɛ/ and /e/, /ɔ/ and /o/ are not phonemic in Italian language). 
European Portuguese massive vowel reduction, with /ə/ /ɯ̽/ (elided) and /u/ (elided in final position) in non tonic positions makes this language difficult for untrained Italians and Spanish. 

ele foi delegado para presenciar --> elɯ̽ foi dɯ̽lɯ̽gadu pərə prɯ̽zẽsjar --> el foi dlgad pərə przẽsjar
él fue delegado para presenciar --> el fue delegado para presenθjar 
(egli) fu delegato a presenziare --> fu delegato a presenʦjare 

Brazilian Portuguese is more comprehensible but the pronunciation of the /l/ as an /w/ in coda could lead to some misunderstanding. 
For example the world _voltar_ (vowtah) can be understood as _votar_ (votah). 

So, I'd say that there is not mutual intelligibility in spoken language between Portuguese and Italian, while there is some mutual intelligibility between Spanish and Italian. 

P.S. 

Standard Italian is spoken in all regions of Italy. 
The only difference between Italian (standard) and regional accents is the distribution of /ɛ/ and /e/, /ɔ/ and /o/. 
I remember that these vowels are not phonemic and those few minimal pairs (as _pésca_ and _pésca_) are determined by context. 
In Italy there's no difference in pronunciation between regional varieties in the same manner as there is between AmE and BrE (in AmE ʌ = ɜ, in BrE  ʌ = ɐ, short /o/ is ɑ in general AmE and ɒ in BrE) or between EP and BP (ə instead of ɐ for unstressed a and ɯ̽ instead of i for unstressed e).


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## Guajara-Mirim

MOC said:


> That's odd. Your learning of french made you understand written Italian?



Oi MOC,

O francês e o italiano compartem muitas coisas (gramática...), assim, um francês pode aprender o italiano rapidamente e vice-versa.


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## Justinpak

Pedrovski said:


> It probably helped, yes. I believe written Italian has a lot of similarities with written French (but are incredibly different in their spoken forms).
> I'd even venture in saying that Italian is a mixture of written French sprinkled with spoken spanish, after having been "processed" in the linguistic mixer.
> 
> Ok, perhaps an unfitting analogy, and I kind of lack the authority to speculate about it because I know very little about Italian.



Italian is Vulgar Latin--the purest ancestor to the Latin language out of all Romance languages. It is actually the others that have the most "mixing." French is mixed with the Germanic languages, and Spanish and Portuguese have Arabic influences (the word "hola" is a derivative of "Allah"). 

The southern Italian dialects, however, received much influence from Spanish when the Kingdom of Naples/The Two Sicilies had allegiance to the Spanish throne, thus explaining southern Italian speakers' relative ease in understanding Spanish and Portuguese. 

The dialects in the North have heavy French, Germanic and even Slavic influences--many of these dialects may be completely unintelligible to any other Romance language speakers. 

As for me, I find French the easiest to read (the grammar rules are almost exactly the same as Italian and the roots of words are very easily found) and Portuguese easier to understand when spoken. I find the vocabulary much more similar than Spanish--though I have not heard much of the Castilian dialect. 

My grandparents were Tuscan and spoke a very-close-to-standard dialect. There are certainly some strange differences, though. Porta (door) would be l'uscio (from the verb uscire or to exit).


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