Differences between Spanish and Portuguese

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Portuguese and Spanish are two of the most widely spoken languages in the world today. Although they are closely related, to the point of having a noticeable 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. Some of the most prominent differences between the two are explained below.

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[edit] Samples

Portuguese and Spanish share a fairly great number of words that are either spelled identically (although they may be pronounced slightly differently), almost identically (though they may be pronounced more or less the same) or predictably similar. Consider for example the following paragraph, taken from the Gramática Esencial del Español, 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 contasse com mais que isso. 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:

Word for Spanish Portuguese Origin Notes
store, shop tienda loja Latin tenta, French loge (<Gmc.) A similar word exists in Portuguese, tenda, but means tent
knee rodilla joelho Latin rŏtella, genucŭlu Rótula in Portuguese, etimologically related to Spanish rodilla, is the bone of the knee.
street calle rua Latin callis, [via] ruga
window ventana janela Latin vĕntu, jānuella Originally from the name Ianus, the god of gates or doors.
to erase borrar apagar Visigothic borra, Latin adpācāre The same word borrar exists in Portuguese but means make dirty (despite that borracha means "rubber", "eraser"), while apagar in Spanish means to turn off (a meaning that also exists in Portuguese, in expressions such as apagar a luz, "turn the light off").
to forget olvidar esquecer Latin oblītare, excadĕscere olvidar also exists in Portuguese, but is far less usual.

[edit] Vocabulary

[edit] 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") / abacaxi or ananás (from Tupi);
"tea", té (from the Min Nan dialect of Chinese) / chá (from the Cantonese dialect of Chinese).
  • 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."

[edit] Frequent homonyms

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:

[edit] "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 an indefinite object or abstraction).

Todo insecto tiene seis patas. (Spanish)
Todo inse(c)to tem seis patas. (Portuguese)
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."

[edit] "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 existed in ancient Portuguese, but has fallen into disuse.)

Sacamos muchas fotos durante el viaje. (Spanish)
Tirámos muitas fotos durante a viagem. (European Portuguese)
Tiramos muitas fotos durante a viagem. (Brazilian Portuguese)
We 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.

[edit] 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 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.

Uno 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 ("all as one," literally "all to one"). 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.

[edit] "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)
jedeu e hindu (Portuguese)
Jewish and Hindu

[edit] "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..."

Meaning and description Spanish Portuguese
yes sí sim
himself / herself / itself / themselves
(stressed reflexive pronoun)		 si
if (conjunction) si se
himself / herself / itself / themselves
(unstressed reflexive pronoun)		 se

[edit] Miscellaneous

  • Spanish extrañar 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 means "yet/still". 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".
  • Spanish exquisito means "exquisite/sophisticated". Portuguese esquisito means "strange/weird".
  • Experto in Spanish means "expert", in Portuguese esperto means "smart/intelligent".
  • Spanish escoba is a broom. Portuguese escova is a brush.

[edit] Prepositions

[edit] 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.

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, involving prepositions as well as certain pronouns.[1]

[edit] Personal "a"

Spanish employs a preposition before the direct object of a transitive verb when it denotes a person, the so-called "personal a". In Portuguese, this 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 a Juana para cenar en nuestra casa "I have invited Joan for dinner at our house", a is a preposition, but in the Portuguese version Convidei a Joana para jantar em nossa casa it is a definite article.

[edit] "Ir a" versus "ir para"

Quite common in both languages are the prepositions para and a, both of which often translate as "to". However, 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 a 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 or Spanish, and the Spanish para cannot be used for this purpose.

Fui al mercado cerca de mi casa. (Spanish)
Fui ao mercado perto de minha casa. (Portuguese)
I went to the market near my house. [temporary displacement]
El presidente anterior fue desterrado a Portugal. (Spanish)
O presidente anterior foi exilado para Portugal. (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 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]

[edit] "Hacia", "para" and "face a"

Spanish has the two different prepositions para ("to", "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)
Esse/este presente é para ti/você. (Portuguese)
This gift is for you.
La economía parte hacia el crecimiento. (Spanish)
A economia parte para o crescimento. (Portuguese)
The economy is moving toward growth.

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

Although Portuguese face a is etymologically related to Spanish hacia, face a means "with respect to". Examples of usage:

Face ao exposto, só posso concluir isso. (Portuguese)
With respect to what has been shown, I can only conclude thus (lit. "that"). (English)
O euro permanece estável face ao dólar. (Portuguese)
The euro remains stable with respect to the dollar. (English)

[edit] "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: Voy a leer el libro "I am going to read the book" (present tense of ir + a + infinitive). In Portuguese, there is no preposition between the helping verb and the main verb: Vou ler o livro (present tense of ir + infinitive). This also applies when the verb is in other tenses:

Ayer iba a leer el libro, pero no tuve la oportunidad. (Spanish)
Ontem ia ler o livro, mas não tive oportunidade. (Portuguese)
Yesterday I was going to read the book, but never had the chance.

[edit] 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 energia. (Portuguese)
Our energy expenses.
Voy a votar por/a Juan. (Spanish)
Vou votar em/no João. (Portuguese)
I'm going to vote for John.

[edit] Orthography

[edit] Different spellings for similar sounds

The palatal consonants are spelled differently in the two languages.

Description Spanish Portuguese
Spelling Pronunciation Spelling Pronunciation
palatal "l" ll ʝ lh ʎ
palatal "n" ñ ɲ nh ɲ
palatal "y" y ʝ i j

The symbols ll and ñ were used in Old Portuguese, but in the 13th century King Denis of Portugal, who was an admirer of the poetry of the troubadors and a poet himself, decided to adopt the Occitan digraphs lh and nh. The letter y was used in ancient Portuguese by some authors, but an 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.

[edit] Correspondences between word endings

Various word endings are consistently different in the two languages.

  • Spanish -n generally corresponds to Portuguese -m (e.g. Spanish: jardín, algún; Portuguese: jardim, algum). In the plural, the m is replaced with an n (Spanish: jardines, algunos; Portuguese: jardins, alguns). There is also a difference in pronunciation, since in Spanish these letters are fully pronounced, but in Portuguese they just indicate the nasalization of the preceding vowel (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 in Portuguese (Irán/Irão; 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 plurar 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)

[edit] Accentuation

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 open and closed vowels, and has no nasal vowels, it uses only one accent, the acute. Portuguese uses the acute accent ( ´ ) on open vowels, and the circumflex accent ( ˆ ) on the closed vowels ê and ô, plus the stressed nasal â. Non-stressed nasal vowels use the tilde (~), unless occuring before m and n, as the latter automatically implies being nasal.

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

Portuguese has a change in the vowel sound between the unaccented and acute o. Thus, nós (we) is pronounced differently from nos (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 (as explained below, many countries take the definite article in Portuguese)
  • 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)

Rising diphthongs at the end of a paroxytone are treated differently in what comes to accentuation rules. In Spanish such diphthong strictly counts as one syllable and the stress falls on the preceding (penultimate) syllable without the need of any accent mark. On the other hand, in Portuguese the diphthong is treated as a hiatus and counts (at least for accentuation purposes) as two syllables; since the stress still falls on the preceding (pseudo-antepenultimate) syllable, the word is equated to a proparoxytone, which by Portuguese (and Spanish) accentuation rules are required (with no exception) to be accentuated on the stressed syllable. Thus the stress falls on the same syllable, but in Portuguese the word is accentuated while in Spanish it isn't:

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

As a further consequence of this, though not so common, 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).

[edit] Phonology

Although the vocabularies of Spanish and Portuguese are quite similar, phonetically Portuguese is somewhat closer to Catalan or to French. 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.

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 (Novo Manual de Português, 1971), and information on Spanish phonology adapted from Manuel Seco (Gramática Esencial del Español, 1994).

Comparing the phonemic inventory of both 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.

[edit] Early phonetic divergence

[edit] 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:

Classical Latin
(spelling)		 Vulgar Latin
(pronunciation)		 Spanish Portuguese
Spelling Pronunciation Spelling Pronunciation
A /a/ a/á /a/ a/á/â /a/ or /ɐ/1
Ā
E /ɛ/ ie/ié /je/ e/é /ɛ/
Ē /e/ e/é /e/ e/ê /e/
I
Ī /i/ i/í /i/ i/í /i/
O /ɔ/ ue/ué /we/ o/ó /ɔ/
Ō /o/ o/ó /o/ o/ô /o/
U
Ū /u/ u/ú /u/ u/ú /u/
AU /au/ o/ó /o/ ou /ou̯/²

1The vowels /a/ and /ɐ/ occur largely in complementary distribution.
²This diphthong has been reduced to the monophthong /o/ 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 /e/ and /o/ were correspondingly raised: in Spanish, they are mid vowels[citation needed], while in Portuguese they are close-mid.

Portuguese also differs from Spanish in having five nasal vowels (/ɐ̃/, /ẽ/, /ĩ/, /õ/, /ũ/), which, according to historical linguistics, arose from the assimilation of the nasal consonants /m/ and /n/, 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).

[edit] Consonants

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

Latin Spanish Portuguese Examples Meaning
F- h
(later silent)
or f		 f

*fabulare → S. hablar, P. falar
filium → S. hijo, P. filho
focum → S. fuego, P. fogo

to speak
son
fire
-L- l elided

caelum → S. cielo, P. céu (arch. ceo)
volāre → S. volar, P. voar

sky
to fly
-N- n elided

generālem → S. general, P. geral
tenēre → S. tener, P. ter

general (adj.)
to have
-LL- ll l

castellum → S. castillo, P. castelo

castle
-NN- ñ n

annum → S. año, P. ano
cannam → S. caña, P. cana

year
reed
-LI- j lh

alĭum → S. ajo, P. alho
filium → S. hijo, P. filho

garlic
son
-NI- ni nh Junium → S. junio, P. Junho June
CL-, FL-, PL- ll ch

clamāre → S. llamar, P. chamar
flammam → S. llama, P. chama
plēnum → S. lleno, P. cheio

to call
flame
full
-CT-, -LT- ch it, ut

mŭltum → S. mucho, P. muito
noctem → S. noche, P. noite (arch. noute)
pectum → S. pecho, P. peito

much
night
chest

*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:

Origin Spanish Portuguese Meaning
argillam arcilla argila clay
blandum blando brando soft
cāsĕum queso queijo cheese
ocŭlum → oc'lu ojo olho eye
homĭnem → hom'ne hombre homem man
tremulāre → trem'lare temblar tremer to tremble

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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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: /s/, /ts/, /z/, /dz/, /ʃ/, /tʃ/, and /dʒ/ (the latter probably in free variation with /ʒ/, as still happens today in Ladino).

Medieval Spanish and Portuguese Modern Portuguese Modern Spanish
Spelling Pronunciation
s-, -ss- /s/ /s/ or /ʃ/ (in final pos.) s /s/
-s- /z/ /z/
ç/c /ts/ /s/ z/c /θ/ or /s/
z /dz/ /z/ or /ʒ/ (in final pos.)
x /ʃ/ /ʃ/ j/g /x/
j/g /dʒ ~ ʒ/ /ʒ/
ch /tʃ/ /ʃ/ ch /tʃ/

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, /θ/ also merged with /s/ (seseo). Later, the postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ changed into the velar fricative /x/. 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.

At the end of syllables, the pronunciation of the sibilants can vary according to dialect within both languages.

[edit] 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, /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/, one of the most common vowel inventories in world languages. It has also two semivowels, [j] and [w], that appear in diphthongs, but these can be considered allophones of the vowels /i/ and /u/, 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).

Spanish Brazilian Portuguese European Portuguese
Stressed or
non-terminal		 Unstressed
and terminal		 Stressed Unstressed
/a/ /a ~ ɐ/1 /ɐ/ /a/ or /ɐ/ /ɐ/
/e/ /e/ or /ɛ/ /i/ /e/ or /ɛ/ /ɨ/
/o/ /o/ or /ɔ/ /u/ /o/ or /ɔ/ /u/

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 /ɨ/, 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, which makes the language look deceptively similar to Spanish in writing.

[edit] Other pronunciation differences

Spelling Pronunciation Notes
Spanish Portuguese
di /di/ /di/ ~ [dʒi] In many dialects of Brazilian Portuguese, the consonants /t/ and /d/ have affricate allophones before the phoneme /i/ (which may be spelled with i or e). This does not occur in European Portuguese.
ti /ti/ /ti/ ~ [tʃi]
r-, -rr- /r/ /x/ In Portuguese, the word-initial r-, transcribed here as /x/ to facilitate the comparison with Spanish, has several possible pronunciations; in many dialects, it is a guttural r. In Spanish, it has kept its original pronunciation as an alveolar trill. Intervocalic -r- is an alveolar flap in both languages. The pronunciation of the Spanish phoneme /x/ also varies somewhat with dialect.
v /b/ /v/ Originally, the letters b and v stood for distinct sounds pronounced /b/ and /β/, respectively, but the two eventually merged into a single phoneme in Spanish. In most varieties of Portuguese they remained separate phonemes, and the bilabial fricative /β/ of Old Portuguese subsequently changed into the labiodental fricative /v/, as in French and Italian.

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. 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 [β̞, ð̞, ɣ̞]. While the same pronunciation can sometimes be heard in Portugal, most speakers of Portuguese pronounce these phonemes consistently as "hard" plosives [b, d, g]. This can make a Portuguese sentence like vou comprar umas botas sound like vou comprar umas potas to a Spanish speaker.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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. On the other hand, the Spanish feminine la leche "the milk" corresponds to Portuguese o leite (masculine, like French le lait, Italian il latte).

[edit] 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, Eng. "Mary left", Spanish María salió, Port. A Maria saiu.

Portuguese also uses the definite article before the names of most countries (a notable exception is Portugal itself), and many cities. 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: Este é meu irmão.

[edit] 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].

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 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).

Mi casa es más grande que la suya. (Spanish)
A minha casa é maior que a sua. (Portuguese)
My house is bigger than theirs.

[edit] Pronouns

[edit] 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.

Spanish Portuguese Meaning
manténgalo mantenha-o keep it
mantenerlo mantê-lo to keep it
lo mantienen mantêm-no they keep it

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.

[edit] 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).
Spanish Brazilian Portuguese European Portuguese Meaning
Ella le dio un libro. Ela lhe deu um livro. Ela deu-lhe um livro. She gave him a book.
Dígame dónde ha estado. Me diga onde esteve. Diga-me onde esteve. Tell me where you've been.
Quería verte. Queria te ver. Queria-te ver.
Queria ver-te.		 I wanted to see you.
No te he conseguido ver.
No he conseguido verte.		 Não consegui te ver. Não te consegui ver.
Não consegui ver-te.		 I didn't manage to see you.

[edit] Mesoclisis

In formal 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. (formal Portuguese)
He will bring it.

However, these tenses tend to be replaced with others in the spoken language, which do not require mesoclisis.

[edit] Combining pronouns in Spanish

The Spanish construction, se lo dio, means either "[He/she] gave it to him" 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).

[edit] 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 [1]. 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. / Estão na mesa. (Portuguese--pronoun is optional)
Where are the keys? They're on the table. (English--pronoun is required)

[edit] Verbs

[edit] "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. (See the first example 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 fica (or é or está) muito longe. (Portuguese) [ficar/ser/estar]
Our office is very far away.
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.

[edit] Reflexive verbs

Reflexive verbs are a bit more frequent in Spanish than in Portuguese, especially with actions relating to body parts:

Guillermo se quebró la pierna jugando a la pelota. (Spanish)
O Guilherme quebrou a perna jogando (à) bola. (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 be rendered in Portuguese as O Paulo ficou em Paris.

[edit] Auxiliary verb of perfect tenses

In Spanish and other Romance languages, compound perfect tenses are constructed with a verb derived from Latin habere. This used to be the case in Portuguese, too, but in recent centuries the verb ter, from Latin tenere, has been steadily overtaking haver, although the latter is still used with some frequency in writing and in formal spoken registers. While ter is used as auxiliary by other Iberian languages, it is much more pervasive in Portuguese. Compare, for instance, Spanish "Había comido cuando mi madre volvió" "I had eaten when my mother came back" with Port. "Tinha comido quando a minha mãe voltou".

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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)
Não, obrigado. Já jantei. (Portuguese)
No, thank you. I have already dined.
He ido a España dos veces. (Spanish)
Já fui a Espanha duas vezes. (Portuguese)
I have been to Spain twice.
¿Has oído las últimas noticias? (Spanish)
Ouviste as últimas notícias? (Portuguese)
Have you heard the latest news?

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)
Ultimamente, tenho ido ao cinema todos os sábados. (Portuguese)
Lately, I have gone to the cinema every Saturday.
He pensado en pedirle matrimonio. (Spanish)
Tenho pensado em pedi-la em casamento. (Portuguese)
I have been thinking of asking her to marry me.

As this last example suggests, the Portuguese present perfect is often closer in meaning to the English present perfect continuous, than to the present perfect. See also Spanish verbs: contrasting the preterite and the perfect.

[edit] Personal infinitive

It is possible in Portuguese for a verb in the infinitive to agree with its subject, often showing who is supposed to perform a certain act; cf. É necessário voltares "It is necessary [for you] to return", É necessário voltarmos "It is necessary [for us] to return." In Spanish, the same idea would be expressed using the subjunctive, Es necesario que vuelvas "It is necessary that you return", and Es necesario que volvamos "It is necessary that we return", respectively. The personal infinitive is mandatory in some types of infinitive clauses and forbidden in others, but the choice between it and the impersonal infinitive is otherwise quite subjective, governed by stylistic criteria.

[edit] 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 fuera rey, acabaría con el hambre. (Spanish) [past subjunctive]
Se 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 sum electus praesidens, mutabo legem. (Latin) [present indicative]
Si soy elegido presidente, cambiaré la ley. (Spanish) [present indicative]
Se 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 mais velho, 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".

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ See a list at Wikipedia in Portuguese: List of contracted prepositions

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] External links