Learn about Portuguese accents using an informal conversation as an example
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Sílvia: Bom dia! Bem-vindo ao PortuguesePod101.com! |
| Braden: Braden here! This is Upper Beginner Season 1, Lesson 1, Understanding Portuguese Accents. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our very first Upper Beginner Lesson. What are we doing here? What's the purpose of this special series? |
| Sílvia: Our Upper Beginner level is geared towards people who already have a firm grasp on the basic grammars and plan on keeping contact with both the language and the culture for a while. Anyway, so what's going on in this lesson? |
| Braden: In this lesson, we’ll be learning about accent marks. |
| Sílvia: Where does the conversation take place and who is it between? |
| Braden: This conversation takes place in the morning at Maria's home, and it’s between Sara and Adriano. |
| Sílvia: What’s the formality level? |
| Braden: Well, they’re friends, so it’s pretty informal. |
| Sílvia: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Sara: Quem vai ao evento hoje? |
| Adriano: João, Sara, Hélio, e Alexandre. |
| Sara: Que bom. Eles merecem um pouco de conforto e descanso. |
| Adriano: Também vai ser uma ótima experiência para eles. |
| Sara: Vai sim. Que horas começa? |
| Adriano: Às dezessete e trinta. |
| Sara: Precisa chegar com antecedência? |
| Adriano: Sim, mas só uns quinze minutos. |
| Braden: One time slowly. |
| Sara: Quem vai ao evento hoje? |
| Adriano: João, Sara, Hélio, e Alexandre. |
| Sara: Que bom. Eles merecem um pouco de conforto e descanso. |
| Adriano: Também vai ser uma ótima experiência para eles. |
| Sara: Vai sim. Que horas começa? |
| Adriano: Às dezessete e trinta. |
| Sara: Precisa chegar com antecedência? |
| Adriano: Sim, mas só uns quinze minutos. |
| Braden: One time fast, with translation. |
| Sara: Quem vai ao evento hoje? |
| Sara: Who's going to the event today? |
| Adriano: João, Sara, Hélio, e Alexandre. |
| Adriano: João, Sara, Hélio, and Alexandre. |
| Sara: Que bom. Eles merecem um pouco de conforto e descanso. |
| Sara: That's good. They deserve a bit of comfort and rest. |
| Adriano: Também vai ser uma ótima experiência para eles. |
| Adriano: And it will be a great experience for them too. |
| Sara: Vai sim. Que horas começa? |
| Sara: Yes it will. What time does it start? |
| Adriano: Às dezessete e trinta. |
| Adriano: At five thirty. |
| Sara: Precisa chegar com antecedência? |
| Sara: Do they need to arrive early? |
| Adriano: Sim, mas só uns quinze minutos. |
| Adriano: Yes, but only about fifteen minutes. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Braden: A little bit about this event. How did they come across these tickets? How do you think they probably got a hold of this thing? |
| Sílvia: They might have bought at the sort of website like Groupon, a local club, which recently came here to Brazil. I bought my first service at Groupon last year. |
| Braden: Groupon is probably the biggest one. |
| Sílvia: Yes. |
| Braden: But there’s an older one, kind of, called Peixe Urbano. |
| Sílvia: Yes. |
| Braden: That one started out in Rio several years ago and this has kind of been hanging out, they’re doing its thing and it started growing out recently too. They’re doing very well, but there are lots of these kind of things. There’s one just for clothes, there’s another just for travel, and another one that’s just for whatever. |
| Sílvia: Yes. |
| Braden: So, there’s lots of these little websites you can get on that are all following the same example as Groupon. |
| Sílvia: Yes and it’s so cool for the customers because you can buy really a good service and usually, pretty cheaper. |
| Braden: Mm-hmm. |
| Sílvia: For a much better price. I like them. |
| Braden: Yeah, me too! And especially right now since it’s all kind of starting up, everyone is getting fantastic discounts. And things that are typically $4000 are like $200, so you can get up to 95% discounts on some of these things. It’s really pretty amazing. Ok, so, let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Braden: The first word we’ll look at is… |
| Sílvia: evento [natural native speed] |
| Braden: event |
| Sílvia: evento [slowly - broken down by syllable] evento [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Sílvia: merecer [natural native speed] |
| Braden: to deserve |
| Sílvia: merecer [slowly - broken down by syllable] merecer [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Sílvia: conforto [natural native speed] |
| Braden: comfort |
| Sílvia: conforto [slowly - broken down by syllable] conforto [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Sílvia: descanso [natural native speed] |
| Braden: rest |
| Sílvia: descanso [slowly - broken down by syllable] descanso [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Sílvia: começar [natural native speed] |
| Braden: to begin, to start |
| Sílvia: começar [slowly - broken down by syllable] começar [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Sílvia: pouco [natural native speed] |
| Braden: little, bit, a small amount |
| Sílvia: pouco [slowly - broken down by syllable] pouco [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Sílvia: experiência [natural native speed] |
| Braden: experiment, experience |
| Sílvia: experiência [slowly - broken down by syllable] experiência [natural native speed] |
| Braden: And the last word is… |
| Sílvia: antecedência [natural native speed] |
| Braden: in advance, early, before the time appointed |
| Sílvia: antecedência [slowly - broken down by syllable] antecedência [natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Braden: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Sílvia: Our first phrase is - um pouco |
| Braden: And what does this mean? |
| Sílvia: Um pouco means "a little" or "a little bit," and it's used exactly the same way as it is in English. A quick tip though, um pouco is a fixed phrase so it never changes, not even for a gender. |
| Braden: So, what’s our next phrase? |
| Sílvia: Só uns quinze |
| Braden: Ok, só uns quinze literally translates to "just some fifteen," but in the context, it means “only fifteen minutes.” |
| Sílvia: The key here is the pronunciation - só uns quinze. The first part is actually two words - só with an accent over the "ó" and then uns, spelled "U-N-S." |
| Braden: These two words, when natives are speaking at their normal native speed, kind of meld together to get… |
| Sílvia: Só uns quinze |
| Braden: Could you break it down for us? |
| Sílvia: Só uns quinze |
| Braden: And one time fast. |
| Sílvia: Só uns quinze |
| Braden: And what’s our next phrase? |
| Sílvia: Our next phrase is experiência. |
| Braden: Ok, experiência literally translates to "experience." |
| Sílvia: In some cases, however, it can also mean "experiment." Like in a Chemistry class. Vamos Fazer uma experiência; this translates to "Let's do an experiment." |
| Braden: So, in the dialogue, which meaning did we have? |
| Sílvia: We have the meaning as "experience." |
| Braden: And how do we know that? |
| Sílvia: Because they’re not in a class, they’re going to a place, they’re going to an event, they’re going to experience something. |
| Braden: Could you break this down for us? |
| Sílvia: Experiência. |
| Braden: And one time fast. |
| Sílvia: Experiência. |
| Braden: Ok, let’s move on to the grammar point. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Sílvia: The focus of this lesson is accent marks. Portuguese has many and they are very important. In the dialogue, we heard the phrase - João, Sara, Hélio, e Alexandre. |
| Braden: Which we translated as, “João, Sara, Hélio, and Alexandre.” In this sentence, there are two accents. There is a til and an acento agudo. |
| Sílvia: There are several accents in Portuguese. Each of them has their own function and is used in only specific situations. |
| Braden: For simplicity’s sake, we’re going to call all of these accents, technically when you get down to the knitty-gritty, they’re all their own category and they kind of fit into different groups. |
| Sílvia: So, let’s get started. The first accent we’ll look at is the acento agudo. |
| Braden: Or the “acute accent” in English. |
| Sílvia: This accent can be used over any vowel and functions to stress the syllables over. And if it’s over an “e” or an “o” then it opens them. One well-known example is the word água, which means “water.” |
| Braden: Água has an acento agudo over the first “á.” |
| Sílvia: Another great example is the word país, which means “country.” |
| Braden: País has an acento agudo over the “í,” so it’s spelled P-A-Í (with an acento agudo) over the “í” and then S. |
| Sílvia: Right. And if you forget the acento agudo, then the word is pais which means “parents.” You can see how that might be confusing. |
| Braden: What’s our next accent? |
| Sílvia: The next accent we’ll look at is the acento circunflexo. |
| Braden: Which means the “circumflex accent” in English. Where can we use this accent |
| Sílvia: The acento circunflexo is used over the vowels a, e, or o. |
| Braden: And what does it do? |
| Sílvia: The circunflexo stresses the syllable, but instead of opening the sound, it closes the sound. |
| Braden: Could you give us a few examples? |
| Sílvia: Sure, a good example is the word experiência. There is a circunflexo where the stress is, experiência. |
| Braden: Experiência, on that -ência. There’s a circumflex right there that makes the “e” a closed “ê.” How about another example of how it closes the sound? |
| Sílvia: Well, the word ônibus would work. It has a circunflexo over the “ô,” so it’s closed. If it were open, it would sound like this, onibus, but that’s very weird for me to say. |
| Braden: What’s our next accent? |
| Sílvia: Our next accent is the crase. |
| Braden: Which in English is the crasis, but most people have never heard that word before, and it is also sometimes called the backtick. Where is this used? |
| Sílvia: In Portuguese, the crase is used over the “a” to indicate a contraction between the preposition “a” and some other “a.” |
| Braden: Okay, some examples? |
| Sílvia: The classic example is the preposition “a” contracting with the article “a” to make an “à,” but this “à” with a crase. We can see this a lot when telling time. For example, às dezesseis horas. |
| Braden: That’s right. You can’t hear any pronunciation change. Is there some kind of a pronunciation change? |
| Sílvia: No, no pronunciation change. It just marks the contraction. |
| Braden: Okay, so what’s our next accent? |
| Sílvia: The next accent is the til. |
| Braden: In English, we borrowed the Spanish term and it’s often called the tilde. It’s that little squiggly line that goes over the “ñ” in Spanish. In Portuguese, it has many more functions than it does in Spanish. So, where is the til used in Portuguese? |
| Sílvia: The til is used over the “a” and “o” vowels and functions to nasalize the syllable. |
| Braden: Could you give us some examples? |
| Sílvia: Sure. An everyday word that has til and is the word chão, which means “floor.” |
| Braden: This is spelled C-H-Ã (with a til over the “ã”) and then O at the end. |
| Sílvia: Or, as it’s said in Portuguese, C-H-Ã-O. |
| Braden: Same with the word não. |
| Sílvia: Right, we have a til over the “ã” here. |
| Braden: How do we spell that in Portuguese? |
| Sílvia: N-Ã-O |
| Braden: Lots of words in Portuguese use the til. It’s a very common sound and very common accent. Another example is the word São Paulo. The São has the til over the “ã.” |
| Sílvia: Also, when you conjugate the verb “ser”to the third person plural to mean “are,” the it becomes “são” to mean “are.” |
| Braden: The São Paulo and the “são” as in “eles são” are completely different. |
| Sílvia: Yes. The first one is sort of saying Saint Paul and the other one is the verb conjugated. |
| Braden: What’s our last accent? |
| Sílvia: The last accent we’ll look at is the cedilha. |
| Braden: And where is this used? |
| Sílvia: Well, the cedilha is used only on the “c” and it’s used in situations where the “c” would have to be pronounced /k/. But because of the pronunciation rule of Portuguese, the “c” needs to be pronounced /s/. |
| Braden: The cedilha makes an S sound anywhere whenever we see it, right? |
| Sílvia: Right. |
| Braden: Okay, so that’s just what it means. Anytime you see it, it means /s/. It’s only used on the “c” because the rule in Portuguese is that when a “c” is followed by an “e” or an “i,” then it’s pronounced like an S. But if the “c” is followed by any other letter, then it’s a /k/ sound. So, every so often, you need an S sound before an A. And the way that Portuguese works around that phonetic complication is by using the cedilha. The simple idea here is that a cedilha means S, /s/. |
| Sílvia: Yes, it makes the S sound. |
| Braden: And just to close things down, a really quick tip about the til. The til typically can stress the syllable, but not in the same way that a circunflexo or an acento agudo can. When you have both of them in the same word, which happens, not really often, but moderately frequently, the acento agudo or the circunflexo is stronger and that will actually mark the tonic syllable. |
| Sílvia: For example, the word bênção. It has a circumflex over the “ê” and a til on the “ã.” The circumflex is more powerful, so the word only has one tonic syllable, the “ê,” bênção. |
| Braden: Could you break this down for us? |
| Sílvia: bênção |
| Braden: And one time fast. |
| Sílvia: bênção |
Outro |
| Braden: That just about does it for today! See you later! |
| Sílvia: Até a próxima! |
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