Having been in beautiful Brazil for a few weeks now, I have had the luxury of listening to many Brazilians speaking English. I have been busy noting down some very interesting similar sounding word cognates that are quite common to many Portuguese speakers. Most of these mistakes are due to pronunciation differences that exist with some of the same letters of the alphabet, in each respective language. One of the least known of these situations, to Native English speakers, is the`roll´ of "R" in Brazilian Portuguese.
In Brazil the "R" acts as an "H" when it is at the beginning of a word or when it is doubled.
So a word like: Arrive.....becomes ahive......or worse a hive.
Repeat becomes.....he peat (his name is Pete?),
React....He act...
You get the idea.
It is virtually endless, the number of words that can be incorrectly said and interpreted because of this and other pronunciation differences between Brazilian Portuguese and English.
Why are these issues not dealt with more effectively? That will be the subject of the next blog.
Homework: Send us a video clip in which today´s subject matter is highlighted
Next Blog: Slow down!!!!
Monday, January 26, 2009
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