Learn Brazilian vs European Portuguese in 104 Flashcard Pairs: Words, Grammar and Accent
Master Brazilian vs European Portuguese with 104 real BR/PT flashcard pairs: ônibus/autocarro, gerund vs estar a, clitics, accents, plus how to study them.
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Brazilian vs European Portuguese (deck NM5746) has 208 cards, but it is really 104 pairs. Almost every concept comes twice, once tagged (BR) and once (PT). Learn the pairs as pairs and you'll understand speakers in both São Paulo and Lisbon. Here is how to work through them.
Study this deck: Brazilian vs European Portuguese
1 / 10Bus (BR)
Tap the card for the answer · swipe right if you knew it, left if not
The deck in four blocks
- Everyday vocabulary (cards 1-74): ônibus/autocarro, trem/comboio, banheiro/casa de banho, café da manhã/pequeno-almoço, celular/telemóvel, sorvete/gelado, suco/sumo, geladeira/frigorífico, cardápio/ementa, caixa eletrônico/multibanco, mouse/rato, terno/fato, canudo/palhinha, abacaxi/ananás, legal/fixe.
- Grammar (75-142): você vs tu, estar + gerund vs estar a + infinitive, proclisis vs enclisis, tem vs há, a gente, cujo, lhe, cadê.
- Spelling and sound (91-106, 143-148, 194-199): ação/acção, berinjela/beringela, neurônio/neurónio, R, final S, dji/tchi, vowel reduction, syllable- vs stress-timing.
- Slang and context (149-208): gol/golo, baixar/descarregar, cara/pá, balada/noitada, trampo, Tupi and African loanwords, speaker numbers.
Cards to know first
| Front | Back |
|---|---|
| Bus (BR) / (PT) | Ônibus / Autocarro |
| Cell phone (BR) / (PT) | Celular / Telemóvel |
| Breakfast (BR) / (PT) | Café da manhã / Pequeno-almoço |
| 'She is dancing' (BR) / (PT) | Ela está dançando / Ela está a dançar |
| 'He saw me' (BR) / (PT) | Ele me viu / Ele viu-me |
| 'There is/are' (BR) / (PT) | Tem / Há |
| Goal (sports) (BR) / (PT) | Gol / Golo |
| Cool/awesome (BR) / (PT) | Legal, bacana / Fixe, porreiro |
Two tips specific to this deck
Separate dialect from register. Many "BR" cards show spoken Brazilian against written European Portuguese. Cards 127-128 even say it: "colloquial BR" vs "formal PT". Eu vi ele, os menino, a mulher que o filho morreu and tem for "there is" are informal speech. Edited Brazilian prose still writes eu o vi, os meninos, cujo and há. Add a "spoken" tag to cards 115-142 so you don't end up writing street grammar in a Brazilian email.
Suspend the non-differences. Twelve cards exist only to say "same": torneira, esquina, loja, lindo, computador, futebol, talvez, esperto, chato, saudade and others. They inflate your reviews without teaching a contrast. Suspend them, or merge them into one card: "Same in BR and PT: …".
Fixes worth making
- Spelling is mostly settled. Cards 92, 94 and 96 already note that the 1990 Orthographic Agreement turned acção, óptimo, objecto into ação, ótimo, objeto in Portugal too. What still differs is the accent on stressed e/o before m/n: neurônio/neurónio, arsênico/arsénico, and also econômico/económico and gênero/género.
- PT "R" (card 98). In Lisbon, initial R and rr are usually uvular [ʁ], close to the French R. The Spanish-style trill survives mainly in older or rural speech.
- BR final S (card 99). Rio's carioca accent says [ʃ] just like Lisbon, so "soft [s]" is only the São Paulo picture.
- Saudade (card 189) is tagged BR but has no PT pair. It is shared.
Keep going
The pairs here are mostly urban everyday words. For travel phrases split by country, see Learn Travel Portuguese for Lisbon and Rio.
Search NM5746 – Brazilian vs European Portuguese in the Portuguese library on Flip It.
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