PRONUNCIATION, PLEASE

[Donn]

And last "y" is long, dont forget

I didn't forget, I just don't understand!

It's a long E sound, with the stress on the last syllable: chair-ven-EE would be the usual way to write the pronunciation for English speakers without the use of dictionary symbols.

Rick "trying to learn just a bit of Portuguese at the moment, with absolutely no success beyond 'todo bem'" Denney

Tudo bem, I would have said, not that they aren't both valid expressions. I like pois não, which is sort of a weird take on "but of course", and pois é, which I don't think even they can explain.

Anyway, I am still inclined to believe Doc's story on the stress was right, that the principle stress is on the first syllable. To sound Czech, I'm sure you'd pronounce the following syllables much more clearly, but we normally don't do that stuff when borrowing into English. Like, to follow the Portuguese tangent, there are a number of wrong ways to say Rio de Janeiro, and one of them is (for us in an English speaking context) to say it just like they do in Rio de Janeiro (approx., "hee-u jee juh-nay-du".) The sound of "r" varies all over the world, even across Brazil, and when speaking amongst ourselves, we use our sound for "r". And our obscure unstressed vowels, whether Czech is that way or not.

(But "rio" should be "riu", and the J is like French, not Spanish. And São Paulo - sowmpowlu. This is why they had to build Brasília - a dismal capital city in the dusty interior, but anyone can pronounce it.)

[Rick Denney]

(But "rio" should be "riu", and the J is like French, not Spanish. And São Paulo - sowmpowlu. This is why they had to build Brasília - a dismal capital city in the dusty interior, but anyone can pronounce it.)

The "sowmpowlu" I had already gotten. But I thought Rio was "heeoo". It took me a while to get the notion that Reales was "hay-ice". And it doesn't help that Sao Paulo and Rio have different pronunciation (such as the Rio tendency to pronounce "s" as "sh"). But my main problem is just not knowing enough words to put sentences together, and not being able to hear the words when they are spoken at normal speeds. Speaking English may be rude, but it follows the old Morse Code rule: Do not send faster than you can receive.

I grew up hearing Spanish, and even though I can't speak it to save my life, I do know how to pronounce it. I just can't get Spanish out of my head when looking at written Portuguese, which has such a similar look, except for all those diacritical marks, which, just like the ones in Červený, I ignore, because I don't know what they mean. (Except for the accent grave, which in Latin languages means to put stress on that syllable, and I wonder if that's so in Czech, too.)

Fortunately, the speech I'm giving will be accompanied by simultaneous translation. I just hope the translator can follow me when I use words like "pusillanimity" and "antiestablishmentarianism."

Rick "leaving in four days" Denney

[Mark]

Well, it's spelt that way, but it is pronounced "throat-warbler mangrove"...

No. It rhymes with "orange."

For some reason, this whole thread makes me think of Peter Sellers. As Inspector Clouseau, he had some trouble pronouncing the word "bump".

[Donn]

But I thought Rio was "heeoo".

É - it is, mais ou menos. There's some art to the exact pronunciation of the R.

It took me a while to get the notion that Reales was "hay-ice". And it doesn't help that Sao Paulo and Rio have different pronunciation (such as the Rio tendency to pronounce "s" as "sh"). But my main problem is just not knowing enough words to put sentences together, and not being able to hear the words when they are spoken at normal speeds.

If you think that's bad, up the coast to Paraíba they'll start dropping that `s' altogether, so where you expect /he'aɪʃ/ for reais, you get /he'aɪ/ ... which does not improve ability to discriminate words in this already rather mushy language. Portuguese is a beautiful language - I'm kind of partial to the European version, but Brazilian can sound very good if spoken by the right person, if you know what I mean - but it's hard to hear. If you can study it from afar and understand any of it at natural speed, that's pretty darn good, I mean at least for me that was a big problem. It's also worth the trouble, because English isn't exactly universal in Brazil, but don't expect to get any credit for it, like supposedly Europeans are tickled to see you make whatever atrocious attempt to speak their languages - Brazil is more like the US on that.