Problems with Portuguese
Posted on 17. Apr, 2009 by Rachel in Learning
Today we’re going to do another interactive post. The question is: What is the biggest obstacle you’ve encountered while learning Portuguese? What part of the language do you find the most difficult?
In my experience, one of the most difficult grammar rules to learn is hypenating words. It’s difficult to memorize what kind of accent goes over the vowel and whether to put lo, la, o, or a. (Example: observá-lo)
I’ve also had a bit of trouble memorizing what type of accent to use on certain words, and now that the accent rules have changed, I’m more confused than ever, but tend to stick to the old rules.
In terms of pronunciation, I have a lot of trouble with the “lh” sound, and it’s what usually gives me away as a gringa.
What about you? What has been the most difficult component of Portuguese to learn?
masculino / feminino!
pretérito perfeito vs. imperfeito, subjunctive, ser vs. estar.
These are probably easy for those who have learned other languages, but for me it’s a constant struggle.
Pretérito imperfeito vs. pretérito perfeito is still tricky sometimes and I think I’ll always have some trouble with the subjunctive… unfortunately.
As for the new accent and hypenation rules… I don’t like them. I started learning before they came into use and I still tend to accent things the way I learned them originally, but I’m trying. I especially miss the “trema” because I think it really helped indicate correct pronunciation of the “ü” in those words that contained it. And it looks cool!
Conjugating irregular verbs is really a challenge for me. I’ll think I have something figured out, but I forget it if I don’t use it enough.
Getting the nasal A correctly pronounced has been a challenge-I live in Paranagua
and the way the language is pronounced in Parana State is somewhat different
from what I got from Rosetta Stone and Sonia Portuguese. Reading is not a
problem, but getting my wife and family to understand my gringo portuguese is
a challenge. Part of the problem is knowing Spanish and crosscoding the two
languages. I have been accused of speaking German when I tought I was
speaking Portuuese!
I think that the most difficult thing is to conjugate irregular verbs and which verbs go with vocês and tu (probably because I don’t practice it much). But from what I’ve learned tu isn’t really used and when it is it’s not used correctly anyway so I dont worry too much about it.
I’ve been speaking a very simple Portuguese for years and what always makes me stop in my tracks is the definate article – the – o(s) & a(s). There are easy rules to learn about using (and not using) the definite article in front of the names of cities and countries. But when do you use it in front of people’s names (Pedro vs. O Pedro). Also I wish I understood a clearcut rule about when to use and when not to use the definite article in conjunction with ‘que,’ as in “O que é isto?” Also there are times when a native speaker will omit the definite article. However, as someone who doesn’t speak the language easily, whenever *I* choose to leave out the definite article, my sentence comes out wrong. When speaking, when is it okay and when is it not okay to omit the grammatically correct definite article.
I also have trouble with the “lh” My brazilian friend told me to pretend there is a little “i” in between the “l” and the “h”