As of January 1st, the accent changes to written Portuguese meant to unify the global language go into effect. This year will be the “Year of Transition” when Brazil begins to adopt the new grammar rules. According to President Lula, the new and old rules can both be used until 2012, but some media outlets, like Globo’s G1, will only use the new rules from now on.

Let’s take a look at the new rules:

1. The elimination of the trema: words that originally used the trema will no longer use it, and will revert to the normal letter. Example: lingüiça –> linguiça

2. Words with open dipthongs with the accent on the second to last syllable lose the accent on -oi and -ei. Example: idéia –> ideia

3. Words with two vowels together and the accent on the second to last syllable lose the accent on the i and u. Example: feiúra –> feiura

4. The circumflex accent will no longer be used on words that end in êem and ôo. Examples: vôo –> voo, lêem –> leem

5. The differential accent used to distinguish words with the same spelling and different meanings will no longer be used. Examples: pára –> para, pêlo –> pelo

6. The acute accent mark on the u will no longer be used in verbs that end in gue, gui, que, and qui. Example: averigúe –> averigue

To see the complete rules in Portuguese, click here.