Portuguese language
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
The Portuguese language is one of the of Romance languages (languages which came from the Latin language). The Portuguese word for Portuguese is "português".
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[change] Who speaks Portuguese
The Portuguese language is the 3rd most spoken western language (just after English and Spanish) with about 200 million native speakers, and a few more millions all over the world because of the people of Portugal, Brasil / Brazil, Cabo Verde / Cape Verde, Angola, Moçambique / Mozambique, etc. who traveled to many different parts of the world.
Portuguese and Spanish are both romance languages and have a lot of things in common. But they´re not the same. Usually a Portuguese speaker can understand a Spanish speaker, but some times it doesn´t happen. On the other hand, it's more rare Spanish speakers understanding Portuguese speakers. A little example is: "Abri a janela muito rápido para jantar" (Portuguese) "Abrí la ventana muy pronto para cenar" (Spanish) "I opened the window very fast so I can have dinner" (English)
The places where people speak Portuguese as first language are Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea Bissau, Macao (Region of China), Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and in the cities of Goa, Damão and Diu (India).
[change] Words in Portuguese that are similar to English ones
Portuguese and English have words that mean the same thing and look similar as well. This is because these words came from the same languages (for example Latin, Greek or French).
[change] Examples
- Visão Vision
- Informação Information
- Confuso Confused
- Batismo Baptism
- Artigo Article
- Capital Capital
- Total Total
- Mapa Map
- Problema Problem
- História History
The list is endless.
Some English words came from Portuguese, for example tank (tanque) and cacao (cacau).
[change] Examples of usual phrases
- Oi! Hi!
- Olá! Hello!
- Como vai? How are you?
- Bem, obrigado. I'm fine, thanks.
- Você fala português? Do you speak Portuguese?
- Eu falo português. I speak Portuguese.
- Eu não falo português. I do not speak Portuguese.
- Tenho que ir, tchau! I must go, bye!
- Até logo! See you!
- O que você está fazendo? What are you doing?
- Eu tenho 18 anos. I'm 18 years old
