What are the main differences between Brazillian Portugese, and Portugese spoken in Portugal?

Answer 1

I must be the expert to answer this because I am an American living in Rio de Janeiro who lived in Lisbon, Portugal for one year. I learned practically nothing while living in Lisbon. I'm just going to talk about spoken Portuguese because written Portuguese is a different ballgame.
Lisbon:
The verbs have 6 different persons to deal with.
They use about 25% more words to say exactly what the Brazilians can say more economically.
They slaughter their words down to nearly unrecognizable grunts by eliminating the first sound and the last syllable.
They slush the letters c, z, s so that to an untrained ear all you hear is a staccato of "cha cha cha cha"
They have at least 3 to 4 more dipthongs and vowel sounds to deal with I think a total of 26 to 28. In comparison Spanish has exactly 5!
The pronunciations drag the corners of the mouth down into a frown. Example: Bom dia, meaning good morning is pronounced with a hard "D" sound. When the word dia follows bom, (in this case "m" is pronounced as an "n") the face is frozen into a frown)
And for a topper, rather than the melodic lilt of Brazilian they rush through every sentance emphasizing the last word spitting saliva on their listeners with every opportunity.
Rio:
Spoken language does away with the informal "tu" and formal "vois" leaving only 4 verb forms to deal with.
An "employees only" sign states "empregados só", in Portugal they use 12 words on the door signs, the 12 words mean "employees only"
The Brazilian lilt slows down the speaker to a recognizable pace.
The slush staccato is practically non-existant although in some areas like Rio the "s" sounds are extended by the widening of the tongue during speech.
Bom dia is pronounced "Bon gee-a" this forces the face into a smile just like the word for 7, sete. Portugal "set-a",=frown Rio "set-chee"=smile

After all that, both countries are beautiful and given a choice I would learn Spanish. Kisses from Brazil.

I know there are many Portuguese who will take offense at what I just wrote. But before you flare up think for aminute about all that I have written.

Answer 2

Actually there is more diference between Portugal and Mexico. People in Portugal speak Portuguese. Most people in Mexico speak Spanish, which is similar to Portuguese, but spoken Spanish and Spoken Portuguese are not mutually intelligible any more than any of of the other romance languages. Also there are many people in Mexico who only speak Native American languages. They would not understand Portuguese either.

Answer 3

The isolation between the 2 countries for however long it has been will be a prime influence. It is similar to the Quebecois/Paris difference in Canada. Of course, we also inflicted the bad influence of English on Quebec for 200 years. I wonder if Brazil had the same problem with Spanish?

Answer 4

The accent is very different where European portugueses say 'de' Brazillians say 'ge' and make a 'ch' sound when they say a 't' which comes before a vowel eg. fu'ch'ebal for futebal. Also there spelling for some words are different and some of the same words have different meanings. The difference would be the equivalent between American english and english spoken in England. : )

Answer 5

About the same as between classical English and A merican English

Answer 6

I am from Rio, Brazil, and the basic diference you ask is that they (portuguese)"eat" the vogals ... So we say "paletó" and they say "plitó". In the USA you think that british english is pompous and sofisticate, but we brazilians think real funny the portuguese accent.