Lesson p014

14 CONYERSATIONAL PORTUGUESE

RHYTHM AND INTONATION To speak Portughese well you should not only pronounce individual words and word groups cor-rectly, but you should try to use the proper rhythm and intonation. Pay attention to these and try to imitate them in the following examples.

1.    In a declaraftive statement the tonę level is nor-mal, with a slight drop at the end:

A escola estś aberta.    The school is open.

A escola estś aberta.

2.    In a question there is a slight rise at the end:

A escola estś aberta?    Is the school open?

A escola estś aberta?

3.    Compare : file¹ estś aqui? Tle estś aqui.

Ishehere?    He is here,

Ple estś aqui?    Ple estś aqui.

4.    Exęlainations and phrases said with emotion will affect inflection and may show a rise at the end:

Ple estś ferido!    He is wounded (hurt)!

Ple estś ferido!

Nao me diga!    Youdon’tsay!

Nao me diga!

5. BUILDING UP A YOCABULARY

Building up a Portuguese vocabulary is facilitated by the great number of words that are similar in EngUsh and Portuguese. Some words are spelled exactly the same (althougb they may differ consid-erably in pronunciation): 'Ele®.

PORTUGUESE	ENGLISH	PORTUGUESE	ENGLISH
animal	animal	hospital	hospital
Capital	Capital	hotel	hotel
central	central	motor	motor
chocolate	chocolate	original	original
envelope	envelope	regular	regular
favor	favor	total	total

There are many Portuguese words which you will have no difficulty in recognizing despite minor dif-ferences. Some of these differences are:

a. The Portuguese word has an accent mark:

drea	area	junior	junior
cónsul	consul	radio	radio
b. The Portuguese word has a single consonant:
antena	antenna	comercial	commercial
anual	annual	oficial	official
c. The Portuguese word adds -a, -e,			or -o:
lista	list	probłema	problem
mapa	map	restaurante	restaurant
parte	part	revolta	revolt
d. The Portuguese word ends in a or o, the Eng-
lish word in e:
causa	cause	nota	notę
figura	figurę	rosa	rosę
medicina	medicine	tubo	tubę
minuto	minutę	uso	use
e. The	Portuguese word is slightly different in
other respects:
automóvel	automobile	origem	origin
especial	special	ąuestdo	question