How is portuguese written

The language is not very popular internationally, even if it is the third-most-spoken Western language in the world, after English and Spanish. Another objective is Portugal's aid to Brazil and African countries in education of the Portuguese language to African and Amerindian populations, Brazil's educational aid to Africa and greater cultural and academic exchange. Vietnamese Welsh. Xhosa Yiddish Yoruba Zhuang Zulu. Menu Portuguese Dictionary.

It is the most common, especially in commerce due to France's importance as a trading power. Other written variations include Canadian French and African French. If you are needing a translation , the probability is that you will need Standard French as this is used as the International variation in Commerce. Though the Community recently granted observer status to China, where the language still enjoys official status in Macau, Portuguese is fading there and in places like Goa, Damao and Diu in India, three other former colonial outposts.

Cantonese is by far the dominant language. Portuguese written in Macau is the same as European Portuguese, as this territory was governed by Portugual until 20th Dec. Here are some intriguing facts about this amazing language. It is a common misconception that Portuguese is only spoken in Portugal and Brazil. Furthermore, Portuguese is the official language of the Chinese autonomous territory of Macau. Unsurprisingly, with populous countries such as Brazil and Mozambique having it as their official language, the majority of Portuguese speakers are not from Portugal.

As the Islamic Moors from North Africa and the Middle East conquered Portugal and Spain in the eighth century, a form of Arabic was the official language of the Iberian Peninsula until the Reconquista of the 13th century.

As a result, the Portuguese language underwent a heavy influence from Arabic, and many words of Arabic origin remain in everyday parlance, including almofada cushion , azeitona olive , and garrafa bottle. Arguably the biggest stumbling block for English speakers who are trying to learn Portuguese is that each verb tense has six different conjugations for a variety of pronouns.

Ser is for permanent, unchanging examples, while estar is for temporary situations such as mood or weather. However, this separation throws up some fascinating quirks, as the Portuguese language considers marriage to be permanent and unchanging, using ser casado instead of estar casado. Please Sign In to leave a comment. Leave a comment Enter your name.

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Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and access your Assignments today! Enter E-Mail Address. Sign in Here. Portuguese uses the exact same alphabet as English, the ISO basic Latin alphabet, comprised of 26 letters. The letters K, W, and Y were recently recognized as part of the official Portuguese alphabet. The letter W may vary. The Portuguese alphabet is phonetic, which means letters represent certain sounds alone and certain sounds when combined, just like most western languages.

So, as you can see, while Portuguese is largely pronounced as it's written, some letter combinations will produce digraphs that you will need to look out for. Diacritics are little marks that are added to letters to indicate some alteration on the quality of the original letter. Circumflexes are also used to differentiate homographs.