Construction Plan

The plans for the construction of the Christ started in 1921, when religious and government authorities, in Rio de Janeiro, met to discuss the idea. A year later, there was a project contest and engineer Heitor da Silva Costa was the winner of it. His drawing showed Christ holding the globe in one hand and the cross on the other. However, later he changed it to the Art Deco design that it has today: Christ with His arms open as if welcoming the ’carioca’ population which they really loved.

The Brazilian government didn’t find a national professional capable of building such work at that time. They, then, commissioned Polish-French sculptor Paul Landowski to do it. The idea that, perhaps, this statue was a gift from France, probably came from the nationality of the sculptor who is half-French and worked from France. It took five years to create the outer part of the statue, and it was shipped back to Brazil in parts.

Material of the Statue

This masterpiece was sculpted from soapstone also known as steatite, a type of metamorphic rock. It contains several minerals, primarily talc, but also chlorite, tremolite, and quartz. It may be gray, blueish, green, or brown in color. Its surface is soft because of the talc content which allows easy molding. However, it’s also a strong rock that is time and weather-resistant. Needless to say, it was the perfect material for building this magnificent statue.

No Wonder

In 2000, the New 7 Wonders Foundation based in Zurich, Switzerland set up a campaign through free web voting to choose the New 7 Wonders of the World of the current era. On 7 July 2007, the winners were revealed and Christ the Redeemer was among them. So, we feel very proud that the Christ was selected as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World.

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Now, let us take a look at the different ways of building a sentence. For instance, the question – What are you doing? In Brazil, it would be translated as O que você está fazendo? Whereas in Portugal, it would certainly be O que tu estás a fazer?. You can see that Brazilians use the pronoun você as their favorite pronoun and the same structure of the English language: the present of verb to be + main verb in the ing form. In Portuguese, it is –ando, -endo, -ondo and -indo depending on the infinitive ending of the verb (ar, er, or, and ir). As for the European Portuguese, they prefer to use tu + the present of verb to be + the infinitive form of the main verb. The meaning is absolutely the same, but it would require a skillful translator to satisfy the speakers of both countries.

Using the Command Form

Another big difference is the way of using the command form: Brazilian people misuse the object pronouns as they tend to place them before the main verb. For example, the sentence – Help me! – is translated in Portugal as – Ajuda-me! – but Me ajuda or Me ajude in Brazil, which is considered grammatically incorrect.

One Language – Diverse Vocab

An English language speaker, however, would find it easier to learn Brazilian Portuguese as there are many words used in Brazil which are either similar or directly taken from the English language. European Portuguese, on the other hand, is much more conservative in these terms. For instance, if either American or British tourists want to take a train in Brazil, they can take a trem, but in Portugal they will have to take a comboio or if they prefer to take a bus, in Brazil they can take an ônibus, but in Portugal they will have to take an autocarro. If they decide to just take a walk like good pedestrians, in Brazil they will be pedestres, but in Portugal they will be peões (plural of peão). Now, let us suppose they decide to use a computer. If the tourists have a problem with their mouse in Brazil, they can go into a store and simply say that they want to buy a mouse (yes, a mouse!), but on the other side of the Atlantic, they have to use the national version of the word: a rato. After that, if they go to a snack bar in Brazilian soil and want to have a sandwich, they can order a sanduíche, but if they are in Europe, they will have to order a sandes.

Listen to Native Speakers to Get Familiar with their Pronunciation

I could go on and on with the examples, but I am sure I would not be able to write half of them in a single post. Anyway, a good tip is to always buy a dictionary or a book with the most common vocabulary and idiomatic expressions of the respective country you intend to visit either Brazil or Portugal. And of course, you need to listen to native speakers to get familiar with the pronunciation and pace that both the Brazilian and Portuguese speakers use in their daily speech. There are plenty of Portuguese videos from people from both countries on You Tube where you can check out the differences. And you can also take online classes in specific sites in case you cannot find Portuguese classes nearby.

Communication is Possible

No matter the choice you make, all you have to do is to pay attention to the regional use of the language and the variety of its cultural aspects. But, definitely, Portuguese is the same language both in Europe and South America. If someone learns European Portuguese and decides to travel to Brazil, or the other way around, they will certainly be able to communicate. However, becoming familiar with the necessary local vocabulary may make their stay much smoother.

Therefore, feel free to choose whichever version of Portuguese you prefer and be ready to interact with local native speakers. Well then, do not miss the opportunity! Just to pack, go and enjoy yourself either in the Brazilian tropical lands and/or in the European traditional scenery of Portugal!

This is the continuation of the post  Débora Fontenelle wrote as a guest: Differences between Brazilian and European Portuguese (Part 1)

Make your learning Portuguese an enjoyable experience. Please, check out our All About Portuguese page for more information about this beautiful Romance language.

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It’s my pleasure to introduce to you my good friend, Débora Fontenelle, creator, and author of Crônicas e Cores de Débora Fontenelle, who is our guest post writer. She attended the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and earned a language teacher diploma for both Portuguese and English. Thank you, Debbie, for writing this great and clarifying post about the differences between Brazilian and European Portuguese.

Brazilian or European Portuguese?

I’m sure that foreigners interested in learning Portuguese may wonder if there are a lot of differences between the Portuguese spoken in Brazil and that spoken in Portugal, and which one they should choose to study. Undoubtedly, there is a lot to talk about this subject. Despite the existing differences, though, there is no interference in the standard communication between Brazilians and the Portuguese people.

The Portuguese Orthographic Reform:

However, after the Portuguese Orthographic Reform, which took place in 2009, to unify the spelling in the nine countries whose official language is Portuguese – Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea–Bissau, Mozambique, Angola, São Tomé and Príncipe,Timor-Leste, and Equatorial Guinea –  was made official in 2014, the differences can be more easily noticed in conversation, in terms of phonetics, vocabulary and sentence structure. Let us see some examples.

Easy Difference to Spot:

A very easy difference to spot is that Brazilian people open their mouths more when pronouncing the words, especially the vowels. Portuguese citizens, on the other hand, usually subtract the vowels at the beginning and in the middle of the words, always resulting in the predominance of consonant sounds.

Speech Pace:

As far as the pace of speech is concerned; the Portuguese speak much faster than the Brazilians. As Portugal is inundated with Brazilian music and soap operas in their media, people there are accustomed to listening to the way Brazilians speak and don’t think their pronunciation is strange. However,  Brazilians, generally have a bit more difficulty understanding spoken European Portuguese. In some states of Brazil, people have the tendency to speak even slower than the average of their compatriots which is the case of the citizens of Bahia. So, I have always wondered how interesting it would be to listen to a person born there talking to someone from Portugal… It would certainly be a unique experience!

The Second Person Pronoun:

Another point one can not forget is that the most used second-person pronoun in the singular form (you) in Brazil is você, but in Portugal, it is tu. Tu is also used very often in the South and in the Northeast of Brazil, but the verb is not usually conjugated correctly. In other states of Brazil, like Rio de Janeiro, people use você a lot, but also alternate with tu using the wrong verb conjugation as well. Speakers conjugate the verbs for both pronouns the same way. For example, Will you go there? is translated as Você vai lá ou Tu vai lá? As you can see, both sentences have the same verb conjugation; but, the correct form for tu would be vais. Tu vais lá? This is the typical case of the use of tu in the Brazilian states. However, there are some exceptions; if you travel to the city of Belém, the capital of Pará, in the Northern Region of Brazil, you will certainly hear people using pronoun tu with its correct conjugation just like the Portuguese people do.

What Você Represents:

Você is an informal way of treatment used in Brazil, and it is not appropriate for a young person to use it when addressing an older one, or when someone in a work environment is addressing another of a higher hierarchy. In this case, the preferable form would o senhor (sir) ou a senhora (madam) which are third-person pronouns, but function as second-person ones. In other situations, you can always use você which is a second-person pronoun, but the verb that follows it conjugates as third-person.

European or Brazilian Portuguese:

No matter which version you choose to learn, either European or Brazilian Portuguese, you will be able to communicate with local native speakers in both countries, provided you learn about the local vocabulary.

In case you would like a little taste of Debora Fontenelle’s writing in Portuguese, please, go to her blog at Crônicas e Cores de Débora Fontenelle.

Make your learning Portuguese an enjoyable experience. Please, check out our All About Portuguese page for more information about this beautiful Romance language.

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Absolutely! It’s true that there are some differences between the way Brazilians speak and Portuguese people speak. However, they still speak the same language. The people of those two nations have never stopped communicating since Brazil’s discovery in 1500. The level of differences between Brazilian and European Portuguese is comparable to the level of differences between American and British English. And as we all know, American and English people have been communicating without any trouble for years, haven’t they? And, so have we! 

Some differences between the Brazilian and European Portuguese

Those differences are mostly in vocabulary usage, phonetics, and some sentence structure. For example, Portuguese people have the habit of eliminating the unstressed vowels between consonants when they speak, such as the /e/ in the word menina (girl). They pronounce it ~ m’nina instead of ~ menina as Brazilians do.

Most educated Brazilians and those who have had some kind of contact with European Portuguese speakers do not have any trouble understanding them. And if at first, they do have some trouble, as they get used to their speaking rhythm, they start to get it. It’s just a question of getting used to listening to their beautiful accent.

My personal experience with European Portuguese speakers

As a Brazilian, I had the opportunity to meet several European Portuguese people while living in Rio de Janeiro during my childhood. And we didn’t have any trouble understanding or communicating with each other. Later, I moved to California and worked as a tele-Portuguese Interpreter for five years. I actually interpreted phone calls from Portuguese speakers to Banks, Hospitals, Insurances, Schools, and other institutions. I was able to help both Brazilians and Portuguese people.

However, I did notice that the older Portuguese generation who had moved from Portugal to the US many years prior to that time, didn’t understand me very well. They actually thought that I was speaking Spanish. The fact is that they had created a totally new Portuguese dialect for themselves which I call –Portenglish, a mixture of Portuguese and English. Needless to say, I also had a bit of trouble understanding their new dialect. So, whenever that happened, I would just offer to transfer their call to a European Portuguese interpreter.

In recent years, my husband and I spent a week traveling in Portugal, and I had no problems communicating with anyone. From the tour guide to a restaurant servant to a sales assistant and even to a beggar in the street, my Portuguese was perfectly sufficient to communicate without any problems. And we had a wonderful time enjoying the sites, the food, and our beloved Portuguese brothers and sisters.

Make your learning Portuguese an enjoyable experience. Please, check out our All About Portuguese page for more information about this beautiful Romance language.

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