Which Portuguese to learn?

[BOLIO]

French or Portuguese is next on my hit list and I am still weighing out which. While locally I can find French speakers, my close circle of friends include Portuguese native speakers.

I have three families here locally that I speak Spanish with in our conversations. However, Spanish is not their native language. Two families are from Angola and one is from Mozambique. They inevitably will break out into Portuguese when we are all around each other. I can understand many words and sometimes even basic concepts of longer conversations. Anyway, they all feel their version of the language is closer to European Portuguese and view the Brazilian language as a rough and lesser version of the "original " language.

It may just be my friends prejudices but to me I think the European pronunciation is a little more appealing to my ears. This could change with more exposure of course.

If my core group of future language helpers speak the European version, is it a mistake to learn the European version early in the process or should one tackle the Brazilian version first?

While I can find resources in the European version there seems to be many resources of the Brazilian variety. Thoughts? Does it matter or is it just white noise between my ears?

As always, thanks in advance.

BOLIO

[iguanamon]

African Portuguese is closer to Iberian Portuguese in grammar and vocabulary. I used the resources at DW Português para África- Learning By Ear/Aprender de ouvido to help me. These are radionovelas with pdf transcripts available. The ability to make your own parallel texts with English also exists. The usual suspects, Assimil, TY, Linguaphone, etc. exist for Iberian Portuguese. There are also good monolingual resources like O Novo Português Sem Fronteiras from Portugal. DLI has a free headstart for Portugal program too.

In formal language, Portuguese is Portuguese. The accents are different, the pronunciation is different between European and Brazilian varieties. The vocabulary differs too. All that being said, I concentrated on Brazilian Portuguese and had/have no trouble being understood in Portugal. While there, I spoke with Angolans, Mozambicans and Cape Verdians- no problems with my Brazilian accent and usage. I did not ignore Iberian and African Portuguese and was accustomed to the pronunciation and vocabulary differences. At least that's my experience with the language.

Whatever variety of Portuguese you learn will serve you across the Lusophone world. If you primarily want to speak to Africans, you should concentrate on Iberian Portuguese and get a lot of exposure to African Portuguese, but if you prefer to use Brazilian resources, they will still understand you just fine when speaking standard Portuguese.

[mcthulhu]

"my core group of future language helpers speak the European version" - I think you answered your own question. If your immediate use for Portuguese would be to communicate with your friends (as opposed to watching Brazilian TV or whatever), definitely go with that. You're lucky to have three families of native speakers there to use as models.

I don't think there would be any major differences in grammar, and you could always get used to Brazilian pronunciation later if you need to.

[tastyonions]

European!

[Speakeasy]

Every now and again, the question arises of which variant of Portuguese/Spanish/French one should learn: that spoken in Europe, in the Americas, or elsewhere. Often, the same people respond with the same advice. Occasionally, I join in the conversation and make more-or-less the same comments as I did the last time this type of question arose.

First, as a rhetorical question only, were someone to ask you whether they should learn British English or American English, or Australian English for that matter, how would you respond and, perhaps more importantly, why? Assuming that you were to recommend that the person asking for your advice should begin with American English, would you suggest that they try to emulate the speech of native speakers from the South-Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, the Northeast and, in every case, which ethno-socio-economic group should they pattern their speech on? Would their initial choices matter as they entered the Intermediate-to-Advanced levels? Irrespective of their initial choices, assuming that they would someday find themselves immersed in some “other” local variant of English, would their initial choices serve as an insurmountable obstacle to their ability to integrate into their new community? You can see where I’m going with this; so, there is absolutely no need to reply.

Second, there are definitely more resources available for learning Brazilian Portuguese at the Beginners and Intermediate levels than there are for European Portuguese. Nevertheless, there exist sufficient, very good, resources for the latter. I, and many other members of the forum, can provide you with a list.

So then, the long-and-the-short-of-it is, I recommend that you choose the variant that would seem most likely to respond to your future needs and go with it. Should ever you find yourself in the “other” linguistic variant, you’ll do just fine.

By the way, here are a couple of LINKS:

Brazilian vs European Portuguese
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&p=39812#p39812

European Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3092

EDITED:
Formatting.

[BOLIO]

Thank you for the thoughtful replies. Also, thanks for the links to the resources. I felt this was very much a " Spain or Latin America Spanish " type question but I may have a faulty perception of the Portuguese difference being greater than Spanish.

Thanks again,

BOLIO

[tastyonions]

The pronunciation difference is definitely greater to my ears. I'm too much of a beginner in the language to speculate about grammar or vocabulary differences.

[tarvos]

The pronunciation difference is bigger but my European Portuguese has always been understood by Brazilians just fine

[Saim]

Learn European Portuguese. There are definitely more resources for Brazilian but going on your profile you already know a fair bit of Spanish so you shouldn't have to much trouble jumping straight into native materials.

[Luso]

I loved HTLAL, but it had some recurring prejudices. One was exaggerating the differences between the regional variants of Portuguese. Whenever you asked the natives (like me and a few Brazilians) everyone would dispel this notion. Differences? yes. Difficulties understanding each other? not really. Some advanced learners, like my friend Iguanamon, would also minimise it. Then the misconception would creep up again.

Having said that, I think that you should go with European Portuguese. I am biased, I know. But, the difference being small, there's a factor that could help tip the balance in your case: we adhere more to "official" grammar than our brothers and sisters from across the ocean. And that should render your learning easier.

On a personal, unrelated note: my girlfriend lives in Texas, and I'd like to tell you what I told her a little while ago: It seems you're in for a rough night. I hope that y'all may stay safe in the next couple of days.