Brazil and Portugal, or how to speak the same language while understanding each other less and less

There is Spanish from Spain and Mexico, Argentine Castilian, and many others, but nothing—or almost nothing, if you think of Chilean —compares the gap between Brazilian Portuguese and Portuguese from Portugal. In this asymmetrical relationship, in which the former colony is now far more powerful than the former metropolis, tensions are greater than they were a few years ago. Some Brazilians refer to the European country as "Brazilian Guyana," and others claim they prefer to speak English with a Portuguese speaker because otherwise they can't be understood.

"The Portuguese accent is very funny to us , and that's why it's become the source of many memes. When a Portuguese person's accent is very strong, it sometimes even sounds like another language," João Rodrigues, a 28-year-old engineer living in Rio de Janeiro, tells EL MUNDO.

The distance from Portuguese in Portugal even leads some to claim that when watching a Portuguese series or film, they need subtitles to understand it. Many Brazilians complain that the Portuguese shorten vowels, that they speak without opening their mouths, and that they speak at 1.5x the speed of WhatsApp. At the same time, they admit that Portuguese in Brazil is "very wild" and changing, and maintain that the popular language of the favelas is the "great laboratory of the Portuguese language."

" The Portuguese are literal in their way of understanding sentences. Brazilians, on the other hand, speak Portuguese assuming that the listener understands the context," Rodrigues adds. Another Rodrigues, in this case Sergio, is appalled by the matter: "That a Brazilian would prefer to speak English with a Portuguese person seems like a joke in bad taste to me."

Sergio Rodrigues is a writer and journalist, and writes a weekly column on language in Folha de São Paulo , one of Brazil's leading newspapers. "The languages spoken on both sides of the Atlantic are growing increasingly distant , both in vocabulary and syntax. In any case, I think what makes understanding most difficult for Brazilians is the Lusitanian pronunciation, the oral quality, with its tendency to swallow vowels, which has become more pronounced in the last 100 years. Brazilian speech, as is well known, is the opposite: very vocal."

In his conversation with EL MUNDO, Sergio Rodrígues emphasizes that the asymmetry in terms of power and global presence between the two countries is a factor to be taken into account. "It's influenced by the fact that we are a country with very little exposure to Portuguese in our daily lives , in cultural products, which is not the case on the other hand."

Do you think subtitles are a good way to understand Portuguese? "The use of subtitles in movies may be sad for those who dream of a Lusophone utopia, but it seems to me to be the result of pure common sense."

The gap between European Portuguese and South American Portuguese has, however, more nuances: there are Brazilians who don't understand each other either . This is especially true in São Paulo, Brazil's most powerful state, with a GDP greater than Argentina's. "Listening to people from northeast Brazil or to very Carioca people seems very similar to Portuguese from Portugal. Sometimes I don't understand them," admits Diego Jiménez, a 46-year-old publicist.

Brazil, with 215 million inhabitants and 8.5 million square kilometers , has a GDP of $2.18 trillion. Portugal, with 10.5 million inhabitants and 92,000 square kilometers, has a GDP of just $290 billion. It's clear that the lack of understanding within the same language is exacerbated by the difference in the specific weight of the two countries. And probably also by the memory that, between 1808 and 1821, the capital of the Portuguese empire was in Rio de Janeiro , a complete anomaly for a colony. The Napoleonic Wars forced the Portuguese royal family to flee to Brazil.

We're so surprised by the almost cruel memes that often remind us that the European country is the shape and size of the Brazilian state of Pernambuco. The comparison has a mocking tone. "If you compare the relationship between Brazilians and Portuguese in 2015 and 2025 , the changes have been so vast that it's almost unrecognizable," says Thiago Lasco, a 47-year-old journalist and lawyer.

"Brazil was all the rage in 2015, with the World Cup and the Olympic Games. There was a narrative around the world that we were the country that was going to become a powerhouse . Foreigners wanted to come to Brazil, spend time here, and that included many Portuguese, who emphasized our warmth. It was a world before that."

There are more than half a million Brazilians in Portugal, including those with legal residency, those without, and those with dual nationality. Now, the new right-wing government is pushing a very restrictive immigration policy, and although deportations of Brazilians are relatively rare, the issue tarnishes Portugal's image. "The mistreatment Brazilians suffer today in Portugal has contaminated our relationship with the Portuguese, although it's clear that not all of them are," says Lasco, who has a very critical view of the nation that colonized his country.

"The Portuguese people are more provincial, more sexist, more backward . A country that is always angry with other European countries, with the lowest wages in Europe, and hurt by Brazil's prominence in the global popular imagination. The situation in Brazilian Guyana reflects Portugal's insignificance on the world stage from the perspective of some Brazilians. Brazil, on the other hand, is a sexy country."

Rodríguez, the engineer, believes the matter isn't so serious: "It's unlikely that a Portuguese person will have problems here in Brazil. At most, he'll have to listen to a few jokes ."