How Similar Is Spanish To Portuguese?
Portuguese and Spanish are the most closely-related Romance languages, with approximately 89% of their vocabulary either over-lapping or close enough to be mutually intelligible in both languages. Both Spanish and Portuguese are members of the West Iberian language group, until a few centuries ago a dialect-continuum from the Pyrenees mountains on the border of France and Spain to the Portuguese Atlantic coast. Because of their shared ancestry, the two languages share extensive similarities and speakers of Spanish should be able to learn Portuguese with moderate ease. Interestingly, it is usually much easier for Portuguese speakers to learn Spanish than Spanish speakers to learn Portuguese. Experts still aren’t quite sure why that is.
Significant Differences
- Othography: Many similarly-pronounced words are spelled differently e.x. Spanish mayor and Portuguese maior.
- Foreign Influences: The Portuguese language was more influenced by French and African languages than was Spanish, which was more insular. Thus, many Portuguese words borrowed from non-romance languages will sound completely foreign to speakers of Spanish.
- Arabic Substratum: Spanish has been strongly influenced by Arabic due to centuries of Moorish rule and has largely retained most of the medieval Mozarabic vocabulary. Portugal, on the other hand, was never under Moorish rule to the extent that Spain was and thus retains few Mozarabic influences today.
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Portuguese shares almost as many of the same words of Arabic origin as Spanish does. By contrast, the other Romance languages were hardly influenced by Arabic vocabulary. In any case, Portuguese and Spanish are by far the closest major Romance languages today. They are remarkably close to each other in terms of vocabulary, grammar and structure. Educated speakers of Portuguese and Spanish can understand each other almost perfectly.
Hi i believe that Italian is closer to Spanish that Portuguese my grandad speaks all three and i asked him and he said Italian is much more closer to Spanish
I’m from Spain, and I assure you that here, and in Latin America, Portuguese is thought of as being the closest major romance language to Spanish by far in terms of vocabulary, grammar and structure – there is an 89% lexical similarity between Portuguese and Spanish. Between Italian and Spanish it is 82%.
Italian being 7% less lexically similar than Portuguese makes a huge difference, and ultimately makes Italian less understandable to Spanish speakers. Our accents sound similar but so what.
On the other hand educated Portuguese and Spanish speakers can converse with each other speaking their own languages and understand one another almost perfectly.
That is not the case between Italian and Spanish, because conversations always end up getting confused because of significant vocabulary, grammar and sentence structure differences.
From the beginning, the Portuguese and Spanish languages and culture have been remarkably close, like brothers, even if at times in past history there were some political tensions. Nowadays we respect each other totally and have a special Iberian relationship.
We were both great former colonial powers and today our languages are spoken by hundreds of millions of people in the world. For the longest time Portugal and Spain were one country. Portuguese and Spanish speakers are very close neighbours here in Europe, South America and Africa.
Spanish speakers are tired of Italians who claim to be the closest linguistically and culturally to us when they are not. It is the Portuguese and Brazilians who are.
That’s not true Jonathan. I agree with John’s position completely.
I’m of Argentinian background and I speak Spanish fluently. Although Italian resembles Spanish is some respects, mainly in accent and some vocabulary, it is not that close to Spanish as many people wrongly believe.
Portuguese on the other hand, is a language that is almost totally compatible with Spanish. Apart from a slightly different accent, Portuguese vocabulary is almost the same as in Spanish. Portuguese grammar is very, very similar to Spanish too.
When I hear Portuguese I always sense a very close proximity to Spanish, a shared same Iberian origin as evidenced in shared expressions, way of sayings things, things only Portuguese and Spanish speakers would understand among themselves. It’s hard to explain. I don’t get this sense when I hear Italian apart from the obvious Latin origin of the languages.
I can’t tell you how many times Italian speakers have tried to engage with me in discussions and only to get confused. A similar accent only goes so far. This is where Portuguese wins the day.
Almost any word that exists in the Spanish dictionary, also exists in the Portuguese one. Some times when we have different word preferences for the same thing we simply introduce another that means the exact same thing. Otherwise, almost all our words are the same. Sometimes they are spelled a tiny bit differently i.e., mangueira vs. manguera (hose) but identically pronounced, or a little differently pronounced but spelled the same i.e., Domingo (Sunday). The order in which we construct our sentences parallel as well: i.e.,
Spanish: yo quiero comer una naranja cinco veces por semana.
Portuguese: eu quero comer uma laranja cinco vezes por semana.
Italian: Voglio mangiare un’arancia cinque volte la settimana.
English: I want to eat an orange five times a week.
John, Rodrigo and Samantha nailed it perfectly.
Portuguese and Spanish are, de facto, the closest major romance languages in the world today.
Yes there are many similarities between Portuguese and Spanish, most of which are in vocabulary (85% alike), which are usually over-exaggerated, especially among Spanish speakers, leading people to believe they can be so similar as dialects of the same language. Don’t be misled, there are many differences between the two (vocabulary differences, highly irregular verbs, even a future subjunctive tense which no longer exists in modern spanish and is used in Portuguese). The phonology (pronunciation/sound of) Portuguese is much closer to French than any other major Romance Language. Portuguese speaker also tend to understand Spanish better than the other way around, and even have a easier time learning Spanish than the other way around. Oddly enough, some differences between Portuguese and Spanish, are the similarities between Portuguese and Italian, for example:
The word for ‘soot’:
Port: Fuligem
Ita: Fuliggine
Spa: Hollín
The word for ‘hungry’:
Port: Fome
Ita: Fame
Spa: Hambre
The word for ‘leaf’:
Port: Folha (pronounced fol-ya)
Ita: Foglia (pronounced fo-lee-a)
Spa: Hoja
The word for ‘bed sheet’:
Port: Lençol
Ita: Lenzuolo
Spa: Sábana
The word for ‘but’:
Port: Mas
Ita: Ma
Fre: Mais
Spa: Pero (note pero means ‘however’ in Italian)
The word for ‘son/daughter’:
Port: Filho / Filha
Ita: Figlio / Figlia
Spa: Hijo / Hija
The word for ‘address’:
Port: Endereço (note ‘Enderezo’ is the Argentine version of the word derived from Portuguese, not Spanish)
Ita: Indirizzo
Spa: Direcciones
The word for ‘long’:
Port: Longo
Ita: Lungo
Spa: Largo (note ‘largo’ means ‘wide’ in both Italian and Portuguese, and ‘wide’ is ‘ancho’ in Spanish)
The word for ‘everything’:
Port: Tudo
Ita: Tutto
Spa: Todo (note Port. distinguishes ‘todo’ meaning ‘all’ and ‘tudo’ meaning everything, whereas Spanish uses ‘todo’ for both everything/all).
The word for ‘today’:
Port: Hoje (pronounced Oh-jee)
Ita: Oggi (pronounced Oh-gee)
Spa: Hoy (note ‘Oi’ in portuguese means ‘hi/hello’ (informal))
These are just some of many examples of how Italian and Portuguese are alike, and Spanish differs. This is because Portuguese was not influenced by the language of the Arabs ‘mozarabic’ as Spanish was, making Portuguese a much closer relative to original Latin (like Italian) than Spanish is. In fact Portuguese is more closely related to Old Spanish (15th century Spanish) than modern Spanish is! Some Spanish speakers tend to falsely believe Portuguese is bad, dumbed down, slang version of Spanish. Portuguese also shares some influences from French, for example:
‘Happy Birthday’:
Port: Bom Anniversario
Fre: Bon Anniversaire
Spa: Feliz cumpleaños
The word for ‘street’:
Port: Rua
Fre: Rue
Spa: Calle
The word for ‘hat’:
Port: Chapeú
Fre: Chapeau
Spa: Sombrero
As a half-Spaniard growing up in Spain (Basque region) and I spent 4 years studying in Coimbra (Portugal) – I can tell you with certainty that Spanish and Portuguese is very similar – almost identical. Italian has similarities, but no where near the similarities of Spanish and Portuguese.
Hi i’m Portuguese and i have to say that some peoples comments are really overstatements.
One thing people seem to forget is that even though Portuguese and Spanish share a hight intelligibility (understand each other), we do not share the same system of sounds.
Yes, Portuguese and Spanish are close in writing, but very different when spoken. This fact makes a conversation possible between the 2, but the understanding is at a basic level and the dialogue isn’t fluid. The understanding increases if you are accustomed to the other accent and in the knowledge you have on the differences between the 2 languages. Since Portuguese speaking countries and Spanish speaking countries are usually neighbor countries (both in Europe as in South America) mutual understanding tends to increase day by day.
Portuguese is closer to Galego, Catalan or French languages when sound is concerned and completely different from Spanish (Castilian).
Now if Americans have sometimes an hard time to understand thick Scottish or British accent, now imagine 2 different languages that even though share similar writings do sound completely different.
Also i might add as an example that i can watch a film in English language without subtitles, but i can’t say the same in the case of Spanish. Yes i would understand some dialogues and get the big idea, but i wouldn’t understand all they are saying.
Also what wasn’t said before was the existence of a Portuñol or Portunhol language. Portunhol is a word derived from mixing Português (Portuguese) and Espanhol (Spanish). This language do not exist officially and was invented by both Portuguese and Spanish speakers. It’s nothing more than mixing both languages in one. When we say we understand each other very well when speaking with each other, is because we do use Portunhol. You can speak it in 2 ways:
1 – When you are using your native language to speak and only use the other language in some words (usually words that you know that don’t exist or are different in the other language). For example all Portuguese people know that CARRO (car) in Spanish is COCHE, so when they speak to a Spanish person they would use their native language but say COCHE instead of CARRO, to make understanding easier.
2- When you speak using your native language as a base (phrase construction, expressions, etc) but say it with the accent of the other language. For example a Portuguese would say:
Portunhol: Buenos dias. Puede me dizer onde puedo encontrar lo meu escritório?
Portuguese: Bom dia. Pode-me dizer onde encontrar o meu escritório?
Spanish: Buenos días. ¿Me puede decir donde encontrar mi oficina?
English: Good morning. Can you tell me where to find my office?
So as you can see these form of speaking Portunhol permits a higher understanding between the two (because the accent barrier is almost eliminated, but do not erase the differences in phrase construction , word formation and meanings. In the example case Oficina vs Escritório.
So using one way or another, or even both at the same time will help the understanding a lot, but will never make the understanding to a native extent.
In a gist, people from these countries that were never exposed to each other languages can still maintain a conversation, but only to a basic extent. Nowadays younger people and people close to the borders that are more accustomed to each other languages, can understand each other almost as natives (using Portunhol for example).