Today’s post is interactive: what’s your favorite word in Portuguese?
For native English speakers, there are a number of words that are a delight to say, or sound funny or interesting to our Anglo ears.
Some examples of my favorite Portuguese words, which all happen to start with “p”:
paralelepípedo (cobblestone) [par-ah-lehl-eh-pee-peh-doh]
pequenininho (very, very small) [peh-que-nee-nee-nyo]
pipoca (popcorn) [pee-poh-kah]
What’s your favorite word in Portuguese?
In a previous post, I discussed the sound of the letter ‘X’ in Portuguese. This polyphonic letter can trip up many non-native Portuguese speakers, and there are no hard and fast rules regarding its pronunciation.
In this post I’d like to show some more common uses of the letter X as well as some words that include the letter that you might see frequently.
The first example always makes me smile. In Brazil it is very common to see a X-Burguer on the menu of a restaurant or bar. When I first saw this I imagined that the particular establishment I was in was featuring some sort of ‘extreme’ sandwich, perhaps with some daredevilish combination of pimenta and mayo! Alas it turns out the the X-Burguer, unlike the X-Games and the X-Prize, is quite tame; the X is short for ‘cheese!’ The letter X in Portuguese is pronounced by itself as ‘shis,’ and so ‘X-Burguer’ literally is pronounced something like ‘cheeseburger‘ in English!
Here are some words that start with X that are pretty common.
Pronunciation in Portuguese can be tricky, and there are several areas in which language learners are frequently confused. One such area in Portuguese is the letter X. This one letter has four different sounds!
In the word Xangô, the ‘x’ is pronounced like the ’sh’ in shampoo.
In proximidade, it sounds like the ’s’ in serious.
In táxi, it sounds like the common ‘x’ sounds in English, like in fax.
In exílio, the ‘x’ sounds like the ‘z’ in <strongzero.
To further confuse issues, there seems to be little rhyme or reason governing the sounds of X. A case in point is fixo (fixed), pronounced fee-ksoo versus lixo (trash), pronouced lee-shoo. Exactly the same sounds on either side of the X, and yet totally different sounds!
