Can Spanish speakers read Portuguese?

As a speaker of Spanish, you already have a huge vocabulary of cognates and a knowledge of the basic grammar. Most likely you can read Portuguese very well, but you might stuggle to understand the spoken language. When you speak, you might speak with a Spanish accent, or you might speak portunhol.

Why is it easier for Portuguese speakers to understand Spanish?

Originally Answered: Why do Portuguese speakers understand Spanish better than Spanish speakers understand Portuguese? Because Portuguese has more phonemes (sounds) than Spanish, so Portuguese-speakers are trained to decode those phonemes, but Spanish speakers are not.

How easy is Portuguese for a Spanish speaker?

Spanish and Portuguese have the same Latin origin and as a result both their vocabularies and their grammars are very, very similar. They say it is easier for Portuguese speakers to understand and speak Spanish than it is for Spanish speakers to follow Portuguese.

How easy is it for Portuguese speakers to understand Spanish?

In my experience, and to many others that I know, Portuguese speakers can understand spoken Spanish quite easily, almost to the point of being “fluent” in understanding Spanish with minimal or zero training.

What is the relationship between Spanish and Portuguese?

Portuguese and Spanish are in a state of what’s called “asymetrical mutual intelligibility”: speakers of one language, in this case, Portuguese, understand the target language (in this case, Castilian, or Spanish) better than speakers of the target language understand theirs.

Why is the Portuguese language so hard to learn in Chile?

Everyday language gets harder simply because an European Portuguese speaker will hardly understand the interjections or cussing of Chilean Spanish. Finally, let’s not forget the dozens of false friends.

How many phonemes does Spanish have compared to Portuguese?

But Spanish only has 24 phonemes, whereas European Portuguese has an whooping 37. And what this mean for modern-day speakers? Spanish speakers who have never been exposed to Portuguese will have a hard time understanding the spoken language.