False Friends in Spanish and PortugueseĪpart from the difficulties of the spoken language, Spanish and Portuguese also have distinct grammars. Portuguese speakers, on the other hand, have a much easier time dealing with spoken Spanish. 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. But Spanish only has 24 phonemes, whereas European Portuguese has an whooping 37.

After all, they still share 89% of their vocabulary. However the main difference between the two languages was not in their vocabulary, but rather in their sound. Camões, the great Portuguese poet, still understood a similar language, but wrote his epic “The Lusiads” (1556) in fully-fledged Portuguese. D.Dinis, the king of Portugal in the early 14th century, is famous for his poetic verses in Galaico-Portuguese. It’s not entirely clear when each language became independent from the other, but it must’ve been somewhere between the 14th century and the 16th. Spanish and Portuguese both have their origins in Latin and both originated in the Iberian Peninsula. Apparently, if I can write in Spanish, it automatically qualifies me to write in Portuguese.

I recently received this message in a work-related request. “You speak Spanish, you must understand Portuguese.”

To understand in spanish