The Portuguese Language
Portuguese spread from its small home country in Europe to become the sixth most common language in the world with over 240 million speakers. The historic reach of Portuguese has ensured its place as one of the world’s premier languages for business and commerce. Here are some facts to consider:
- Portuguese is the official language of nine countries: Brazil, Portugal, Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Cape Verde, and Sao Tome and Principe.
- Portuguese is the sixth most common language among Internet users with over 70 million users.
- Portuguese is the second most common Romance language, behind Spanish but ahead of French, Italian and Romanian.
- There are as many Portuguese speakers as Spanish speakers in South America.
Like any language, translating into Portuguese poses its own set of challenges. What is the difference between the perfect and the imperfect tenses, or between the subjunctive and indicative? Is the proper word for “bus," autocarro, ônibus or machimbombo? And if you are reminded to bring your pasta it’s not your lunch it’s your “briefcase”!
Portuguese Language Characteristics
Portuguese shares its roots in the Iberian Peninsula with Spanish and has Latin heritage like French and Italian. So what are some of the unique traits that set Portuguese apart?
- Portuguese is written with the same 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, but K, W, and Y only appear in foreign loanwords.
- The following characters are used with diacritics: Á, Â, Ã, À, Ç, É, Ê, Í, Ó, Ô, Õ, and Ú.
- Many grammatical forms that have disappeared in the other Romance languages, like the future subjunctive and future perfect subjunctive, have been maintained in Portuguese.
- All nouns have one of two genders: masculine (or inclusive) and feminine (or exclusive). Many nouns end with an –a for the feminine form and an –o for the masculine form.
- Portuguese has 11 distinct vowel sounds.
- In European Portuguese, você is used to express politeness for the formal “you,” while tu is used for relatives, friends and children. In Brazilian Portuguese, tu is not commonly used.
Brazilian Market
The Portuguese-speaking market encompasses the rapidly developing New Worlds of South America and Africa and the prosperous Old World of Portugal. As one of the world’s largest and fastest growing countries, Brazil offers the greatest business opportunities. Here are some facts to consider:
- Brazil’s economy is the largest in South America and the ninth largest in the world.
- Brazil is the United States’ second largest trading partner in Latin America, and the United States is Brazil’s largest trading partner.
- Brazil is a leading agricultural powerhouse, producing the largest volume of raw sugar, oranges and coffee, and the second largest volume of beef, poultry, corn and soybeans in the world. It is also the world’s single largest producer of ethanol.
Portuguese Translation Text Expansion
Generally, documents translated from English into Portuguese require about 30% more words, although the difference depends on the type of text being translated. This is due to the linguistic features of the language. Oftentimes, more words are necessary to say the same thing in Portuguese.
Text expansion can create difficulties in document formatting and desktop publishing (DTP). It may result in a document that is crowded and hard-to-read as more words are forced to fit into the same design. Any documents intended for translation into Portuguese should include enough text space to accommodate expansion. Website translation can also be facilitated by a design that allows for flexibility in dealing with text expansion.
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