Why Does Portuguese Sound Like Russian?! (or Polish)

The very reason I found this video is because I was listening to a women speaking and would have sworn it was a combination of Russian and Spanish. I could not figure out what language she was speaking!

It doesnt.

The part where you said "spoken at a distance" is 100% true. I remember when it happened to me for the first time, and it was so strange, because as the couple came closer I couldn't understand a word.

Portuguese its my first language and when i hear Romanian from a far it sounds Portuguese.

Background music is super annoying and distracting

I speak Spanish with a Mexican accent, and Portuguese from Portugal always sounds like a drunk Russian tryin to speak Spanish. It's so funny and awesome.

ooo this video is 5 years old
it’s was 2015
Whaaaat 2018 was 6 years ago
time is flying by 😢😢😢

I was flying to Lisbon and was wondering why there were so many Russains omboard 😅😂🙈 So. Yes 😂

I speak Spanish & thought I had a chance of understanding portuguese, and I do in written form, but spoken is so different I hardly understand a thing! 😅🙈

That's why Brazilians sometimes find it harder to understand people from certain regions of Portugal than those from Spain. At the same time, Portuguese speakers always understand Brazilian Portuguese. It's more about rhythm than fonetics.

Im a native Russian speaker and yes European Portuguese sounds like Russian to me from a distance when you can’t distinguish the actual words.

I don't think Portuguese sounds like Russian, but I think Brazilians speaking English sound as if they have a Russian accent.

I’m Polish and I’ve always thought Portuguese sounds like Polish when I’m listening from a distance and can’t make the sounds out. This video confirms that. Thank you for the analysis.

The sibilants and the dark L's explain it to me. That's the stuff, George.

I always thought this was just me. I'm an American who has studied French for around 20 years and STILL often think Portuguese is Russian for about the first 10-45 seconds I hear it, even though I can clearly pick up on the French similarities once I've identified the language as Portuguese. I am from a city with a larger Russian population, and definitely had a lot of exposure to Russian before I'd ever heard Portuguese, and I wonder if that also didn't help.

I never thought of Russian. To me sound like Albanian.

I think European Portuguese sounds Slavic, but Brazilian doesn't.
The stress-time of European Portuguese and it's shhhs (sounds like their mouths are closed) make me think that.






























































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15-14 03/10/2024 October Third 2024

As russian speaker hearing people speak (European) Portuguese, it sometimes sounds really similar even though I can't understand.

This is funny to see as a Polish person who's best friend is Portuguese

I am born and bred Italian. I live in the UK and I agree Portuguese and Polish sound somehow similar.

Sometimes for me a Pole with German and French origin. It also sounds sometimes like Romance languages like Spanish, Italian, other times like Germanic Scandinavian languages and Dutch, English. Sometimes I even have the impression that I am listening to Asian languages like Japanese and Chinese. Polish is one of the few languages that is on the podium in terms of pronunciation difficulty, the most difficult grammar and spelling. I believe that this is why I recognize differences in sounds and knowledge, listening to languages as the first known in (w and that is why words and their meanings confuse me a lot and that is why I cannot recognize Portuguese for a moment. Therefore, everything is confirmed why it is perceived so ambiguously and also similarly in the case of the rest of the world.

Cool, now people can't tell me I'm tripping when I say russian sounds like Portuguese or really pissed disappointed italian without the screaming😹

r/PORTUGALCYKABLYAT

There are words that are similar such as bluza, etc

Был один язык и одно наречие. Но потом, это кому то не понравилось. Разделяй и властвуй.

what a masterful breakdown damn. I’m Brazilian in EU and think I’m hearing Russian sometimes but its Portuguese people

It's sounds annoying 😅 I just can hear always, Changeee or gemooish gemooiish
Such an ugly language 😂

Нет, есть действительно что-то общее в звучаниях. Недавно сам подумал что русские, а прислушался - португальцы

The eastern european languages do indeed, sound a lot like the western most european language. God does have a sense of humour. While learning some Russian, specially the pronounciaton, it helped a lot to be a native Portuguese speaker. Spasiva drook

Lmao trve trve except polish

Im a portuguese native speaker, and Polish speaker too , the fonetics and rytm are crazy similar

I’m Polish and Portuguese sounds like Russian to me

Damn it's phonology again doing a little trolling 😭😭😭😭

This year I went to Cuba and I met a woman and her son in Cayo Santa María. Every morning I heart them during the breakfast time and I coudn't understand in what language they spoke. I was very curious about their accent because it sounded like Russian or any slavic language, but from time to time I could understand some words. One day I asked her where she was from and she told me "from Portugal". I couldn't believe it, because I've studied portuguese (from Brazil) and her accent had nothing to do with anything similar to portuguese! This video was very clarifying.

due to the Reconquest, there were arabic-speaking populations in Lisbon and these were fused with Populations from North (Portucale and Galicia). And Lisbon is the prestige dialect today and it spreaded to all country. Arabic is stress-timed language like German, Russian etc while most Latin languages are syllable-timed, including Brazilian Portuguese, Galician, Spanish, Italian, French, Sardinian, Catalan etc

This whole video is in my native language and i don't understand any of this.. fml :(

It doesn't IDIOTS

DAMMM YOU ARE ALLL IMBECILS

of course, we do sound slavic why? economy

Wel,l, I don't think portuguese sounds slavic, I think slavic languages sound portuguese U.U

Bulls. Nobody think this.

I just visited Portugal a few weeks ago, and I did notice that at times it sounded like Russian. I speak neither Portuguese nor Russian, but here in New York City I am familiar with what many languages sound like.

Se things happens with greek and Spanish!😂

I am a native Russian speaker and also speak Polish. Portuguese is similar to these languages because it has the same hissing sounds, especially the letter "sh." However, overall, they are different for me. I wouldn't confuse them, even if I heard them from a distance. It is less similar to Polish than to Russian.

I can also immediately tell whether a speaker is a native of Polish or Russian when they speak English. It's revealed by literally one letter, which is absent in Polish but present in Russian — the hard "L".

I’m Portuguese and sometimes I’m randomly in the street in a foreigner country and I think I hear Portuguese. But no, it’s always Russian 😂😂

The same thing happens to me, I was born in Portugal I speak the language but when I hear Russian from a distance it sounds Portuguese until I get close and I can here what they are saying

When I’m in a café in London and hear people speaking Portuguese or a Slavic language amidst the usual noisy café background, it often takes me a moment to figure out which one it is. My native language is Portuguese (from Brazil), and I find the phonetic similarities between Portuguese and Slavic languages fascinating!

Interestingly, a Polish colleague I used to work with once told me that I sounded Polish when I spoke Portuguese. I always thought only European Portuguese had the phonetic similarity.

One time, my wife was watching a Romanian game show.
I'm not familiar with the language, so I initially thought maybe it was Portuguese, then Russian...and then I had no idea lol