Brazilian here. Brazilian Portuguese has lots of variation across the country.
One thing that I can remember of European Portuguese is “tu” (singular 2nd person). Brazilian Portuguese vary, with states such as São Paulo and Minas Gerais using “você” (you) while states such as Pernambuco and Ceará using “tu” in a peculiar way.
For example, Cearenses, Pernambucanos, among other northeastern states, they would say “tu tá fazendo o quê hoje?” (English: “What are you doing today?”), when “tá” is a shortened “está”, the verb “estar” (be) conjugated in the singular third person, but “tu” is the singular second person.
European Portuguese would say “tu estás a fazer o que hoje?”, with “estás” correctly conjugated in the single second person (“What art thou doing today?”).
And there are Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais. I was born Paulista (São Paulo state), and paulistas speak slightly differently from Paulistanos (São Paulo city and capital of its homonym state). This includes slightly different dialects, terms, colloquial expressions and, especially, different accent. But both paulistas and paulistanos say “tá fazendo o que hoje?” or “você tá fazendo o que hoje?” (The first implies an “você”).
Minas Gerais, as well as some places within Sao Paulo’s interior, would say “cê tá fazendo o que hoje?” or “ocê tá fazendo o que hoje?”, where both “cê” and “ocê” is a shortened “você” (“ocê” is very stereotypical of Mineiros).
There are many other aspects and examples that could be mentioned as well, but my comment is already long. But, basically, Brazilian Portuguese differs a lot from the European Portuguese, which also have their own regional variations (e.g. the Portuguese spoken in Porto differs from the Portuguese spoken in Ilha da Madeira).
As for sounds and accents, the northeasterners as well as the Cariocas (Rio de janeiro) have more in common with Portugal as their “s” sounds like “x” (not your English x, but the “sh” sound as in “shell” and “ash”). Paulistas even make some lighthearted funny from cariocas when they say “isqueiro” (lighter) and “chiqueiro” (pigsty), because they say both words in a very similar manner (“eesh-kay-roo” and “sh-kay-roo”). In contrast, paulistanos say something like “ees-kay-roo” (our “s” sounds approximately like the ending sound from the English word “fizz”.
Probably. For example: European Portuguese often uses “está a fazer” / “estás a fazer”, Brazilian Portuguese often uses the gerund form (“está fazendo”). Also, there are slight differences on how some words are written: Brazilian Portuguese uses “objetivo” (objective/target), “ação” (action), “tela” (screen), “mouse de computador” (computer mouse), while European Portuguese respectively uses “objectivo”, “acção”, “ecrã” and “rato de computador”.
However, I once heard that a “Brazilianization” of European Portuguese is happening through the European Portuguese youth due to how major online Portuguese-speaking influencers are often Brazilian, such as Lucas Neto (an infuencer whose content focuses on the youth). Considering that the youth people has more online presence than older people, chances are that the variations of Brazilian Portuguese (especially the “Carioca” variation, as those Brazilian influencers often come from Rio de Janeiro’s city) is overriding European Portuguese among the European Portuguese people all over the the web. This makes it slightly hard to identify the nationality solely from written text.
(Edit: “Brazilianization” is different from “Brazilification”. The latter refers to ethnic diversification, while the former refers to “An increase in the percentage of Brazilian people or cultural elements in an area or industry” (to paraphrase Wiktionary). Although the ethnic diversification is also indeed happening across the world, the focus of my reply is the cultural and linguistic realm, so “Brazilianization” seems to fit better.)
Brazilian here. Brazilian Portuguese has lots of variation across the country.
One thing that I can remember of European Portuguese is “tu” (singular 2nd person). Brazilian Portuguese vary, with states such as São Paulo and Minas Gerais using “você” (you) while states such as Pernambuco and Ceará using “tu” in a peculiar way.
For example, Cearenses, Pernambucanos, among other northeastern states, they would say “tu tá fazendo o quê hoje?” (English: “What are you doing today?”), when “tá” is a shortened “está”, the verb “estar” (be) conjugated in the singular third person, but “tu” is the singular second person.
European Portuguese would say “tu estás a fazer o que hoje?”, with “estás” correctly conjugated in the single second person (“What art thou doing today?”).
And there are Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais. I was born Paulista (São Paulo state), and paulistas speak slightly differently from Paulistanos (São Paulo city and capital of its homonym state). This includes slightly different dialects, terms, colloquial expressions and, especially, different accent. But both paulistas and paulistanos say “tá fazendo o que hoje?” or “você tá fazendo o que hoje?” (The first implies an “você”).
Minas Gerais, as well as some places within Sao Paulo’s interior, would say “cê tá fazendo o que hoje?” or “ocê tá fazendo o que hoje?”, where both “cê” and “ocê” is a shortened “você” (“ocê” is very stereotypical of Mineiros).
There are many other aspects and examples that could be mentioned as well, but my comment is already long. But, basically, Brazilian Portuguese differs a lot from the European Portuguese, which also have their own regional variations (e.g. the Portuguese spoken in Porto differs from the Portuguese spoken in Ilha da Madeira).
As for sounds and accents, the northeasterners as well as the Cariocas (Rio de janeiro) have more in common with Portugal as their “s” sounds like “x” (not your English x, but the “sh” sound as in “shell” and “ash”). Paulistas even make some lighthearted funny from cariocas when they say “isqueiro” (lighter) and “chiqueiro” (pigsty), because they say both words in a very similar manner (“eesh-kay-roo” and “sh-kay-roo”). In contrast, paulistanos say something like “ees-kay-roo” (our “s” sounds approximately like the ending sound from the English word “fizz”.
So I guess you can tell when someone’s European Portuguese in writing?
Probably. For example: European Portuguese often uses “está a fazer” / “estás a fazer”, Brazilian Portuguese often uses the gerund form (“está fazendo”). Also, there are slight differences on how some words are written: Brazilian Portuguese uses “objetivo” (objective/target), “ação” (action), “tela” (screen), “mouse de computador” (computer mouse), while European Portuguese respectively uses “objectivo”, “acção”, “ecrã” and “rato de computador”.
However, I once heard that a “Brazilianization” of European Portuguese is happening through the European Portuguese youth due to how major online Portuguese-speaking influencers are often Brazilian, such as Lucas Neto (an infuencer whose content focuses on the youth). Considering that the youth people has more online presence than older people, chances are that the variations of Brazilian Portuguese (especially the “Carioca” variation, as those Brazilian influencers often come from Rio de Janeiro’s city) is overriding European Portuguese among the European Portuguese people all over the the web. This makes it slightly hard to identify the nationality solely from written text.
(Edit: “Brazilianization” is different from “Brazilification”. The latter refers to ethnic diversification, while the former refers to “An increase in the percentage of Brazilian people or cultural elements in an area or industry” (to paraphrase Wiktionary). Although the ethnic diversification is also indeed happening across the world, the focus of my reply is the cultural and linguistic realm, so “Brazilianization” seems to fit better.)