> > For some reason, unlike the Spanish, the Portuguese pronounce most letters as an English speaker would pronounce them. "Jorge" is more or less pronounced "George". The only problem is that the Portuguese don't seem to pronounce vowels, particularly at the end of words. The Brazilians do, but I have yet to master their accent.


> That reminds me of something that happened when we were on a cruise ship. My daughter, who speaks mostly English and only a little Spanish, and her husband who is fluent in both, struck up a friendship with a couple from Brazil. I saw them sitting by the pool talking. Later I asked her what language they were using and she said they were all speaking their own language, but they all knew enough of the other languages to understand each other. Whatever works, I guess.
> Howard

I worked in Brazil 3 weeks ago for over 3 months and we all did that. Spanish and Portuguese have some very similar vocabulary, so if you know one of them, you can pretty much understand the other.
With reference to what was said earlier about pronounciation, what I found, having had Portuguese lessons, is that they have quite a lot more phonems (I am not sure this is the correct term in English but I mean sounds that can be used in words), so basically, yes, you were right about that.

herx