Beata G
Letter "D" and "T" : different pronunciations and formally accepted rules!

Hello everyone,


I need a formal explanation, and internationally accepted kind of rule on wether it's correct or not to say: "saudagi" instead of "saudade" and "leichi" instead of "leite". Is there a written, formal document about this?

Thank you!

Apr 26, 2019 3:50 PM
Comments · 17
3
I’m not a native Portuguese speaker, or any kind of expert on Portuguese, but I can assure you that in Brazil (where most Portuguese speakers live), pronouncing /di/ and /ti/ as /dʒi/ and /tʃi/ is the most usual and accepted pronunciation. There are parts of Brazil where they say /di/ and /ti/, but that is generally considered less "prestigious" in Brazil. Of course, the pronunciation is /di/ and /ti/ (or actually /də/ or /tə/, depending on the phoneme and stress pattern) in European Portuguese. Note that the entire population of Portugal is half that of São Paolo — not that anyone would care. As Serg says, any beginner textbook will have these rules.

April 26, 2019
2
Here is perhaps an even clearer explanation from the same very  long, useful article Chris quoted “In most Brazilian dialects, including the overwhelming majority of the registers of Rio de Janeiro (from where this process is said to have expanded to elsewhere in Brazil),[25] other fluminense-speaking areas, and São Paulo, as well some rural areas of Portugal, the dental stops are affricated to [tʃ] and [dʒ] before /i/, /ĩ/.[26] “

You can hear that pronunciation anywhere you hear Brazilian Portuguese, for example, Youtube channels of your choice. Here’s a learning Brazilian Portuguese podcast that may be particularly valuable in your case:


April 26, 2019
2

Pronunciation varies depending on dialect.  I am working on English pronunciation with some Brazilian students who pronounce 't' and 'd' as  'chee' and 'dgee' which make their English hard to understand.


More information here:

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_phonology

Excerpt: However, [tʃ] and [dʒ] are allophones of /t/ and /d/ before front high vowels in most Brazilian dialects.

April 26, 2019
1

Hello! In Brazil, we say 'leichi' and 'saudagi (it's correct to say like that), but we write these words 'leite' and 'saudade'. I study Linguistic and there's an area called Sociolinguística in which an author (his name's Marcos Bagno, you can search it on Google) published so many books about it. So it's wrong to say that we can't say 'leichi'.

I hope I've been of some help. 

His books: "Não é errado falar assim", "Preconceito Linguístico"...

May 2, 2019
1
No Beata, that is not correct.

That pronunciation is not typical of Brazil, but only typical in some regions of Brazil! The only difference about pronunciation that you can really tell between these two countries (and not regions of them) is the final "e" when is not stressed.

Final "e" in Portugal is very similar to the French final "e" as in "Republique". On the other hand, in Brazil, it is pronounced as "i" (most regions) or "ê" (some regions).

Please see next vídeo to see how the public pronounce the "t" in "boa noite" (at the beginning) which is very different from the way the television presenter does.


I hope you get convinced :)
April 28, 2019
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