Hello everyone,
The Portuguese language have approximately 273 speakers in total and of these 273 speakers, 250 are native. It's the 3rd most spoken in the Western Hemisphere and the most widely spoken in the southern hemisphere of the Earth. For this reason and also many others the learners of Portuguese has been growing.
How a lot of you noticed exist two variants in Portuguese, the European regulated by "Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Classe de Letras" and the Brazilian variant regulated by "Instituto Internacional da Língua Portuguesa; CPLP; Academia Brasileira de Letras".
Probably a lot of you didn't notice but in the new site the italki add variants of some languages. I will give you the examples:
Arabic:
-Arabic (Modern Standard)
-Arabic (Egyptian)
-Arabic (Gulf)
-Arabic (Sudanense)
Greek:
-Greek
-Greek (Ancient)
Chinese:
-Chinese (Mandarin)
-Chinese (Cantonese)
-Chinese (Shanghainese)
-Chinese (Taiwanese)
-Chinese (Other)
Gaelic:
-Galelic (Irish)
-Gaelic (Scottish)
Japanese:
-Japanese
-Japanese (Okinawan)
I think should be good not just for the students but also for who already speak Portuguese and also for the teachers and tutor have the option of add which variant we speak since exist a lot of differences even if it still be the same language.
Usually a Brazilian doesn't understand a Portuguese but the same doesn't happen with the Portugueses. This happen because in Brazil the people aren't in exposition with others accents Luso, what can sometimes create confusion.
What is your opinion about this? Should be good if italki add both variants?
273 millons of speakers /250 millons of speakers
I don't agree.
There are no major differences between pt-br and pt-pt. There are words that represent regionalism and culture of each country as there are differences in English and Spanish depending on the country but both are understandable by anyone.
I never heard or seen any Brazilian say that didn't understand pt-pt. My family lives in Lisbon and in Brazil there are millions of portuguese people and also never seen anyone say that.
Accents exist in any language, it doesn't mean that the people don't understand.
Japanese and Okinawan, Mandarin (mainland), Mandarin (Taiwan), Cantonese, etc these languages are very different from each other!
Notice that Spanish does not have Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Argentina), etc.
Portuguese in Portugal and in Brazil do not differ that much to be considered different languages.
