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Portuguese

16 topics in 3 parts: grammar, register and regional dialects.

Grammar

9 topics

• Pronoun of addressWho you call what. The choice that decides your verb endings, your clitics and, in Portugal, whether you have just been rude.10 options
• Clitic placementWhere the object pronoun sits. One of the deepest structural splits between the two standards, and an exam question in both.10 options
• Progressive aspectHow you say something is happening now. One word tells a listener which country you learned in.10 options
• Tense inventory in practiceWhich tenses do real work, as against which exist. Ten forms, ranked by whether you will ever need to produce one.10 options
• The inflected infinitiveAn infinitive that carries its own subject. Portuguese has it, Spanish does not, and using it well is a C1 marker in both standards.10 options
• Subjunctive rangeHow far the subjunctive reaches before the indicative takes over. The future subjunctive is the part your Spanish cannot help with.10 options
• Verb governmentWhich preposition a verb demands. Where spoken Brazilian and the taught norm part company most often, and most expensively.10 options
• Agreement, prescriptive and spokenHow much of the plural actually gets marked. A grammar question in form and a social question in practice.10 options
• Object expressionHow you refer back to a thing already mentioned. The deepest split of all: one standard's obligatory form is the other's near-taboo.10 options

Register

5 topics

• The formality ladderAnchor A, rewritten ten times. Same facts, same request, same deadline — ten heights.10 options
• Politeness and mitigationHow much padding sits around the ask. Ten ways to request the same estorno, from bare to fully hedged.10 options
• Distance and hierarchyWhat title the other person gets, and what the choice says about both of you.10 options
• Norma culta and norma faladaWhich grammar you are writing — the one taught or the one spoken. In Brazil that gap is wide, and it carries weight the grammar itself does not.10 options
• Humour and ironyHow the joke is made, and whether it is signalled. The domain where the two countries misread each other most often.10 options

Regional dialects

5 dialects and 2 overview sheets

• CariocaRio de Janeiro. The Brazilian accent of television and the beach. The s turns to sh, the r turns to h, and t and d before i become ch and j.6 sound rules
• PaulistanoSão Paulo. The accent of Brazil's largest city and its business capital. Crisp s, a tapped r, and an Italian echo in neighbourhoods like Mooca.6 sound rules
• NordestinoRecife and the northeast of Brazil. The northeast keeps sounds the south has changed: t and d stay hard, vowels open up, and oxe answers almost anything.5 sound rules
• LisboetaLisbon. European Portuguese as Lisbon speaks it: unstressed vowels vanish, every final s is sh, and ei sounds like ai.6 sound rules
• PortuensePorto and the north of Portugal. Northern Portuguese: b and v merge, ou stays a real diphthong, and the vocabulary has its own words for beer, coffee and the people who live there.5 sound rules
• Regional accentWhich place the voice comes from. Ten varieties, each with what marks it and where to hear it.10 options · overview
• Brazilian and European lexiconWhich word names the ordinary thing. Ten fields where the two standards almost never share one.10 options · overview