2.5M views · Nov 25, 2018 · 11:06 · 0 HN recommenders · 4 mentions · discussed 2021–2025
A Langfocus video examining why Portuguese, especially European Portuguese, sounds like Russian or Polish. It compares shared sounds such as vowel reduction and palatalization.
Why Hacker News points people here: Cited as the explanation whenever commenters notice Portuguese sounds Slavic.
“Langfocus did a video on why (European) Português sounds like Russian.”HN comment, 2022
“He also has one about Portuguese vs. Russian/Polish”
Langfocus video on why Portuguese sounds like Russian or Polish.
He also has one about Portuguese vs. Russian/Polish: this video And extreme syllable-timed language family (opposite of these) are languages Tagalog, Malay, Indonesian. EVERY syllable is pronounced and it becomes a mouthful but there's a strict cadence that comes from it. Foreign words break it a bit but native words are "ma-ka-ba-la-bu-sa-ng-ah-ga-ta-na..." link
“Langfocus did a video on why (European) Português sounds like Russian.”
Explains why European Portuguese sounds like Russian.
It’s because Pt-Pt is a stressed timed language vs Br-Pt which is a syllable timed language. Pt-Pt drops a lot of unstressed vowels whereas Br-Pt almost all syllables are pronounced. Langfocus did a video on why (European) Português sounds like Russian. this video
“And for the explanation”
Explanation for why Portuguese sounds somewhat Slavic.
It caught me off guard too, portugese from portugal do sound somewhat slavic if you're not familiar with either: link Even my slavic gf was tricked for a few seconds and wasn't sure if it was some kind of eastern language she wasn't aware of. And for the explanation this video
“There's an explanation for this”
Offers an explanation for the Russian speaker being understood better.
> My wife is a native Russian speaker, and despite making numerous grammatical errors is far better understood than I am. There's an explanation for this this video
