Hi Lanny
I sympathise with your difficulties, but it may surprise you to know that people learning English as a second language say exactly the same thing about English! (I teach English as a second language, so I know this is a common problem).
Unfortunately it’s not enough to study the words and grammar of a language using books, apps or even great websites like Practice Portuguese. As a second language learner you are unlikely to have been exposed to the sounds and rhythm from birth, as native children are, but this - the sounds and rhythm - is actually what you need to study alongside the vocabulary and grammar.
Listen even when you don’t understand, you will still be absorbing the patterns.
Fortunately Euro Portuguese like English is a stress timed language - so we both swallow our unstressed vowels - which is why something like claro que sim sounds like clar’k’sihm (you’ve got the nasal m on the end as well to add to the difference!). But if you are unaware of that style of pronunciation, then yes, what you hear wont make sense because your brain is trying to fit the sounds into a different code.
(Brazilian Portuguese on the other hand is syllable timed, like Spanish, French, Italian, which is one of the reasons it sounds so different to european portuguese).
Of course every language has it’s own way of pronouncing the written code, so personally I started learning Portuguese by just studying the individual pronunciation of each letter. Rui and Joel have done a couple of great videos on both the vowel and consonant sounds, and there are others online. There are also lots of videos with tips on how to understand native speakers.
However, I believe one of the most useful steps forward would be to study the rules, patterns and structure of the spoken language and then apply those rules as you listen, rather than trying to fit what you hear into your native language interpretation of what is written.
(I actually had the opposite problem learning Spanish completely by listening and then not being able to read and pronounce certain words correctly because I hadn’t learnt that the sound I heard was written a certain way!)
Above all, keep going!
bowa sort (boa sorte)
Theresa
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