How much is the difference between Portuguese spoken in Portugal and Portuguese spoken in Brazil?

Question

Today I changed the language of my facebook account in its settings part to

• Português (Portugal) and saw that:

Like = Gosto, only me = Apernas eu, Share = Partilhar

• Português (Brasil) and saw that:

Like = Curtir, only me = Somente eu, Share = Compartilhar

And I wondered that how much is the difference just in common vocabulary or also in grammar?

And is the following passage based on Brazilian Portuguese or Portuguese that is spoken in Portugal?

• Na rede de sites StackExchange está em fase de "commitment" uma proposta para criar um site de Perguntas&Respostas sobre deteção remota e fotogrametria.

• Todas as instruções que precisem para ser um colaborador eficaz para a proposta de Deteção Remota e Fotogrametria na rede StackExchange.

• Também podem olhar para a página inicial e a página de "Definition phase is over!" neste site Google. Lá eu tenho resumido todos os esforços feitos desde o ano passado, e tenho linkado/ligado tutoriais que apresentam a rede StackExchange e vos familiarizam com o que estou a tentar fazer.

• Vamos fazer real um site para sensoriamento remoto e fotogrametria. Vamos prensar todos o botão “commit”

Is it so ridiculous for a passage to be a mixture of the two Portuguese and will it lead to misunderstandings?

Answer 1

The major differences are phonetic, or how the words are pronounced. But there are also differences in the spelling of words, such as the use of silent consonants (in Portugal, "current" is written actual instead of atual), and even differences in grammatical use (European Portuguese does not use gerund, although it exists in grammar).

Portuguese was established as the official language of Brazil in 1758, but at that time the contact with indigenous peoples and African slaves had already changed the language spoken here. "The Africans who arrived as slaves did not attend schools and thus learned Portuguese in orality, creating differences in the original language," says linguist Rosa Virginia Matos e Silva, of the Federal University of Bahia. Later, in the late 19th century, European and Asian immigrants arrived in Brazil, who promoted new changes in the way of talking about the Brazilian.

In other Portuguese colonies such as Angola and Mozambique, the mix of people was less intense and independence occurred in much less time. So the Portuguese there is more like European Portuguese, although there are regional accents. For different reasons, both there and here, some words appear, disappear, or even change their meaning.

Answer 2

Português (Portugal)

Like = Gosto, only me = Apernas eu, Share = Partilhar

Português (Brasil)

Like = Curtir, only me = Somente eu, Share = Compartilhar

Hm, I have always lived in Brazil, have never even visited Portugal, and I can assure you that "to like" is "gostar" here. "Curtir" is slang (and certainly Brazilian), albeit a popular one; it is never used in formal contexts with that meaning, and even in informal contexts it is by far less used than "gostar".

"Apenas eu", "somente eu" and "só eu" are all very much used in any context; if anything, "somente eu" would be the less common of those. None of them strike me as a Brazilianism though.

"Partilhar" and "compartilhar" are also synonims. Both seem very much standard Portuguese, and I doubt there is any difference between BP and EP regarding the use of these words.

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The passage you quote is certainly not BP; it feels like some kind of automatic translation intended to translate into EP.

Why do I say it is not BP?

Ortography: "deteção" instead of "detecção".

Lexic: "prensar" instead of "apertar" or "clicar".

Syntax: "podem olhar" - the use of third person verbal forms with ellision of the pronominal subject, which BP avoids; "todas as instruções que precisem para ser um colaborador" - again the pronominal ellision, plus the lack of match between the plural subject and the singular predicative; the use of "tenho" + past participle as anything different from a past continuous; the use of "vos"; "estou a tentar fazer" instead of "estou tentando fazer".

On the other hand I have always seen EP use "sítio" instead of "site". And the construction "site Google" seems weird, if not plainly wrong, in either versions of the language (looks like the automatic translator assumed "google" was an adjective, and postponed it, when it should have assumed a different syntax and translated it for "site do Google" or "site no Google").

Answer 3

Português (Brasil):

Like = Curtir, only me = Somente eu, Share = Compartilhar

Just complementing the answer above. In Brazil, just as in Portugal, "to like" also means "gostar" (and you can use in sentences like "I like you", "I like coffee" and so on). And in my experience, it's more common than "curtir".

"Curtir" is a slang and I usually see people using it when they mean "to like a lot" (although you can use it when you just mean "to like"). And (I guess) it became more popular after facebook started using it as a translation of the "like" button.

In some situations, "curtir" can also mean "to enjoy" or "to have fun": "Curta a música" ("Enjoy the music"), "Vamos curtir a festa" ("Let's enjoy/have fun at the party") -> at least in Brazil, I'm not sure about Portugal.