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Is there difference in pronunciation of

eu fico vs. ele ficou

and

nós ficamos (presente) va. nós ficamos (pretérite perfeito)

?

If these are prornounced differently, what is the difference? I would appreciate phonetic transcription, but also comparison to the sounds of English or French.

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    There is no POINT in comparing anything to English or French. Eu fico and ele ficou are completely different. pt.forvo.com/word/fico_duas_semanas./#pt Then enter fico. Fico is fíco. And ficou is: ficóu. The accent mark is for the stress on the word. The others are pronounced the same way in the present and simple past. You have to sign up and sign in to FORVO, but it's worth it. Please note: anything spelled differently will always have a different pronunciation. Portuguese is completely syllabic, like Spanish. Not like French and English.
    – Lambie
    Commented Sep 12, 2022 at 20:21
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    In French, there is no stress. In English, there is; for example, the word "conflict" as a noun has stress in "con", and, as a verb, the stress is in "flict". In Portuguese, we also use stress to differ words, but it is different. In Portuguese, unstressed vowels can change or "reduced". The word "Digo" has not stress in the o, and as it is final, it reduces to the /u/, as in "you". The word "falo" has stress in "fa" and means "I speak"; the word "falou" has stress in "o" and means "he/she/it spoke l". In spoken language, it is common to omit the "u", so we have "falo" with the stress in "o".
    – Schilive
    Commented Sep 13, 2022 at 22:54
  • I would say "will (almost) always have a different pronunciation". "Cassar" and "caçar" don't have a different pronunciation. ;-p Neither do "conselho" and "concelho".
    – ANeves
    Commented Sep 16, 2022 at 14:14
  • @Schilive What the heck are you saying about French?? French words do have stress. Please: has not stress? Has no stress.
    – Lambie
    Commented Sep 18, 2022 at 15:50
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    @Schilive "The word x has not stress" is not grammatical in modern English, British or American. We would use: The word x has no stress on the o. Also, in French, the tonic accent (lexical stress) is on the second syllable or last syllable when more than two syllables. Believe me, I know a thing or two about French...
    – Lambie
    Commented Sep 19, 2022 at 18:20

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There are differences, they are not the same.

There are more differences in European Portuguese (pt-PT) than in Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR).

"co" and "cou" sound different

In Portuguese, "ou" is a diphtong and it sounds very different from "o" (or "u").

Try this online converter of graphemes (words, syllables) into IPA: https://lsi.co.it.pt/g2p/

  • Fico is /fˈiku/
  • Ficou is /fikˈo/

Tonic syllable

Another important distinction is the tonic syllable.

The tonic syllable is very important in speaking proper and clear Portuguese, for reasons which are a bit long to explain.

fico and ficou have different stresses

Note the ` symbol in the IPA notation.

Fico has stress on the second-from-last syllable: /fˈiku/

Ficou has stress on the last syllable: /fˈiku/

The notion of oxytone, paroxytone and proparoxytone is very important in Portuguese.
This is something you will eventually have to learn and read about.

The tonic syllable gives the word "identity"

One of the major reasons is that we intuitively "identify" the word based on where the stress is. A bit similarly to how the "transposed letter game" still allows recognition of the intended word:

It deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, (...) you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm.

So, in pt-PT I find that the word "caderno" (has stress on the second-to-last syllable) is easier to understand as "aderno" or even "taderno" than as "caderno" or "caderno".

The word fico has tonic syllable on the first one, and ficou on the last one.
Following the sample from Schilive, they sound as different as the noun conflict and the verb to conflict.

Non-tonic syllables are weak

The tonic syllable has stress and must be spoken completely.
But non-tonic syllables can usually be reduced or even elided. When speaking, the vowels are often reduced; especially "e".

When speaking, you might hear "obrigado" as "brigado", "obrigade", or even "obrigad".

So, we might condense fico towards "fic'", ficou towards "f'cou".

Past tense has an acute accent

The 1st person plural (nós) in the past tense of verbs ending in -ar has an acute accent.

See the conjugations for ficar, cantar and rebolar.

  • In the past tense, the 1st person plural has an acute accent: ficámos.
  • In the present tense, the 1st person plural has no accent: ficamos.

Both have the stress in the second-to-last syllable.
The syllables are different, and they sound different to me.

In Brazilian Portuguese, they sound the same - an "open a", /a/.
In European Portuguese, they sound very different - an "open a" with accent, a "nasal a" without accent: perhaps /ɐ/?

  • ca in ficámos sounds like the a in the English word Mumbai, and like the first a in capa.
  • ca in ficamos sounds like the a in antes, or the first a in caminho (hear aimae and Sirasp, and then LinaCarm to hear it with /a/ in a clear Brazilian accent).
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  • Thanks, this is a very complete answer.
    – Roger V.
    Commented Sep 19, 2022 at 7:49
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    I hope I managed to infect you at least a bit, @RogerVadim , with the passion for languages. :)
    – ANeves
    Commented Sep 19, 2022 at 19:09
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    For me the pronunciation is not the same for "ficamos" and "ficámos", and the question already includes that information. Do you want to elaborate, @Lambie ?
    – ANeves
    Commented Sep 27, 2022 at 20:06
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    Well, no, @Lambie . I say ficámos with /a/, and ficamos with a slight "ã", perhaps /ɐ/. I've included this in my answer. (I called it question earlier, sorry for the confusion.) Do you have an authoritative source for "the only difference is in writing; not in speaking."? And to clarify, do you mean that for pt-PT?
    – ANeves
    Commented Oct 2, 2022 at 20:00
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    But we're agreeing on the past tense being voiced with an open a, and discussing over the present tense also voicing an "open a" or instead a "nasalised a", isn't it? Then: 1) That citation only agrees with what we already agree on, that the past tense is written with an accent and spoken with an "open a". 2) In the link, it's only discussed about concordância de tempo -> if "ficámos" is in the past tense, then the composite sentence must not start with the present tense "entregamos", but instead must start with the past tense "entregámos". 3) Ergo, the link shows/proves nothing.
    – ANeves
    Commented Oct 4, 2022 at 17:40

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