That's right. I have lots of friends here in Houston from Argentina and Mexico. If they speak slowly I can get what they're talking about, and all of them say that they can understand everything I'm saying, because I speak to them very slowly and using easy words.

However, when they're talking among them, I can't understand a thing. :)

The pronounciation of Portuguese depends a lot on the roots of the Brazilian. Lots of Brazilians are sons or grandsons of Italians (my case), Portuguese, Germans and Japaneses. So, in my case, my Portuguese has a strong Italian accent. Then, I have an Argentinean friend whose father was Italian as well. Even though I speak Portuguese and he speaks Spanish, our accent is very close, so that's really interesting.

For me, it's normally a bit easier to read Spanish, but still, there's enough differences that throw me off every time. :)




>>>I've always thought that Portugese was pretty cool. I went to some kind of a convention with a bunch of people from all over the world; most were sales types and I was the technical guy ready to fix any code along with my boss. I was able to speak in Spanish to the Portugese speakers (mostly Brazilians) and they udnerstood me, but when they spoke, I was mostly lost. It sounds like Italian to me in a way and very similar to Spanish in spelling but pronunciation is wildly different.
>My daughter's almost fiancee is in Brazil now.