German → Portuguese
Portuguese uses 35 sounds. You already own 20 of them from German. The other 15 are the work — and 14 of those are the dangerous kind: close enough to something you already say that you will substitute them without hearing yourself do it.
The silent swaps
Your mouth has something close enough to reach for. These survive for years precisely because they sound right to you — the fix is hearing the difference first, not trying harder.
the move: velar → palatal
Portuguese: wine · written "nh"
Spanish writes this ñ, French gn, Portuguese nh.
Your /ŋ/ is the one in singen (to sing).
the move: alveolar → postalveolar
Portuguese: today · written "j", "g"
Your /z/ is the one in Sonne (sun).
the move: near-close → close
Portuguese: life · written "i"
Your /ɪ/ is the one in Kind (child).
the move: near-close → close
Portuguese: everything · written "u", "o (final)"
Unstressed final o is /u/ — always.
Your /ʊ/ is the one in Mutter (mother).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: fear · written "e", "ê"
Your /eː/ is the one in See (lake).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: grandfather · written "o", "ô"
Your /oː/ is the one in Brot (bread).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: wool · written "ã", "an", "am"
lá 'there' vs lã 'wool' — the nasality is the whole difference.
Your /ɐ/ is the one in Mutter (mother).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: bad · written "u+vowel", "o (in ão)"
Your /j/ is the one in ja (yes).
the move: near-close → close
Portuguese: yes · written "im", "in"
Your /ɪ/ is the one in Kind (child).
the move: near-close → close
Portuguese: one, a · written "um", "un"
Your /ʊ/ is the one in Mutter (mother).
the move: approximant → lateral
Portuguese: son · written "lh"
Your /j/ is the one in ja (yes).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: time · written "em", "en"
Your /eː/ is the one in See (lake).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: good · written "õ", "om", "on"
Your /oː/ is the one in Brot (bread).
Words you may say identically
Two or more Portuguese sounds landing on one sound of yours. Until the ear separates them, the mouth cannot — which is what the ear trainer is for.
Genuinely new
Nothing in German sits close to these. They sound foreign in your mouth — which is the good news: you can hear that you are not saying them yet.
expensive
One tap.
Closest thing you own: — but plosive → tap.
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| German | Portuguese | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Stress-timed | Stress-timed (Portugal) |
| Stress | Contrastive in a very German way: with separable-vs-inseparable prefix verbs, the stress tells you which grammar you are in — and therefore what the sentence means. Otherwise stress sits on the stem syllable, and the unstressed prefixes (be-, ge-, er-, ver-, zer-, ent-) never take it. | Contrastive and written. The default is the second-to-last syllable; anything else takes an accent, and the accent also picks between open and close vowels — avó /ɔ/ is a grandmother and avô /o/ is a grandfather. |
What you have that Portuguese doesn't
23 sounds with no job in Portuguese. They are not mistakes — but they are where an accent leaks in, because a sound you own is easy to use when a hard one is due.
The honest caveat
This is a prediction from the shape of two sound systems, not a recording of you. It says what your inventory makes likely — it cannot know that your German has a regional variety that already owns one of these, or that you learned Portuguese from someone whose accent you copied. A teacher listening to you beats it. Use it to know what to listen for.
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