Hindi → Portuguese
Portuguese uses 35 sounds. You already own 13 of them from Hindi. The other 22 are the work — and 20 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: retroflex → palatal
Portuguese: wine · written "nh"
Spanish writes this ñ, French gn, Portuguese nh.
Your /ɳ/ is the one in gaṇesh (Ganesh).
the move: near-close → close
Portuguese: life · written "i"
Your /ɪ/ is the one in din (day).
the move: near-close → close
Portuguese: everything · written "u", "o (final)"
Unstressed final o is /u/ — always.
Your /ʊ/ is the one in kuchh (something).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: fear · written "e", "ê"
Your /eː/ is the one in ek (one).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: foot · written "e", "é"
Open e. The accent tells you which: pêlo vs pélo.
Your /ɛː/ is the one in hai (is).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: spade · written "a", "á"
Your /aː/ is the one in aam (mango).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: grandmother · written "o", "ó"
avó /ɔ/ grandmother vs avô /o/ grandfather — one accent apart.
Your /ɔː/ is the one in aur (and).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: grandfather · written "o", "ô"
Your /oː/ is the one in do (two).
the move: alveolar → labiodental
Portuguese: to speak · written "f"
Your /s/ is the one in saal (year).
the move: voiced
Portuguese: house · written "z", "s"
s between vowels is /z/.
Your /s/ is the one in saal (year).
the move: voiced
Portuguese: today · written "j", "g"
Your /ʃ/ is the one in shaam (evening).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: bad · written "u+vowel", "o (in ão)"
Your /ʋ/ is the one in vah (he, she, that).
the move: mid → near-open
Portuguese: bed · written "a"
Unstressed a, and a before a nasal.
Your /ə/ is the one in kal (yesterday/tomorrow).
the move: near-close → close
Portuguese: yes · written "im", "in"
Your /ɪ/ is the one in din (day).
the move: near-close → close
Portuguese: one, a · written "um", "un"
Your /ʊ/ is the one in kuchh (something).
the move: approximant → fricative
Portuguese: green · written "v"
A real v, unlike Spanish where b and v merged.
Your /ʋ/ is the one in vah (he, she, that).
the move: approximant → lateral
Portuguese: son · written "lh"
Your /j/ is the one in yah (this).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: time · written "em", "en"
Your /eː/ is the one in ek (one).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: good · written "õ", "om", "on"
Your /oː/ is the one in do (two).
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 Hindi 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.
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| Hindi | Portuguese | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Syllable-timed, with deletion | Stress-timed (Portugal) |
| Stress | Not contrastive and not written. Stress falls on the heaviest syllable — a long vowel or a closed syllable outweighs a short open one — and where several are equal it goes to the last of them. No two Hindi words are told apart by stress alone, which makes it the least stressful stress system here. | 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
28 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 Hindi 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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