Japanese → Portuguese
Portuguese uses 35 sounds. You already own 17 of them from Japanese. The other 18 are the work — and 16 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: bilabial → labiodental
Portuguese: to speak · written "f"
Your /ɸ/ is the one in ふゆ fuyu (winter).
the move: alveolar → postalveolar
Portuguese: key · written "x", "ch", "s (final)"
Also every syllable-final s: os livros = /uʒ ˈlivɾuʃ/.
Your /s/ is the one in さかな sakana (fish).
the move: alveolar → postalveolar
Portuguese: today · written "j", "g"
Your /z/ is the one in みず mizu (water).
the move: rounded
Portuguese: everything · written "u", "o (final)"
Unstressed final o is /u/ — always.
Your /ɯ/ is the one in うみ umi (sea).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: time · written "em", "en"
Your /e/ is the one in えき eki (station).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: yes · written "im", "in"
Your /i/ is the one in いま ima (now).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: good · written "õ", "om", "on"
Your /o/ is the one in おと oto (sound).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: one, a · written "um", "un"
Your /ɯ/ is the one in うみ umi (sea).
the move: alveolar → labiodental
Portuguese: green · written "v"
A real v, unlike Spanish where b and v merged.
Your /z/ is the one in みず mizu (water).
the move: front → central
Portuguese: small · written "e (unstressed)"
The vowel that vanishes. Often deleted outright, which is why European Portuguese sounds like a run of consonants.
Your /i/ is the one in いま ima (now).
the move: open → open-mid
Portuguese: foot · written "e", "é"
Open e. The accent tells you which: pêlo vs pélo.
Your /a/ is the one in あさ asa (morning).
the move: close-mid → open-mid
Portuguese: grandmother · written "o", "ó"
avó /ɔ/ grandmother vs avô /o/ grandfather — one accent apart.
Your /o/ is the one in おと oto (sound).
the move: approximant → nasal
Portuguese: wine · written "nh"
Spanish writes this ñ, French gn, Portuguese nh.
Your /j/ is the one in やま yama (mountain).
the move: fricative → lateral
Portuguese: book · written "l"
Your /z/ is the one in みず mizu (water).
the move: approximant → lateral
Portuguese: son · written "lh"
Your /j/ is the one in やま yama (mountain).
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 Japanese 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.
| Japanese | Portuguese | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Mora-timed | Stress-timed (Portugal) |
| Stress | No stress in the English sense — syllables are not louder or longer, so a Japanese speaker reading English tends to flatten it, and an English speaker reading Japanese tends to hammer syllables that should be even. | 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
14 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 Japanese 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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