Korean → Portuguese
Portuguese uses 35 sounds. You already own 18 of them from Korean. The other 17 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 강 (river).
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 사람 (person).
the move: rounded
Portuguese: grandmother · written "o", "ó"
avó /ɔ/ grandmother vs avô /o/ grandfather — one accent apart.
Your /ʌ/ is the one in 서울 (Seoul).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: time · written "em", "en"
Your /e/ is the one in 네 (yes).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: yes · written "im", "in"
Your /i/ is the one in 이 (this; two; tooth).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: good · written "õ", "om", "on"
Your /o/ is the one in 오늘 (today).
the move: close, but not identical
Portuguese: one, a · written "um", "un"
Your /u/ is the one in 우유 (milk).
the move: alveolar → labiodental
Portuguese: to speak · written "f"
Your /s/ is the one in 사람 (person).
the move: voiced
Portuguese: house · written "z", "s"
s between vowels is /z/.
Your /s/ is the one in 사람 (person).
the move: back → 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 /ɯ/ is the one in 그 (that; he).
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 나라 (country).
the move: alveolar → postalveolar, voiced
Portuguese: today · written "j", "g"
Your /s/ is the one in 사람 (person).
the move: approximant → lateral
Portuguese: son · written "lh"
Your /j/ is the one in 여자 (woman).
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 Korean 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.
green
A real v, unlike Spanish where b and v merged.
Closest thing you own: — but alveolar → labiodental, voiced.
wool
lá 'there' vs lã 'wool' — the nasality is the whole difference.
Closest thing you own: — but open → near-open, front → central.
car
Back in the throat, like French r. Brazil often makes it /h/.
Closest thing you own: — but plosive → fricative, velar → uvular.
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| Korean | Portuguese | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Syllable-timed, phrase melody | Stress-timed (Portugal) |
| Stress | None at word level. No syllable is reduced and no vowel becomes a schwa; every syllable is said in full. What an English ear hears as stress is the phrase-initial rise. | 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
16 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 Korean 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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