Top 5 difficulties to Speak English for Native Portuguese speakers
In my opinion, the biggest dificulties that a native Portuguese speaker will have to speak English are:
1 - Understanding of whenever use Simple Past or Present Perfect:
That's because the portuguese doesn't have this tense itself. We have simple past, of course, and if you combine some specific words, it would be similar to Present Perfect, but it is not the exactly same thing and it doesn't apply for all situations. That's why when we need to talk about the past, we have some trouble to decide whether to use simple past or present perfect.
2 - Pronunciation of words with TH, mainly when it's at the middle of the word:
We don't have this kind of sound in any Portuguese word. Nothing similar. So, many portuguese speakers pronounce it as the sound of the "T" only or with the sound of "F". That's a very common mistake we usually do, just as English native people have difficulties to pronounce the nasal sound of "ÃO" (sounds a little bit like "aum"). This sound doesn't exist in English words as well.
3 - Correct use of prepositions "ON", "IN" and "AT".
You must have seen it even in this text that I may have made some mistakes when using those prepositions. In Portuguese, the definitions and use of prepositions are tottally different. So we can not compare with anything like that in Portuguese.
4 - Phrasal verbs
Phrasal verbs also doesn't exist in Portuguese, so we need to "memorize" and know which situation we can use them. If you litteraly translate each word to Portuguese, it won't make any sense.
5 - Use of "IT"
That's another common mistake we usually do. That's again because in Portuguese we don't have anything similar to it.
Most of you must be thinking that we can not use comparison and translation when you are learning a foreign language, but it's inevitable when you don't have a good explanation or understanding of that specific therm. I don't like to use comparison and translation when I'm learning something new either. I'd rather try to read some explanation in the same language that I'm learning.
The last thing would be try to translate it.
Thank you in advance for the corrections!
See ya!
