Portuguese Dialects and Language Translation Software

If you translate Portuguese documents with translation software you will want to learn more about the different dialects.

Portuguese is a very popular language and is the official language of Portugal, Brazil, Angola, São Tomé, Príncipe and is spoken throughout Mozambique. The most common dialects you will hear about are European, Brazilian, African, São Tomean and Galician Portuguese.

The two most popular dialects requested when working with translation software is European Portuguese (Portugal) and Brazilian Portuguese. The difference between the two similar to the difference between British English and American English.

What is a Dialect?

A dialect of a language means that in a certain area the speech may vary a little. The dialect usually applies to the vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation characteristic of specific geographic localities or social classes.

Understanding the Difference / American English compared to UK English

There are many different dialects of the English language but you can still understand other dialects of the language. For example in England you can easily pick up a British newspaper and read it, but there are some words that have different meanings. For example, they may say the sentence, "I am going to move into my flat this weekend. In America we would say, "I am moving into my apartment this weekend". They simply use the word "flat" instead of "apartment" but you can get the idea of the meaning.

Difference between European and Brazilian Portuguese

Recently the improved business relations between the United States, along with the larger number of imports of computer technology and other products into Brazil has increased the demand for translations from English into Portuguese and vise versa. The most common requests are for European and Brazilian.

The differences can be detected by the spelling, the use of verb tenses and terminology. Even within Portugal there are variations between the southern and central areas and the northern part of the country.

Systran's Translation Software uses both European and Brazilian Portuguese

Systran software can translate both European (Portugal) and Brazilian Portuguese by selecting the dialect in the translation options. You can also improve the translated results by adding your own terminology to customer specific dictionaries. The normalization dictionary in the Professional Premium can also control the common differences in the spelling of certain words. You can also create you own Portuguese dictionary for common terms and increase the accuracy of the results even more.