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O Economista Que Há Em Si
That's the Portuguese-language version of Discover Your Inner Economist, the Amazon link is here. Here are various Portuguese-language web sites about the book. I am pleased to be represented in the Lusaphone world, as Portuguese is a very beautiful language, even when the topic is economics. Oddly Natasha insists that, heard at a distance, Portuguese sounds a great deal like Russian.
And of course the English language paperback edition of Inner Economist, just out and only $10 on Amazon, can be found here.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 18, 2008 at 09:49 AM in Books | Permalink
Comments
Congratulations. I'm a portuguese reader of this blog. Portuguese and Russian? Say this to Natasha: "Don't drink anymore!" :P
Posted by: Carlos at Jun 18, 2008 10:11:54 AM
Hi there
I am a Brazilian reader of the blog and I agree with Natasha - several words actually are the same in Russian and Brazilian.
Brazilian evolved differently to Portuguese, probably the reason why Carlos does not agree with Natasha :)
Cheers,
Posted by: Tatiana at Jun 18, 2008 10:41:14 AM
Natasha is basically right although Portuguese actually sounds more like Polish than Russian. Same predominance of nasal vowels, slurred vowels and "sh" sounds. But it definitely sounds Slavic to non-speakers, nothing like Italian or Spanish.
Posted by: vanya at Jun 18, 2008 10:57:54 AM
As a Brazilian with some experience with Russians, I can attest that, although the words are nothing alike, Russians are usually surprised by by how well Brazilians can pronounce a Russian word when hearing it for the first time. Very similar phonemes is my explanation, although I can do no better than to credit this to coincidence.
Posted by: bb at Jun 18, 2008 11:07:21 AM
Tatiana, actually a Portuguesa do Portugal sounds more slavic than a Brasileira.
Posted by: vanya at Jun 18, 2008 11:10:20 AM
At a distance, you can't hear individual consonants or vowels, you just hear the prosody (rhythm, stress, intonation). It's certainly possible for two unrelated languages to have similar sounding prosody.
There might be something to it. I'm almost certain Natasha must have been refering to Brazilian Portuguese, not European Portuguese, yes?
You could also compare which languages sound similar when talking while brushing your teeth. Incidentally, a tonal language like Chinese is apparently much easier to understand when spoken with a mouth full of toothpaste than English.
Posted by: at Jun 18, 2008 11:11:55 AM
As a scholar of Spanish who owns a Portuguese to English dictionary I can understand written Portuguese pretty well but generally have absolutely no clue what's going on when I try to follow the spoken language. This is the only romance language that's so beguiling.
Posted by: Sean at Jun 18, 2008 11:36:55 AM
Actually, people said they heard French or Italian while I lived in the US. But probably because Portuguese from Brazil (and especially here in the south) has lots of Italian-accent influences.
By the way, I doubt this will be the title of the book in Brazil - it sounds definitely daft/old-fashioned to our ears. I bet it would become something like "Descubra o Economista em Você", which is a more literal translation.
Posted by: Ricardo Amaral at Jun 18, 2008 12:00:49 PM
Dear Tyler,
You'd be happy to note, I managed to pick up your book from Sri Lanka. That's a great achievement coz We rarely get good econ books here. :)
Posted by: Deane at Jun 18, 2008 12:17:28 PM
Sean,
For you and anyone else who knows Spanish well and can therefore read Portuguese but can't understand spoken Brazilian Portuguese, here's an excellent English-language site from the University of Texas: Tá Falado.
You could also try listening to short Brazilian Portuguese newscasts to accustom your ears to the sounds, for instance Radio Canada International has some two-minute segments as well as longer ones: RCI in Brazilian Portuguese (for audio, click on the gray triangle with the yellow ring around it)
Posted by: at Jun 18, 2008 12:34:26 PM
By the way, one of the podcasts within Tá Falado deals specifically with Brazilian Portuguese intonation and musicality.
Posted by: at Jun 18, 2008 12:45:51 PM
The Portuguese/Russian sound similarity is definitely between Portuguese from Portugal and Russian. Brazilian Portuguese is way too melodic for there to be any confusion. I am a fluent Portuguese speaker of the Brazilian variety (though not a native speaker) and I and my Brazilian wife have at times had difficulty determining if a group across the room at a noisy pub is from Portugal or Russia (precisely the conditions in which such confusion tends to arise). I also agree that Polish use of rather nasal tones makes it easy for Portuguese speakers to hear/learn their language.
Posted by: CW at Jun 18, 2008 12:48:53 PM
The book is great... and so the portuguese language.
Posted by: MatosB at Jun 18, 2008 1:11:12 PM
I agree with bb, I am a Brazilian who studied some Russian, and, even though the grammar often eluded me, my Russian teacher always liked my pronounciation.
I think it is interesting that Portuguese doesn't sound Latin. Maybe that is the reason why Brazilians usually understand Spanish much more easily than Spaniards understand Portuguese.
There´s also something else that has always intrigued me. The cyrilic letter for the sound "V" is "B", and, at least in the way Portuguese people sound to Brazilians, their "B"s sound a little like "V"s. I know, this probably has nothing to do with anything, but, if I don't mention this in this discussion, when will I have another chance to mention it?
Posted by: NPTO at Jun 18, 2008 1:46:00 PM
I agree with Ricardo Amaral. "O Economista que Há Em Si" sounds too old-fasioned. Worse, it sounds pretty much formal for a brazilian. "Descubra o Economista Em Você" is much better
Posted by: Guilherme Zambalde at Jun 18, 2008 2:19:34 PM
Tyler,
I must agree with Guilherme and Ricardo. I hope your book is gonna be published in brazilian portuguese, and the title would be something like "Descubra o Economista em Você". The portuguese title sounds really old-fashioned here in Brazil. Not even my grand grand father speaks that way...
Your loyal MR reader,
Rodrigo.
Posted by: Rodrigo Mauricio at Jun 18, 2008 9:58:35 PM
Ricardo and Guilherme, you are correct. The publisher is Editorial Presença, which is from Portugal. Here is the link to the book on their website: http://www.presenca.pt/catalogo_ficha_livro.asp?livro=4311
Posted by: Miguel at Jun 18, 2008 10:01:20 PM
sorry but... nop... it is not a question of sounding better; the title "... em Si" is not "old-fasioned"; its pure Portuguese - let me underline "pure" as in "ancient"; ancient and old-fashioned are not necessarily synonyms, and in this case, they are not; the title "... em Você" is pure Brazilian; I find the Portuguese title very elegant and appellative. I respect both translations; but in the richness of the two languages, I'm sure there is space in the market for both titles: one respecting Portuguese language and cultural identity and the other, Brazilian. I'm sure some Brazilian editor will publish the book - thats what matters - in this case, for the benefit of the readers.
Cumprimentos a todos,
Posted by: MatosB at Jun 22, 2008 6:54:20 PM
The sound similarity between Portuguese and Russian is surely the Portuguese from Portugal and Russian. It's because the sound of the "s", that in Portuguese from Portugal has the sound of "sh", and in Brazil the sound of the "s" is the same from english. Only in a few cities in Brazil people uses the "s" with the sound of "sh". One of them is Rio.
Posted by: Guilherme Zambalde at Jun 23, 2008 4:03:11 PM
No idea how to embed an image in a comment, but snapped this photo at a bookstore on Rua Áurea at the Rossio plaza in Lisboa.
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