20 Comments
Yes! For native people it's clearly seen, not the same for non-native. vô has a more closed sound (some linguists say nasal O - like the letter O in foam), and vó a more open sound (like the letter O in more)
No, it's not a nasal o. It's simply more closed (a linguist would say [o]). A nasal o is written õ
don't worry. you are not disagreeig with me, but linguistis by using just few resources...
@Rozay101Wetter I think I need to point out a little fallacy here: Being a native speaker doesn't mean someone is an expert in all fields of their language. Paulenrique is a native speaker, yes. I'm sure he knows a lot about his language, but what he said was simply wrong.
Now, of course, I am going to provide you with a source: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/av%C3%B4
Vô is simply a shortening of avô, so the o-sound is the same. Now, if you look, there's a section about the pronunciation. It says there, that in Brazil, this word is generally pronounced /aˈvo/. I will assume that you can't read IPA (if you can, you don't need to read on, everything should be clear now).
Paulenrique was talking about a nasal vowel. In IPA (the stuff between those slashes), nasal vowels are marked with a tilde ~ above it. So if avô (and therefore also vô) had one, it would be written /aˈvõ/. The exact same symbol is also used in Portuguese writing: coração (heart) - corações. Here you have a nasal vowel.
Read more:
I'll stick with Paulo. Sascha, you're trying too hard to be suddenly more relevant than him here. Doesn't work that way. Don't be envious.
I had trouble with this at first. For avô, it's kind of like the vowel in "vOte", and for avó, it's kind of like the first syllable of "AWEsome".
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You need to use the correct accent, because vò means grandmother and vô means grandfather - without the accent you do not know what is meant.
Nowhere else in any Duolingo course have I come across a question where you'll get marked wrong for omitting an accent. It just warns you.
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Nowhere else in any other Duolingo course did I see where the omission of an accent literally could change the meaning of a word. May be that there is... I just don't recall one and I've been around. That said-- I agree with your point-- for beginners especially, demanding every accent be correct makes it quite a cumbersome task.
grandmother is the mother of your parent and grandfather is the father of your parent. These are not separated into two words by a space.
I typed the answer like this (which, by the way, was incorrect): Eu como com meu avo. Is there a grammatical rule that would require dropping the a in avo? Or, did I just not listen to the dialog closely enough?
No. There isn't. This is an informal way to say grandfather, but you have to put the accent(^) in "avo": Avô.
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I answered Eu como com meu avô, as that is how it sounded to me, and it wss marked wrong. Is this truly incorrect?
