Creighton Olsen

One of the strangest things about Portuguese and phonetic-Portuguese (a.k.a. Spanish) is gendered pronouns and that's before you get to all the exceptions (e.g. a foto, o chá) like Tom points out. I wonder if gendering everything introduces any biases down the road. https://twitter.com/alltom/status/1217475394426695680 …

Other strange things about Portuguese include: 1. How combining vowels (diphthongs) like the "uei" in my last name create new (and strange) sounds.

2. Portuguese speakers have a relatively easy time understanding Spanish speakers but not the inverse. This is even more pronounced when you compare Portugal vs. Brazil Portuguese. Portuguese people speak with their mouths more closed so everything sounds much more mushed.

3. Brazil (a former Portuguese colony) is the reason Portuguese is still considered a "relevant" language today. Portugal has population of 10 million. Just the largest city in Brazil (São Paulo) has 12 million!