Most of the diphthongs that occur in Spanish also occur in Portuguese, but with different degrees of frequency. We will not bother to treat all of them here, but will make just a few comments about several of them.
Spanish ie and ue can be found in Portuguese, but not nearly so often as in Spanish. We have already seen that the Portuguese open E and open O sounds frequently appear when you are accustomed to hearing Spanish ie and ue.
On the other hand, the diphthongs ei and eu, which are somewhat limited in their occurrence in Spanish, are very common in Portuguese.
You should be particularly mindful of the ei, since it often appears in those positions where Spanish has a simple e sound. When this is the case, you will have to be doubly careful to add the '-i-glide' to the e sound and make it a genuine diphthong. It will sound much like the -ay of English bay. Compare these examples:
| Spanish | Portuguese |
|---|---|
| quemar | queimar |
| dejar | deixar |
| madera | madeira |
| manera | maneira |
| primero | primeiro |
| verdadero | verdadeiro |
| caballero | cavalheiro |
| dinero | dinheiro |
| soltero | solteiro |
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