Much of your Portuguese vocabulary will come via direct transfer from Spanish. Vocabulary transfer has been implicit in our discussion of sounds in Part I. We showed there how certain correspondences can guide you in the process. We indicated, for example, the great utility of knowing that Spanish ie and ue often correspond to Portuguese e and o, respectively, and that Spanish -ión, -on and -an (the latter two both stressed and unstressed) often correspond to the Portuguese nasal diphthong -ão. In this section we will examine other correspondences, many of them not involving new sounds. We have attempted to separate the common ones from those that occur only occasionally. We have reserved a special place for those that involve word endings.
As a final note on vocabulary transfer we have listed several items that can be transferred only with considerable caution: false cognates.
The Spanish h sound does not exist in Portuguese. In cognate words the h sound usually converts to one of three sounds: ch, j, or lh. Study these groupings:
| Spanish | Portuguese |
|---|---|
| jefe | chefe |
| bajo | baixo |
| quejarse | queixar-se |
| embajada | embaixada |
| caja | caixa |
| dejar | deixar |
| bruja | bruxa |
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