
Portuguese speaking countries:
Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Macau, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and Mozambique.
Portuguese language and its variations (written form):
- European Portuguese
- Brazilain Portuguese
European Portuguese
Standard French or 'Parisian' French is the main written form used everyday. It is the most common, especially in commerce due to France's importance as a trading power. Other written variations include Canadian French and African French.
If you are needing a translation, the probability is that you will need Standard French as this is used as the International variation in Commerce. Only on the occasion where your text or translation in the form of advertising or marketing is specifically for a given region/area outside France, eg: Quebec, Canada, would you use a local variation.
Standard French is used in other countries and regions, besides France:
- Corsica
- Monaco
- Western Switzerland
- Southern Belgium
- Luxembourg
- Andorra (one of three languages)
Brazilian Portuguese
The map to the right shows the French speaking part of Switzerland (Western Switzerland). For more information on the languages spoken in Switzerland, click on the map
Written Standard French is used in Western Switzerland, with no diference, although when spoken there is a slight diference in dialect, which is only noticeable to French speakers.
Canadian French
Canadian French and Standard French differ little in the written form. It is dominant in Quebec where it is the dominant language (see map). Canadian French uses some verbs used in Standard French in 1700's as well as some anglicisms,
a sign of the influence English has had. These differences are due to Quebec's isolation from France in terms of distance and commercial links since the 1700's.
USA has always had strong commercial links.
African Portuguese
French, although the most widely spoken of any language in Africa, is normally a second language, with the dominant language being the national native language. Although some classes (middle-upper) in Tunisia, Algeria and Morroco speak it as a first language or are bilingual (French/Arabic).