Would a Spanish and Portuguese person would likely understand each other?

Question

If a Spanish person talks his own language to a Portuguese person who also talks to his own language would they understand each other. Some of their words are very much alike but different in pronunciation. So is it possible?

Answer 1

as long as both people speak slowly, the two should be able to communicate somewhat effectively.  Portuguese is approximately 80% Spanish cogates, which facilitates communication between Portuguese and Spanish speakers.

But the Portuguese speaker will understand more of the conversation.  That's because Portuguese has more vowel sounds than Spanish--I think the number is 12.  That's 7 more than Spanish has, which means the Spanish speaker is left to guess at the meaning of the 7 nasal vowels his Portuguese buddy is using.  Meanwhile, the 5 Spanish vowels are part of the 12 used in Portuguese anyways, so the Portuguese speaker can understand the Spanish speaker with much less effort.

This applies mostly to speakers of Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese.

Answer 2

Yes. I've actually witnessed this. The two people had to speak slowly to each other, not at full speed. It didn't look super-easy, but they definitely understood each other.

Meanwhile, I understood nothing.

Sigh.

Answer 3

Spanish and Portuguese are not mutually intelligible for the most part. Portuguese is as different from Spanish as Chaucerian English is from the Modern English that we speak.  There is probably better communication even between Swedes and Danes than there is between Hispanophones (Spanish speakers) and Lusophones (Portuguese speakers).  

Answer 4

Well, my grandpa was from spain and grandma was from portugal.So i guess the little they both could understand was enough.

Answer 5

well yes they do but they got to speak slow with each other in order to understand everything

Answer 6

I'm from Spain and I understand portuguese a little. Spanish and Portuguese are not same languages.

Answer 7

that depends, but usually.. a portuguese speaking person will get more of the conversation than a spanish speaking person.

In south america specially.

spanish spoken in spain has a very strong accent and that can give some trouble to the portuguese speaker.

both languages are mutually understandable while reading..  im a spanish speaker myself and i can understand 65% of what i read in portuguese.

as an interesting fact , there is a language called "papiamento" which is 80% a mix of portuguese and spanish with some dutch and english.