Phonological acquisition of European Portuguese oral vowels: a forced-choice identification study with Hungarian native speakers

Auditory perceptual experiments with Portuguese L2 are scarce, especially within the scope of the European variety (EP). In this study, we aim at observing the assimilation of the EP vowels [ɐ] and [ɨ] by Hungarian native speakers, and their perceptual learning after some contact with Portuguese. A multiple forced-choice identification experiment was run with two groups of Hungarian speakers – a group with and a group without previous contact with EP. The results show that the categorization fell into the closest phonetic categories of the L1. The results also indicate a learning effect for [ɨ], with a recategorization path from [y] to [ø]. As for [ɐ], no major differences were observed between groups. This result is consistent with difficulties observed in the classroom environment, where [ɐ] is particularly challenging to Hungarian learners.