There is one big advantage. Even not knowing the language they are easy to memorize.
But, why does a week start with segunda feira (Monday), and why there is no primera feira?
Feira seems to have at least a couple of meanings (fairs). What does 'feira' mean as a week day?
And a couple of questions on pronunciation:
1. What's the word for 'now' (ahora?) and how is it pronounced?
A friend who's staying in Portugal now, pronounces it as 'agora' [g as in Gordon], which to me sounds like market square. Is that correct?
2. I've heard a guy, who's lived in Portugal for seven years now, mixing up 'three' and 'thirteen' (the way he heard it). That came out a bit embarassing, as he was discussing a price. Are those two numbers very similar the way they sound?
There is no 'primeira feira' because it's called 'domingo', Sunday. So Sunday is the first day of the week and Saturday (sabado) the last. I always assumed that the days of the week in Portuguese were called 'feira', because those were the days on which markets or fairs could take place, but I've no idea if I read that somewhere or if I just made it up. Maybe someone else knows if there's any truth in that.
1. Spanish 'ahora' and Portuguese 'agora' are both derived from Latin 'hac hora', this hour/this moment. It has nothing to do with Greek 'agora'.
2. 3 = três; 13 = treze
feriae menat holidays in Latin, and later in church Latin came to mean a day that wasn't a particular saint's day or other holy day. I'm not sure how that happened. So apparently the idea of feira was both holiday/market day/fair and day-that-isn't-Sunday.
Feria is Latin for "free day".
"A day on which the people, especially the slaves , were not obliged to work, and on which there were no court sessions. In ancient Roman times the feriae publicae , legal holidays, were either stativae , recurring regularly (e.g. the Saturnalia), conceptivae , i.e. movable, or imperativae , i.e. appointed for special occasions. When Christianity spread, the feriae were ordered for religious rest, to celebrate the feasts instituted for worship by the Church . The faithful were obliged on those days to attend Mass in their parish church; such assemblies gradually led to mercantile enterprise, partly from necessity and partly for the sake of convenience. This custom in time introduced those market gatherings which the Germans call Messen , and the English call fairs. They were fixed on saints' days (e.g. St. Barr's fair, St. Germanus's fair, St. Wenn's fair, etc.)"
If interested, more
here.
Sounds to me like it's "Market Day". Terminology used to define the working days of the week. Reference shows that each day except for Saturday and Sunday refer to"feira". Tuesday is Terca- feira etc.
The answer to the O.P.'s question about 3 and 13, is yes, they can be confusingly similar when the following letter is a vowel. The difference between, três ovos, and treze ovos, could be hard to pick up. I found 68,000 entries on Google specifically discussing "estes terríveis homônimos" !
It's like the -teens and -tys in English. Fifty dollars/ fifteen dollars sometimes needs to be clarified. Depends on the speaker.
The two words are less similar in Brazilian Portuguese - 'treze' has two distinct syllables in BP, the second being pronounced [zi:].
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