Probable mistakes with vowels- #4

Portuguese native speakers will also experience difficulty distinguishing between English /a/ and /o/.  Most of the times /a/ will be perceived as Portuguese/ó/.  This is reinforced by the fact that the English /a/ is many times spelled with the letter “o”, often corresponding in Portuguese to /ó/ as in pó, which is very similar to English /o/ as in law.  This may cause foreign accent in some dialects, with the possibility of phonological error in minimal pairs like:

collar /'kalər/ - caller /'kolər/
cot /kat/ - caught /kot/
are /ar/ - or /or/