I must say, I'm confused now by the answer. I hate to be confused...

Anyway, I'm more referring to Portuguese from Portugal. Brazilian tends to not exactly be the same. But think the "Rs" are similar.

And the r... Notice there are several "Rs" in Portuguese. Several ways of saying it. But the one I am referring to is close to that example in that page - "rabo". Though in "rabo" is a bit stronger.

On the transliteration thing... English is not Portuguese. Obviously. I'd definitely say that for "man" the correct would be "Мэн". Ман is just too off. But in Portuguese, and in those words, the use of э is just completely off. If you said that to a Portuguese he would go like "huh?" and not understand you at all. But if you use the "a", even if it's slightly harder than it should be, he would understand you. But still, that "a" in those words, sounds practically like the unstressed "a" in Russian I have heard... So I really don't see the necessity of using э in those cases.

I'm a "she" by the way. Though not sure if "he said Portuguese R" was referring to me or not. ^^ Just wanted to clear up anyway.


Edit: Oh, I think I got it now after reading the posts again. Glad I was right. It did really sound like the Portuguese "R" in "rato".