R can sound like different things. As the first letter of a word it usually sounds like what an Anglo person understands as a non-mute H, like in the word “Hard”. The name “Rita” would be pronounced as “Hita”; “Rafael” sounds like “Hafael”. The R is strong and necessarily comes from the throat and not from the mouth/tongue like Anglos sound. It’s not a rule though, but it’s what’s most common.
In the middle of a word it can honestly sound like different things depending on the region. The word “Porta” for instance, here in Rio de Janeiro the R in the middle also comes from the throat but in many regions people talk this R with their tongue instead - it’s something I associate a lot with São Paulo, especially interior regions with what we call caipira accent (“hick accent”).
LH in Portuguese is kinda like the Spanish LL, sound-wise.
Brazilian regional accents were very impacted by the different immigration trends each place received. Rio de Janeiro accent main stereotype nationally is that we usually turn the S into X very often. “Gostoso” in Rio sounds more like “Goixtoso”. Not by coincidence, it is a way of pronouncing it inherited by the Portuguese (which established the capital in Rio, a city that received strong Portuguese influence), who are known for doing the exact same thing turning the S into X even harsher than people in Rio: “Fascista” in European Portuguese sounds more like “Faxista”.
Even the way in Rio we pronounce the R in the middle of words that I mentioned (stronger and coming from the throat” is associated to French influence, how French pronounce their Rs. The French had lots of cultural influence in Western Europe, so when the Royal family arrived in the Rio capital to settle, that way if speaking also came and regionally defined how Rio citizens speak.
Meanwhile, the “hick accent” São Paulo speaks their Rs comes from the fact there were more interactions between Colonizers and Indigenous people in these interior areas not in the litoral of the country and they were also more isolated. Indigenous people weren’t able to pronounce the same hard-R from the elites, so they spoke differently and it “caught on” regionally.
Those are some curiosities about how people in Rio speak but each other region in Brazil has their accent traced to the immigrant influences they received more strongly.
This video talks about some other regional influences (for Portuguese speakers only) and it’s fascinating to realize how all these different global influences from everywhere reflect on the diversity on how Brazilians speak differently from region to region: