Learn some really common proverbs that we say all the time in English – in Portuguese!
It turns out that “All roads” still “lead to Rome” and “If the cap fits,” you should still “wear it” in Brazil too. Click the image above to begin learning 12 super-useful phrases.
This is a great opportunity for those who’ve been putting off practicing, because as they say, “antes tarde do que nunca” (better late than never).
Thanks Carol for the audio!!
So you thought the iPod was expensive in Brazil?
It was no secret even before the popular game console was released that its retail price in Brazil would be, well, prohibitive.
Though the high cost can be attributed to many factors, the real explanation lies in the burocracia alfandegária or customs bureaucracy. Getting goods into Brazil inexpensively is no joke; according to the US Department of the Treasury, “Brazil applies a. 60 percent flat import tax on most manufactured retail goods” [source]. 60%!!!!
So naturally this means that the same phenomenon inflates the prices of other competing game consoles. The Playstation 3 in Brazil costs a whopping $3,299 reais, or $1,818.82 USD as of this writing. And games are no cheaper either; $200-$300 reais is a lot to drop on a video game when the minimum wage is about $380 per month. So what does this tech-hungry market do? Where do frustrated, Halo-loving teenagers turn?
Guarana is a tropical berry from which several different popular drinks in Brazil are made.
I love Guarana soda. Thank goodness I can get it in grocery stores in the USA, because I really would be sad without it. Lately I’ve even been substituting my morning coffee with a Guarana Antarctica soda – diet of course.
A natural stimulant, the guarana berry contains significant levels of caffeine, in addition to guaranine, another stimulant compound. The Guarani people, indigenous to the rainforest region of northern Brazil and namesake of the berry itself, considered the berry to hold magical powers.
Today in Brazil, the overwhelmingly most popular guarana drink is Guarana Antarctica, a product of the AmBev company that produces basically all the beer in the country while also enjoying exclusive distribution rights for all Pepsi soft-drinks; not a bad gig. The soda version of guarana is naturally sweet with a crisp taste not entirely unlike ginger ale, if one were to substitute guarana for ginger in the recipe.
Also very common is guarana natural which is a darker, almost iced-tea-like drink that is generally blended on-site in juice shops and bars. The latter is really pretty packed with caffeine, so be careful throwing it down the hatch by the glass on a hot day!
500 years of Moorish influence will leave a linguistic mark!
The period in which the Moors ruled Spain (roughly from 700 to 1500 common era), also affected Portugal quite a bit. It wasn’t until 1250 that the Moors were expelled from Portugal, and by that point the Arabic language had made quite an impact on the vocabulary of the Portuguese language
Though the Arabic influence can be seen in common words such as cenoura carrot, bairro neighborhood, and xadrez chess, the bulk of the cognate (in many cases identical) words begin with the letter A. This phenomenon is easily explained; words beginning with al or ar in Portuguese often are cognate with an Arabic noun starting with al-. Example: the Portuguese word for lettuce is alface which comes from the Arabic word al-khaç.
Here are two free BYKI Lists of the most common words of this type in Brazilian Portuguese
Learning these words is very helpful for ordering food and reading menus in particular. You will notice that many many Portuguese words for food come from Arabic. Who knew?
For a longer list of these words, check out wiki, and for an entertaining article by a seasoned traveler, read this piece.
Thanks to André Barbosa for the audio recording!
photo by meanest indian
Have you ever heard someone from Minas Gerais speak Portuguese?
The Portuguese spoken in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais is quite distinct from that spoken in other parts of the country. Full of idiosyncrasies, the Mineiran ‘dialect,’ or Mineirês can be hard to understand and even painful to listen to for some Brazilians. Indeed many Brazilians think of this way of speaking as very provincial; Mineiros are stereotypically thought of as caipiras (hayseeds).
The journalist and writer Felipe Peixoto Braga Netto has written a fantastic piece about Mineirês, that is well worth a look. A well-detailed summary (and perhaps apology) for the peculiar speech of the Mineiros, Felipe discusses some of its prominent characteristics. Here are some highlights:
