Posts from October 2008

Portuguese Language Tools Online

Posted by Rachel No Comments
Oct 16 2008

Today, I’m going to give all of you some very useful websites to help you clear up doubts about Portuguese grammar and to help you with translation.

Foreign Business in Brazil: New Series

Posted by Rachel No Comments
Oct 15 2008

This is the first of a new series about foreigners doing business in Brazil, since the economy has grown and diversified in the last few years.

Today we’re going to look at James Crane-Baker, the founder and CEO of a start-up based in Rio de Janeiro. After working on Wall Street for ten years, James traveled to Brazil and loved it so much he decided to move there. He spent two years in Rio, and later moved to California. While living in Rio, he started a classifieds website for fun, but after returning to the US, decided to make it into a business. He anticipated the stagnation of the US economy and decided he wanted to invest in the Brazilian market by focusing the site there.

Today, RedeParede.com is a major classified site in Brazil and Latin America, with around 150,000 users and 750,000 unique visitors per month, after only two years of existence. To differentiate the site from competitors, James designed the site based on both aesthetics and user friendliness. Unlike other classified sites, RedeParede allows you to add friends and contacts to your network, and to rate users after doing business transactions with them.

Even though RedeParede.com is now in more than 20 countries in the Americas and Europe, the main market for the site is Brazil. James hired a Rio-based team to monitor, promote, and market the site throughout the country.  He hopes to expand his business in the next few years by partnering with other classified sites.

For more information, see here and here.

Brazilian Oktoberfest

Posted by Rachel No Comments
Oct 14 2008

Believe it or not, Brazil has a huge Oktoberfest celebration every year in October, modeled after the German version. It takes place in Blumenau, Santa Catarina, which was originally settled by German immigrants. Brazilian Oktoberfest is the largest German festival outside of Germany, as well as the second largest Oktoberfest celebration in the world. 

Brazilian Oktoberfest began in 1984, after the city of Blumenau suffered a terrible flood. The festival was used as a fundraiser to help victims and rebuild the city, and was a huge success. It was so successful, in fact, that the German government began to help sponsor the event.

This year, Oktoberfest began on October 9th and runs through October 26th. Organizers are expecting 750,000 people this year. Aside from beer consumption, the festival also features the “queens of Oktoberfest,” local women elected to reign over the celebration, contests, parades, German food, and traditional German music and dance. In fact, traditional bands from Germany fly to Blumenau just for the festival.

The celebration is held in the Parque Vila Germanica, which looks like a real German village. Tickets this year are R$5 Sunday through Thursday and R$10 Friday and Saturday. You can get in for free if you show up wearing a traditional German outfit! A beer of 400mL will cost R$3.75. Since the dry law went into effect throughout Brazil, this year the festival organizers are offering free van transportation from the event.

For more information, see the official site and the Globo coverage.

Portuguese Personal Pronouns

Posted by Rachel No Comments
Oct 13 2008

It’s important to know all of the person pronouns in Portuguese, even if you may not use all of them:

Eu (I) [Ee-ew]

Tu (you, informal) [Too]

Você (you, formal), Ela (She), Ele (He)  [Voh-say, eh-lah, eh-lee]

Nós (We) [Noi-ss]

Vós (all of you, informal)  [Voice]

Vocês (all of you, formal), Elas (them, feminine), Eles (them, masculine) [Voh-say-s, eh-las, eh-lees]

The two personal pronouns you may never use are “tu” and “vós.” Many people use “você” as “you” for most instances, though this differs by region in Brazil, since “tu” is used frequently in the South. “Tu” is used informally amongst friends and family, and you may hear people alternate between “tu” and “você.” “Vós,” on the other hand, is used very infrequently, and you will mostly hear it in extremely formal language, like in church or legislation. On Portuguese Blog, we don’t teach “tu” and “vós,” but if you decide to learn one, it’s better to learn “tu.”

National Soccer Museum Opens in São Paulo

Posted by Rachel No Comments
Oct 12 2008

Last week, the official Brazilian National Soccer Museum opened in São Paulo, in a ceremony attended by soccer legend Pelé and the governors of São Paulo and Rio, amongst others. Maracana Stadium in Rio used to have a soccer museum, but poor attendance led to its closing, and the new museum hopes to attract domestic and international visitors.

The museum features not only Brazil’s soccer stars, but also the history of soccer in Brazil, following the story of Englishman Charles Miller who is thought to have brought the sport to São Paulo in the early 1900s. The museum also features video footage of past World Cups and famous goals, as well as dark moments in Brazilian soccer history, like the 1950 World Cup defeat by Uruguay. There are also interactive sections, where you can test the speed of your soccer ball kick and watch 3-D videos.

For more information, check out the New York Times story and the official museum site.

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