Conquering idiomatic expressions is an important hurdle when learning a language. That’s because these expressions do not literally translate and you have to understand what they actually mean. There are dozens in Portuguese, and when translated directly to English they sound very silly, so let’s take a look at the real meanings.
1. Chá comigo que eu livro sua cara. Tea with me that I book your face.
This expression actually means leave it to me. It’s used to tell a person that you will help them with a problem or get them out of a sticky situation. For example, if your car was stolen and your friend offered to lend you his car, he could use this expression.
2. Tô careca de saber. I am completely bald of knowing it.
Note here that estou (I am) is written in the slang form as tô. This expression means I’ve already known about that for a long time. For example, if your sister told you a secret about your parents that you already knew, you could use this expression.
3. Vai enxugar gelo! Go dry some ice!
This means leave me alone! For example if you’re on the phone and your brother is banging on the door of your bedroom, you could use this expression.
DISCLAIMER: These expressions are taken from this humor website. The purpose of this series is to focus on idiomatic expressions in their oral form and to show the dangers of translating each word individually. Some may not be grammatically correct or have exact translations for this reason.
5 Comments
“Chá comigo” ?
O correto é “Xá comigo” – sendo “Xá” derivado de “Deixa”, verbo “deixar”.
“Livro” traduzido como “book” ?
O correto é traduzir como “free” ou outro verbo com significado similar.
Come on, chá, or xá, is short for deixa, which means leave. But that’s ok. A more important mistake is in the third expression. In fact, the real expression is “isso é como enxugar gelo” , that’s like drying ice, which means that some effort is useless.
A tradução da primeira expressão é evidentemente uma piada conhecida, mas o autor do blog levou a sério!
“Chá” é uma corruptela do verbo “deixar”, e não “tea”.
“Livro” é do verbo “livrar”, e não “book”.
Muito bom, o comentário. A exemplo disso é “Vamos em boa hora! reduzido a “vambora” ou simplesmente “bó″.
“Tea with me that I book your face” is a joke, a pun we Brazilian do about the sound of some words.
“Chá”(tea)has the same sound of “Xá”, that stands here for the imperative of the verb “deixar” (deixa!). Deixar means to leave in this case (and can mean to let, to permit, to allow in others).
A few words about this: the correct imperative in this case is “deixe” and not “deixa” (deixe is the imperative for tu (thou) and not for você (you): deixe tu, deixa você. Thus, “DEIXE que eu livro a TUA (thy) cara” or “DEIXA que eu livro a SUA (your) cara”), so it is a very colloquial use. Besides, we are known for omitting some sounds, thus “deixa” becomes “xa”. Following the acent marks rules, “xá”. Someone came up with the “chá” thing to make fun out of Globish (see below).
“Livro” in this case stands for the verb “livrar” (to free, to release, to save, to rescue depending on the context) in the present simple tense (presente do indicativo). Eu livro, tu livras, ele livra etc… and not for book, although the words are the same. This is due to Latin (liber, libri for livro / liber,a,um for the verb livrar). Portuguese is a Romance language after all.
So, the phrase is really “Deixe(a) comigo que eu livro a sua cara”. And no safe and sound Brazilian would do such a translation involving tea and book. That’s a joke about some language courses in Brazil that promisse someone can “be fluent in English in 8 weeks”, what is obviously impossible.
Correct, proficient Portuguese is really not that simple.