Portuguese is easy to learn how to spell
“Português é fácil de aprender porque é uma
língua que se escreve exatamente como se fala”
Jô Soares. Revista “Veja” – 28.11.90

Pois é. U purtuguêis é muito faciu di aprender, purqui é uma língua qui a
genti iscrevi ixatamente cumu si fala. Num é cumu inglêis qui dá até vontadi di
ri quandu a genti discobri cumu é qui si iscrevi algumas palavras. Im
purtuguêis não. É só prestátenção. U alemão pur exemplu. Qué coisa mais
doida ? Num bate nada cum nada. Até nu espanhol qui é parecidu, si iscrevi
muinto diferenti. Qui bom qui a minha língua é u purtuguêis. Quem soubé falá
sabi iscrevê.

1) Activities Manual pp. 73- 78: Laboratório (listening to audio)

2) Activities Manual 80-81: vídeo (I will send the video file)

3) Família vocabulary and practice: study the vocabulary on the pdf I sent you titled Ponto vocab lesson 4, the audio for this vocab (available on the Ponto website in “in-text audio”, lesson 4) and the online flashcards (available in the “practice exercise” section of Lesson 4)

4) Família in your Activities Manual: pp. 83- 86

PORTUGUESE IN RIO DE JANEIRO and worldwide online

Monkey in Paineiras

- Affordable, efficient, goal-oriented Portuguese lessons

- Short and long-term programs

- Oral production and comprehension in class while writing and reading for homework

- Content is customized according to students’ needs

- Contact: 21-3521-6600 / contato@bizschool.com.br / Skype: bizschool

- Lively lessons mostly using REALITY.

- Innovating resources, such as, podcasts, videocasts (interviews, documentaries, movies), chat with natives, newspaper and magazine articles, online radio, TV, etc.

- Certified, qualified teacher in Linguistics and Translation Studies, MBE in Foreign Trade. Experienced in teaching Portuguese as a Foreign language and English language.

- Classes in company or at a designed location in South part of Rio and Downtown. ONLINE classes also available.

These days I read more in Portugese than I do in English, actually I finish the books faster when they are in Portuguese, which to some is strange. I think they think I mean that I understand Portuguese better than English, which isn’t true. It’s just that I am more motivated to have another book in Portuguese under my belt than one in English.

One tense has perplexed me for a while now and I never bothered to check it out until now even though after time, I started to get the gist of what it meant. The tense is called the “pretérito mais-que-perfeito” (past perfect/pluperfect) and I’ll explain it to you below using someone else’s response to a question on the matter here (click to learn a little more).

Take any verb and add an “a” on the end although not an accented “a” and what do you get? You get confused, or at least I did…until now. The tense in question for this post refers to a past event that occurs before another action in the past. Here are some examples.

“Ele nunca tinha comido salmão até visitar aquele restaurante = Ele nunca comera salmão até visitar aquele restaurante (He had never eaten salmon before he visited that restaurant)

Disse-me que não tinha pensado no assunto antes de chegar = Disse-me que não pensara no assunto antes de chegar (He told me he hadn’t thought about the issue before he arrived)

The tense is seldom used in the spoken language, although it appears in literature and in situations when someone is recounting a past event (e.g. historical documentaries).”

So, now you know! Happy reading!

Two new books look at the history of Portuguese Americans settling into California.

“The Portuguese Presence in California” and “My Californian Friends” were translated from earlier Portuguese publications. Both are published by Portuguese Heritage Publications of California.

The books will be presented at the Tulare Historical Museum, 444 W. Tulare Ave. The presentation is organized by the Tulare-Angra do Heroísmo Sister City Foundation, which celebrates the link between Tulare and a city in the Azores.

The Azores are a collection of islands to which many local Portuguese Americans can trace their heritage.  The event is free and the public is invited. The event will feature short presentations, a book-signing by the authors and translators and a wine reception.

“My Californian Friends” is a collection of poetry dealing with Portuguese-American communities in California.  The poems were written by Vasco Pereira da Costa. The book references people and places in California that have special meaning to the poet and to Portuguese-American communities.  The poetry was translated by Katharine Baker and Diniz “Dennis” Borges, a Tulare resident and Portuguese-language instructor at Tulare Union High School and College of the Sequoias in Visalia.

“The Portuguese Presence in California” is a collection of writings about the history of Portuguese immigrants and their offspring in California.  Written by Eduardo Mayone Dias, professor emeritus at University of California, Los Angeles, the book has chapters dealing with the dairy industry, the Portuguese language press, the tuna industry in San Diego, the Portuguese Fraternal Society movement and contributions to literature. The book was translated by Baker, Borges and Professor Bobby Chamberlain from the University of Pittsburgh.

Clarice Lispector, the “princess of the Portuguese language” and perhaps the first Latin American writer to be identified as a practitioner of magic realism, is one of the more obscure geniuses of modern letters.

Read the comments on a new biography in The Economist

Mnemonic Association is a technique used to recall information by associating it to something we already know. To help our mind with something not so easy to remember we associate it to images, sounds, and other senses like smells, feelings and tastes; and even to places and features (which are images, too).

Language students may be encouraged to use their imagination to link new vocabulary to things they already know, words, images, sounds, etc. For example, let’s say that for an ESL student who is Italian, he may associate the new English word “rat” to the one he already knows in his first language, “ratto”. Although the pronunciation is different, the words are visually similar. This association will help him to remember the English word for “ratto”.

Portuguese speakers who are learning English have trouble in memorizing the meaning of the words “push” and “pull” because “push” sounds like “puxe”, which is “pull” in Portuguese. So, it’s easy to make a confusion and pull that door when the sign on it clearly says “push”! It can be embarrassing sometimes!

To remember which word is what, try to think the opposite and play with the sounds, “When you see ‘push’, do not ‘puxe’!” If they do not “puxe”, they instinctively will pull, then! And as a miracle, the door will open! Most of the times, at least!

Mnemonic techniques add a sense of fun to the process of capturing and recalling the information. When the educator teaches and encourages the use of these techniques to their students, s/he usually promotes a more relaxed and flowing learning environment. And students certainly gain improved assimilation of the subject learned.

Identifying patterns in the (second) language almost follows the same principle of the mnemonic technique, but it can be more logic than imaginative. For example, if you tell a beginner English learner, whose first language is Spanish, that nouns which end in ‘dad’ in Spanish (facilidad, humanidad, capacidad, finalidad, sagacidad, etc…) can easily be remembered in English by changing the ‘dad’ ending to ‘ity’ (facility, humanity, capacity, finality, sagacity, etc), the student will have access to a great deal of words by identifying patterns like that, and he can gain confidence by using these words even without the teacher or a dictionary.

All in all, by setting a goal, working through it by memorization techniques, pattern associations, and becoming confident about themselves, the students can only be successful! If the student succeeds, the teacher succeeds. And so does the society.

I started this site as a way to store the information about Brazil that I held in my head but quickly I saw its use as a learning tool. There was a time when I approached the subject of Brazil as a ‘typical gringo’ but that was nearly 10 years ago. Why the need to dive deeper? Well, stereotypes have always interested me and so has sociology and etymology and because of that, I knew there was no way to let Brazil let me off the hook easily. I made my bed long ago and getting under the covers was the only way for me to get to know the sleeping beauty called Brazil (although I do have one complaint, she often hogs the blanket).

Even though the word Brasil in Portuguese is masculine, I’ve always seen it as feminine…like a tomboy who grows into a beautiful woman that never stops talking and whom you never tire of (we all know women talk more than men). She’s got a voice that’s sweet like honey and her words are as smooth and curvy as the border of her body. She speaks in tongues and she’s got your ear, from the moment you first see her.

Here’s to 500 posts and 130,000 views!

Something I’ve always wondered about is why Brazilians, when speaking English, add and subtract Y’s from words. I know it isn’t at will, but from what I gather, usually words that end in a hard consonant, they add a “y” to, while words with “y” at the end, they don’t pronounce.

My favorite example is Luck vs. Lucky. Brazilians will pronounce the first like the second and the second like the first. Although the video above is an example of a Brazilian who doesn’t speak English well, I personally know some who do…and they still commit the “y” error. So, why the “y”? Anyone know or have an educated guess?

Right now, I’m going over my Portuguese vocabulary in my head and can’t come up with an example of a Portuguese word that ends in a hard consonant. Plus, I can say with certainty that Portuguese has no K’s nor Y’s naturally in their alphabet. Portuguese also doesn’t have a W and perhaps that’s why the W sound is difficult for Brazilians learning English also. Such words like World or Squirrel are often found to be challenging to my friends. Aside from letters that take Brazilians some getting used to, there’s also the S+consonant which almost always comes out as ES+consonant. Again, squirrel is a good example.

As for myself, I doubt I’ll ever master the LH sound in Portuguese but that’s something I’ll just have to live with. When my tongue agrees with me, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, here’s a resource to tide you over…

Speech Accent Archive

segunda:

música:

1) País tropical de Jorge Ben   e LETRA da música 

2) Terapéutica do grito  e a letra da música é bem simples:

• Agreement in gender and number is with WHAT IS POSSESSED, not determined by the possessor. Thus: minha casa, meu marido, meus filhos, minhas netas.
• Use of the article is optional with the possessive + the noun and does not change the meaning one way or the other: minha mãe está feliz OR a minha mãe está feliz 
• if the possessive replaces the noun in a sentence, the article must be used: Minha filha e a sua trabalham no mesmo lugar.
• the possessive adjective precedes the noun they modify: minha irmã, sua prima
• Because seu, sua, seus, suas have multiple meanings, these days it is very common to express hs/her/thir by contracting DE with ele, ela, eles, elas to get: dele, dela, deles, delas: é o filho dele (it is his son); é a sobrinha dela (it is her niece); é o irmão delas (he is their [fem.] brother, etc.

family => família
relatives => parentes
parents => pais
mother => mãe
father => pai
brother => irmão
sister => irmã
son => filho
daughter => filha
uncle => tio
aunt => tia
grandmother => avó
grandfather => avô

grandchildren => netos
grandson => neto
granddaughter => neta
niece => sobrinha
nephew => sobrinho
cousin (m/f) => primo/prima 
husband => marido
wife => esposa, mulher
single => solteiro
married => casado
divorced => divorciado
widow => viúva

terça-feira, dia 4 de agosto:

1) música: Orora Analfabeta e letra de Gordurinha e Gomes

2) vídeos: Lilli fica com ciúmes e Anselmo enfrenta Gabriel 

e, se tiver tempo e interesse, assista  presos sobrevoam Rio (mas não vamos falar disso na aula)

3) artigo: Woodstock 40 anos: não vai dar

quinta-feira:

1) música: Elis Regina canta Atrás da porta , letra de Chico Buarque

2) vídeos: Renan dispensa Bianca e

a morte de Elis Regina: reportagem do jornal 

Extra: se tiver tempo (não vamos discutir na aula):

e Santa Fujao 

e Ronaldo querido

3) artigo: Adolescente morre em voo

I found a superb online Portuguese proficiency test which I had long forgot about and ended up retaking. It’s by Bridge Linguatec and has four sections which include (in order) Listening Comprehension, Vocabulary, Grammar and Reading Comprehension. If I remember correctly, in terms of number of questions, it’s 20, 20, 50, 10, so you are looking at 100 questions all together. In haste, I missed a few questions which I already knew but otherwise received a score I’m quite happy with. Between this test and the Transparent language test, there is no comparison. Bridge Linguatec comes out on top by a long shot. Heck, they’ll even send you the ‘official’ certificate with your score for only $49.99!

As a tip, I should point out that the Listening Comprehension is a bit tricky as it isn’t cut and dry. With some questions during this section, the woman speaker will say something and you will have to choose the answer, while with other questions in the same section, she will say something and you will have to choose the synonym to her question. I have long believed that test results aren’t the final say as much depends on the test giver and the test layout.

Anyways, go ahead and try it out!

terça, 21 de julho programa:

1)  música: 14 anos e letra 14 anos

2) vídeos: Judith chantageia Denis parte 1 e Dafne fica sem cama

3) artigo: McDonalds e Starbucks 

quinta-feira, 23 de julho

1) música: onde está a honestidade e letra de Noel Rosa

2) vídeos: Judith chantageia Denis parte 2 e Anita perdoa Anselmo

3) artigo: Assaltos em Coimbra

Thank you for stopping by and reading my first post!!

This blog is for me my Little Brazil, a place where I can talk about all things Brazilian but in English! “What kind of things?”, you might ask. It’s true. It’s hard to know where to start. So many topics, so little time!

Let’s see. I will start with the kind of “things” I know best. The beautiful language known as “Brazilian” Portuguese, the people who speak it, and, of course, the culture attached to it. I want to share with you my knowledge but also  learn from your knowledge about Brazil.

There is so much to talk about Brazil… its arts, for example. Music, film, and even television. So many festivities and traditions, all that ultimately leads to the Brazilian way of life: o jeitinho brasileiro de ser.

If you are learning a new language you will know that learning its culture go hand in hand. That kind of knowledge is not always found on textbooks.  It is my hope that this blog can be that bridge that will help you make that connection with Brazil. The little Brazil we all share.

As a blog, your opinion counts too. Please suggest topics, share your experiences and feel free to disagree. Quero que se sintam a vontade aqui. Please, feel at home.

Welcome to Brazil in NYC,  OUR place for all things Brazilian!

Um grande abraço,

LatinWriter

For those wanting to be officially certified in Brazilian Portuguese by the Brazilian Ministry of Education, you’ll need a CELPE-Bras certificate. Never heard of it? No worries, it’s not something everyone is aware of, neither abroad or within Brazil (from what I hear). 

I’ve done some research on the matter and added the necessary links so I’ll post it all below. 

It is the only official certificate that is recognized by the MEC (Brazilian Ministery of Education). The good news is it is offered not only in Brazil, but in many other countries. Here’s the list in PDF format. The bad news is, it’s pretty hard to reach the fourth and highest level, “superior” (only 9 Brazilians out of hundreds succeeded in the October test of 2008 PDF).

“The test can be taken in October or April, with registration available online in the two months prior to the test months (ie, Febuary or March & August or September). 

As far as the test in general, well, the exam is in two parts on two days. The first day there is a 2.5 hour written exam, which may include video tape sequences or tape sequences.

The following day there is a 20 min. oral exam in front of two people. 

There are four different levels of proficiency and most people fall into the first level initially, while only a select few make it to the highest level on their first try. It’s not uncommon to find other test-takers there who have already taken the test a few times in order to achieve higher levels. 

If you are looking to get hired in Brazil, there are some companies that say they require it but most (including the companies that ‘require’ it) will see how good your Portuguese is upon interview. 

There are some professions, like doctors, nurses and engineers, who need to be recognized by the local professional associations like CONSELHO REGIONAL DE MEDICINA, ENFERMARGEN or CREA. 

Be prepared to write a redação (essay), interpret a given text, be prepared to listen to a tape in Portugese from Portugal or even in African-Portuguese slang. Or to watch a video tape and then have to answer questions in multiple choice or with your own words.

For the oral exam, it’s important to maintain a fluent conversation. In the beginning they’ll probably ask you some questions about yourself and what brought you to Brazil. Then the official part starts, you’ll get a photo or maybe a newspaper article to read and the you have to tell them something about the image or the article you read.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, just avoid repeating the same mistake several times, especially if they’ve corrected you the first time and the other important thing is to keep the conversation fluent. It’s not an interview where you answer questions, YOU have to talk for the most part and keep it going.” – Gringoes

New! In San Francisco! The same Portuguese course for individuals with some experience with the language who want to improve their skills and increase their conversational fluency and comprehension of television broadcasts, music, newspapers and magazines.

Mondays & Wednesdays
6:30 pm to 8:15 pm
In San Francisco

Please let us know if you are interested in taking this course this summer. Start date to be announced. Write to idiomaesquisito@gmail.com

“Ainda pior que a convicção do não e a incerteza do talvez é a desilusão de um quase…  Pros erros há perdão; pros fracassos, chance, pros amores impossíveis, tempo.  De nada adianta cercar um coração vazio ou economizar alma.  Um romance cujo fim é instantâneo ou indolor não é romance.  Não deixe que a saudade sufoque, que a rotina acomode, que o o medo impeça de tentar…  Desconfie do destino e acredite em você.  Gaste mais horas realizando que sonhando, fazendo que planejando, vivendo que esperando, porque embora quem quase morre esteja vivo, quem quase vive já morreu.”

Luís Fernando Veríssimo

In my journal I have kept many touching pieces written in Portuguese because that is my mother tongue.  And I have decided to post them in their original language because I want to maintain their genuine beauty, and I would feel like a fraud if I intended to translate them   Finally I see this is as a chance to bond with my fellow Portuguese speakers- after all I am so proud of my Brazilian roots and believe my mother tongue is so complex and poetic all the same.

Queridos amigos de língua portuguesa,

Espero que vocês possam apreciar este espaço no meu blog, onde deixo lindas mensagens escritas em português.  Ficarei muito feliz de ler sobre o quê acham belo e inspirador.  Sintam-se à vontade para fazer críticas e sugestões…

Com carinho,

Eduarda.

Vasco da Gama bridge Lisbon. Portugal

In Wikipedia the Portuguese language is described like this:

“Portuguese (português or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia (Spain) and northern Portugal from the Latin spoken by romanized Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula (namely the Gallaeci, the Lusitanians, the Celtici and the Conii) about 2000 years ago.” (Wikipedia)

This quite old language has travelled with the tradesmen in the 16th century around the globe and has also finished in Brazil, where today more people speak Portuguese than in the country of the origin of the language, in Portugal.

To pick up your first Portuguese phrases and to be able to say hello in Portuguese, the Pimsleur Portuguese audios are a great tool. You are sure to start off right, and if you have 30 minutes a day (i.e. during your commute) you will pick up the Portuguese language quickly and with the right pronunciation from start.