The end of the market!

/5 Comments/in

People have different tolerance thresholds for mess and untidiness don’t they? For some people, the limit is a little dust on the shelf and a couple of dishes in the sink. Others will live quite happily with mould growing on half-finished cups of tea sitting under their bed (naming no names!).

bagunça

Has someone been watching too much TV? Source

 

Some people who know me may be surprised to hear that in our house, I’m the tidy one. This is annoying as it means that in ‘The Cleaning & Tidying Game’, I always crack first. But not without a little complaining first!

Read more

Just like watching Brazil

/11 Comments/in ,

During a recent Portuguese lesson (yes, I’ve restarted lessons!) a word came up that was unfamiliar to me – goleou. The context was the description of a football match and went something like “Last Saturday night Barcelona goleou AC Milan”. I asked my teacher about this word and she said “It’s when one team beats another team by many goals. You know, like a chocolate” (pronounced in the Portuguese manner: shocko-LATCH). Well, that left me even more confused/intrigued. I’d never heard of a chocolate in football. I decided some research was in order.

It turns out that the national obsession of Brazil has given rise to a rich and diverse set of words, phrases and sayings. I expect that today’s post will be just the tip of the football iceberg so if there any football experts out there then I’d love to hear about the ones I’ve missed out.

Goleada

As my teacher told me, a goleada is a what English commentators might call a drubbing. A win with a large margin of victory. Goleada is the noun, goleou is the 3rd person past tense conjugation of the verb golear (to win by many goals). There is some discussion over exactly what constitutes a goleada, some saying that the margin of victory must be at least 3, others saying it must be 4.

Chocolate de futebol

This cartoon, entitled Blue Chocolate, celebrates the goleada of Brazilian side Cruzeiro over Venezuelan size Caracas back in 2008. Final score 3-0. The fox (?) of Cruzeiro is saying “Give Hugo Chavez a hug from me if you can”.

 

Read more

How to avoid looking like a gringo

/32 Comments/in ,

The word gringo is an interesting one. It exists in both Spanish and Portuguese and generally means foreigner. In some places it refers specifically to someone from the US, but in Brazil it basically means any foreigner. That said, it isn’t an exact science – someone from say, Japan, for instance can be called a gringo (gringa for a female), but in general the term fits better for Europeans and North Americans.

The origins of the word are also open to some discussion. Several Brazilians have told me that the term evolved from the English expression Green Go (this being either a call for foreign armies, generally dressed in green, to leave the country, or an observation that when foreigners arrived in the Amazon, the green (trees and other valuables) was taken away.

The reality is far more likely to be that it came from the Spanish word for Greek, Griego – someone speaking a language that isn’t understood. As in “it’s all Greek to me”.

 

gringo shirt

It’s like you’re walking around with a sign that says gringo…

 

But what is the real meaning behind this word? Should you be offended if someone calls you a gringo? Is it a sign of falta de respeito (lack of respect)?

Read more

My favourite word in Portuguese

/24 Comments/in

Back in 2009 when I was planning my 4 month (ha!) trip to South America, I started taking Spanish lessons. Back then there were no plans to visit Brazil and so Spanish was the obvious choice. A couple of friends and I found a lovely teacher and we would spend a very enjoyable hour each week having lessons. After a few months we were discussing how the lessons were going, what we thought of Spanish as a language, what we liked about it and so on.

portuguese words

Words, words, words…

 

My favourite word in Spanish

At some point a question came up: What’s your favourite word in Spanish? I hadn’t given it much thought before, but I knew my answer immediately:

Read more

Lemon-Lime confusion in Brazil

/33 Comments/in ,

Back in my England days there was one thing you could almost always rely on: somewhere in my fridge you would find half a lemon. Always half a lemon. When you have a whole lemon, there are all kinds of uses (for half of it) – squeeze it over some fish, slice it for drinks, the list goes on… But what about the other half?  That would sit in my fridge for days, slowly shrinking and shrivelling and becoming increasingly useless.

Here in Brazil things are different – we have limes! Aren’t limes great? Not only do they have an amazingly fragrant, tangy, zingy flavour, but they are just the right size! You won’t find half a lime in my Brazilian fridge.

But what about lemons? Here in Brazil (in Rio at least) they seem to be very rare. After learning that the Portuguese for lime is limão, I wondered what the word for lemon was. The answer? Limão. Huh? “You use the same word for both lemons and limes?” I asked incredulously. It was like the moment I found out that Portuguese (and Spanish) uses the same word for fingers and toes! (Dedos).

Well, that is the simple answer anyway. In fact there is a way to distinguish between your limões (and your dedos). You get specific.

 

Apparently these limes are from Tahiti! Well, I guess the variety is at least. These particularly large and firm limes are very handy if you want to make yourself a decent-sized caipirinha - the extra juice will ensure that you can still walk after you've polished it off.

Read more