Author: Colin Lusk

Just a data nerd
Posted in Portuguese

Yoga: Legbelly.

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Another corrected text with footnotes. Thanks to Cataphract for the corrections

Já fiz duas sessões de Yoga (link to previous post about my yoga NY resolution) com uma professora americana e uma com uma brasileira mas ainda não experimentei os professores portugueses sugeridos por outros redditores. As aulas são vídeos de YouTube, mas apetece-me experimentar uma aula ao vivo com um português se for possível.

O curso da brasileira é demasiado fácil mas o da americana é melhor. É muito desafiante aos músculos da barriga, das costas e das pernas. Deixou-me com dores de perna, principalmente nas… Hum panturrilhas*….? Os músculos da parte posterior da perna, entre o tendão de Aquiles e o joelho.

*This does seem to be *a* right word for calves, yes, but the corrector had to use a dictionary and that doesn’t seem to be a good sign! “Gémeos” is more common. This is weird since the same word also means “twins”. OK, I can see thinking of your calves as “the twins”. It’s quite cute, but I can also imagine some scope for confusion if you’re a father of twins but also a yoga enthusiast. “Tenho de alongar os meus gémeos” “O quê? Seu monstro! Deixe os filhos em paz!”

The other fun way of describing that part of the leg is “barriga das pernas” – your legbelly. New favourite expression.

Posted in Portuguese

Yoga é Iogurte Vegan

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Here’s a text about veganuary with some of the more interesting and instructive corrections at the bottom. Thanks to csc_3 for the help

A minha mulher sugeriu que façamos o desafio de comermos coisas sem cara* durante a mês de janeiro**. Também sugeriu ioga. A loucura da passagem de ano…

Infelizmente, depois de sugerir este novo modo de vida, ela lembrou que ovos não são vegan. Nem iogurte. E a nossa filha mencionou o seu amor por queijo. Então, vegetatianuary? Eu e a minha esposa fomos ambos vegetarianos desde a adolescência até 2004 quando ela engravidou da*** atual adolescente. Grávidas precisam de proteína. Proteína e chocolate. Proteína e chocolate e quaisquer outras coisas que lhes apetecem**** a qualquer hora do dia. Pois*****, começámos a comer carne naquela altura e hoje em dia esqueço-me como vivi durante os 20 anos de comer vegetais. E difícil imaginar um mês****** inteiro sem frango na salada e sem carne de vaca picada no molho bolonhesa.

E ainda por cima, tenho de fazer yoga?

*This was corrected to “sem carne” but no, vegetarians actually do say things like “I won’t eat anything with a face”.

**I’ll never get used to writing the names of months in lower case.

***Another one of those weird preposition differences between Portuguese and English: she got pregnant of our daughter, not with our daughter.

****I often think of apetecer as meaning to fancy something or feel like doing something but it’s more like “appeal”, so apetece-me means “it appeals to me”. The subject of the verb is the thing, not the person who desires the thing. So in this sentence, you have to give pregnant women what they want, but the subject of the verb is “coisas”. Que lhes (ie to the women) apetecem (they (ie the things) appeal)

***** I’m leaving this in because I think I don’t use pois enough and the more I get used to using it the better but the corrector pointed out that “Então” would be better in a written text and “pois” would be more common “na oralidade” – ie, in spoken language.

******I wrote “a mês” but you can tell it’s masculine because it has a moustache above the e.

By the way, it’s going ok-ish. I keep forgetting I’m meant to be avoiding cheese, butter etc and accidentally putting them in things but I haven’t eaten any meat at all, and even my daughter has voluntarily signed up for a meatless (but not cheeseless) month.

Posted in Portuguese

O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra

Posted on by Colin Lusk

This is a text I wrote about an audiobook I’ve been listening to. The link to the Audible version is on the audiobooks page (here) but Bertrand also have an audio and a printed copy. There’s even an English translation on amazon called The Mystery of the Sintra Road but it looks like a print on-demand job, probably very low quality, so I wouldn’t bother tbh. As usual, thanks are due to the lovely correctors on WritestreakPT for their help with the corrections.

Estou quase a terminar este Audiolivro (update: finished now!). Não é nada fácil. Custa-me muito ler livros do século XIX em inglês, ainda pior quando tenho de pensar muito para entender o português. Comecei o livro durante a minha “peregrinação” pela a barreira do rio Tamisa há 3 semanas mas perdi o fio à meada.

O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra

A “história da história” é muito interessante: os autores, Eça de Queirós e Ramalho Ortigão escreveram uma série de notícias e artigos anónimos no jornal Diário de Notícias sobre um crime cometido nos arredores de Sintra à noite. Um grupo de mascarados tinham raptado dois homens e levado-os a uma casa onde foi encontrado o cadáver dum inglês. O povo da cidade ficou chocado e aterrorizado: será que estamos em perigo? Quem são esses bandidos? Logo depois, umas personagens da história escreveram cartas à redatora do jornal para explicar as suas acções e motivos. Cada um reagiu às cartas do dia anterior e ninguém deu pelo estilo de escrita muito polido destes cidadãos aleatórios, até ao fim da narrativa, quando os autores revelaram a verdade: os subscritores do jornal tinham estado a ler uma obra de ficção!

Adoro. Todos nós conhecemos a história da “Guerra dos Mundos” de Orson Welles mas Eça de Queirós conseguiu o mesmo engano* sete** décadas antes em meados do século XIX.

*I originally wrote “decepção” forgetting that that’s a false friend, meaning disappointment, not deception.

**Style guides say numbers up to 12 should be written as words and after that, digits kick in.

Posted in Portuguese

A Invenção do Dia Claro

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Li este livrinho inteiro, da capa até à contracapa num só dia mas não é assim tão impressionante porque tem menos de 40 páginas.

A Invenção Do Dia Claro

O escritor é José de Almada Negreiros (geralmente conhecido simplesmente por “Almada” se não me engano). Almada fazia parte do movimento modernista nas primeiras décadas do século passado e do grupo ao redor da Revista Orpheu, mas este livro é mais brando do que os anteriores. O editor da sua página de Wikipedia atribui esta mudança de estilo a uma atitude mais construtiva depois da Grande Guerra. Em resultado disso, quando o autor leu o primeiro texto da terceira parte (“a flor”) em palco, houve* quem risse em voz alta, achando que era algo satírico o humorístico, mas não era, era sincero.

O estilo da escrita é muito bonito e não me custou entender apesar da ortografia desconhecida, oriunda duma época antes do que nós pensamos como “velha ortografia” a(c)tualmente.

*Haver is one of those verbs that almost doesn’t seem to make sense in the perfect tense. The perfect tense is usually used for things that happen and then they’re over, as opposed to the imperfect which describes things that happen continuously over time. Haver usually means something like “to exist” or “to be present” and how can something exist as a one-off? Surely if you exist you exist continuously. In this sentence I’m describing this scene of someone reading something on the stage and the audience is there at the start of the performance and they remain in place throughout the performance. If that isn’t the criteria for imperfect tense I don’t know what is. But the translator suggests I describe the scene one of two ways

quando o autor leu (o texto) em palco, houve quem risse

Or

quando o autor lia (o texto) em palco, havia quem risse

So in the first example, he read it once (leu) and the audience were there on that one occasion (houve), and in the second example, he used to read it (lia) and they were there (havia).

What I don’t seem to be able to say is that he read it (leu) for an audience that was just there (havia).

OK useful exercise since it helps me. Understand when to use havia vs houve. I think I’m stuck in thinking about imperfect and perfect in a way that’s more like my o’level French and I need to just rid myself of that way of thinking.

Posted in English, Portuguese

Locuções Temporais

Posted on by Colin Lusk

I’m struggling a bit with finding the right tenses for some of the sentence structures set out in the C1 course so decided to try and write a few for practice. Thanks to Dani Morgenstern for help with the corrections.

  • Quando acabei de ler ele já tinha escrito a sequela (when I finished reading he had already written the sequel)
  • Enquanto ele tocava bateria, eu preenchia os formulários de divórcio (while he was playing drums, I was filling in the divorce forms)
  • Quando chegares a casa, descasca as batatas (when you get home, peel the potatoes)
  • Ela disse-me que queria ser primeira ministra quando fosse grande (she told me she wanted to be prime minister when she was big)
  • Quando o vírus tivesse passado, ela voltava a treinar (when the vírus had passed she went back to training – I think the sense here is of something that happened repeatedly: she’d get ill every so often and go back to training after each occurrence, hence the imperfect tense)
  • Enquanto não leres o texto não estás capaz de responder às perguntas (since you won’t read the text you won’t be able to answer the questions)
  • Enquanto os negócios tivessem apoio financeiro não iriam à falência durante a pandemia. (as long as the businesses had financial support, they wouldn’t fail during the pandemic)
  • Enquanto o tio Rui não tivesse chegado a casa, a família não começava a jantar* (since Uncle Rui hadn’t arrived at the house the family weren’t starting their dinner)

*It’s probably worth pointing out here that this “a” is a preposition and “jantar” a verb. They hadn’t started to dine. But jantar can also be a noun so I could also have said “o jantar” instead of “a jantar” and the sentence would still work but it would mean “they hadn’t started the dinner”.

  • Logo que o comboio parta, telefona-me (as soon as the train leaves, call me)
  • Assim que receberes a carta do SNS, marca consulta. (as soon as you get a letter from the SNS, make an appointment)
  • No momento em que as cortinas se abrissem, a banda comecaria a tocar (as soon as the curtains opened the band would start to play)
  • Mal tivesse aberto a janela, o pisco entraria na sala (as soon as he had opened the window the robin would enter the room)
  • Logo que eu acordava tomava um café (as soon as he woke up, he used to have a cup of coffee)
  • Assim que enviou a carta, percebeu que se tinha esquecido do selo (Just as he posted the letter he realised he’d forgotten the stamp)
  • No momento em que o professor abriu a boca a campainha tocou (at the instant the teacher opened his mouth the bell rang)
  • Mal soube as noticias, começou a chorar (As soon as he heard the news he started to cry)
  • Antes que te esqueças, faz notas sobre a reunião (before you forget make some notes about the meeting)
  • Antes que ligasse ao meu pai, ele enviou-me uma mensagem (Before I called my dad, he sent me a message)
  • Antes de abrir a boca vou pensar duas vezes (before I open my mouth I’m going to think twice)
  • Depois de nos termos encontrado a minha vida era vazio e sem propósito (Before we met each other, my life was empty and without purpose)
Posted in English

The First Rule of Bruno Club

Posted on by Colin Lusk

My daughter is currently obsessed with the new Disney Film, Encanto, so she’s listening to different language versions of the song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”. There are a couple of Portuguese versions of it, but of course Brazilian Portuguese is usually more common. This is the European version (lyrics only, from the official accounts so as not to risk them dropping of YouTube before you see this)

And the Brazilian

You can have fun spotting the differences between them. Just a quick warning though, in case you haven’t seem the film, it’s about a Colombian family and even the English version has Spanish words in it. They probably blend in better in Portuguese, but “Mi Vida” is Spanish for example. The noun sounds like Portuguese but the possessive pronoun gives it away; and Abuela isn’t a name, it’s Spanish for Avó. Those are the only ones I can remember off the top of my head but I might be missing one of two, so keep your wits about you.

Posted in English

Tuga Yoga

Posted on by Colin Lusk

No it isn’t a Massive Attack song, or a river in Cleveland, it’s a follow-up to my last post about yoga/ioga (both spellings seem to be used). Big thanks to Paul who replied directly. I asked some folks on reddit too and these seem to be the available options:

  • RTP Play’s #fitemcasa was Paul’s suggestion and I don’t know why I didn’t think of looking at this sooner, honestly! The sound quality isn’t as good as you’d expect from a national broadcaster, but I guess it was made in the early days of the acovolypse so it’s probably not that surprising that they hadn’t got their act together yet.
  • LiDL (yes, remember them?) have a few yoga workouts in their lockdown workout section, led by Filippa Barros, who I believe is a basketball player.

But those seem to be about the only free ones. Of course, a lot of instructors who used to do only in-person gym classes are now doing online classes, so if you don’t mind paying you could also try

The brazilian instructor I mentioned was a bit disappointing, I’m afraid. Hardly any effort. I felt like I’d barely got started when it ended.

Posted in English

New Year New… Você

Posted on by Colin Lusk

I’m a bit run down at the moment. I exercised a lot last year but my knees are feeling the strain. I also have a sore back and, as is traditional at the start of January, I think I’ve gained a few pounds. I’m going to be doing a basic yoga class to work on mobility and core strength in a relatively non-taxing way. I’m mostly looking at a January 30-day workout that’s been recommended to me but I’d love to find a Portuguese instructor I can follow, just because I’d like to follow along and listen to how they describe the various stretches, muscles and so on. I’ve had a look at a Brazilian Yoga teacher called Pri Leite who has January course and seems down-to-earth in the way she presents. Her course doesn’t start till the tenth though (Whaaat? Who waits till the tenth to start their new year’s resolutions? Most of us are giving up by then!) but if anyone knows of a good Portuguese yoga teacher, I’d love to hear about them!

Posted in English

“Eu é Mais Bolos”

Posted on by Colin Lusk
Eu é mais bolos

I keep seeing people write this on twitter. The context is usually a bit iffy, but I can tell its not just a random collection of words thrown together, despite the slightly confusing use of “é” after “eu”.

Apparently, it comes from an old sketch, done by veteran comedian Herman José in which he plays José Severino, a pastry chef who has accidentally been invited onto a talk show to discuss radiography. When it came out – exactly thirty years ago – it was immediately successful and people started saying it to each other, and even now, in 2022, it lives on on social media.

“eu é mais bolos”