Author: Colin Lusk

Just a data nerd
Posted in English, Portuguese

Let Me Hear Your Body Talk, Body Talk

Posted on by Colin Lusk

I’ve already done a post on this, but you know what they say “You can never have too many blog posts about idiomatic expressions based around body parts”, and you know, they’re right.

Aqui está um resumo das expressões idiomáticas que usam o recurso a partes do corpo e os seus equivalentes numa língua falada pelos habitantes duma ilha húmida perto da França:

🇵🇹🇬🇧
Ter a barriga a dar horas
(estar com fome)		To have a rumbling stomach
Dar o braço a torcer
(Aceitar que não tem razão)		To throw in the towel
Estar pelos cabelos
(Estar desesperados)		To be having kittens
Ter as costas largas
(Aguentar com as responsabilidades)		To have broad shoulders
Ter as costas quentes
(Ter proteção de alguém		To have friends in high places
Falar pelos cotovelos
(Falar demais)		To talk the back legs off a donkey
Ter dor de cotovelo
(Ter inveja, ciúmes)		To be green with envy.
Esta expressão é, para mim, uma das expressões mais inéditas na língua portuguesa. O que é que os cotovelos tem a ver com ciúmes? Segundo a ciberdúvidas, (e uma professora que é especialista de cotovelologia) a expressão vem da dor intensa de bater com o cotovelo em algo, que é igual à dor de ser traído ou de não ter algo que desejamos. Pois é.
Fazer algo em cima do joelho
(Fazer algo depressa)		To dash something off, or do something on the fly
Saber na ponta da língua
(saber de cor, saber bem)		To know by heart (NB NOT to have something on the tip of your tongue)
Ter uma palavra debaixo da língua
(estar quase a lembrar alguma coisa)		To have something on the tip of your tongue
Dar com a língua nos dentes
(Contar um segredo)		To spill the beans
Estar com as mãos na massa
(estar a tratar de um assunto)		To be on the case
Estar com uma mão atrás e outra a frente
(Estar na miséria)		To be down in the dumps
Estar de mãos atadas
(Não ter poder)		To have one’s hands tied
Acho que esta expressão é a primeira que é igual em ambos os idiomas!
Ter a faca e o queijo na mão
(Ter o poder ou a facilidade de fazer alguma coisa)		Hum… confesso que não conheço uma expressão equivalente*… Mas adoro esta expressão. Nunca ouvi antes.
Uma mão lava a outra
(Ajudar-se um ao outro)		One hand washes the other
Meter o nariz onde não é chamado
(Imiscuir-se na vida dos outros)		To stick your nose into other people’s business
Custar os olhos da cara
(Ser muito caro)		To cost an arm and a leg
Ter mais olhos que barriga
(Pensar que se vai comer mais do que realmente consegue comer)		To have eyes bigger than your stomach
Entrar por um ouvido e sair pelo outro
(Não dar atenção)		In one ear, out the other
Estar com a pulga atrás da orelha
(Estar desconfiado)		To smell a rat
Com uma perna às costas
(Fazer algo facilmente)		With one arm tied behind one’s back
Fugir a sete pés
(Fugir rapidamente)		To hightail it
Meter os pés pelas mãos
(Confundir-se ao fazer ou dizer alguma coisa)		Put your foot in it (Interessante que em inglês metemos os nossos pés na “mouth” que soa como “mãos” em PT)
Estar com a corda na garganta
(Estar numa situação desesperada)		To be up against it
Meter o rabo entre as pernas
(Dar-se por vencido)		To have one’s tail between one’s legs
Fazer das tripas coração
(Suportar com paciência, encher-se de coragem)		To man up, to pluck up courage, to screw one’s courage to the sticking place

*The people have spoken and they have suggested this page: “To have the upper hand”, “to hold all the aces” and “to be in the catbird seat”. The whatbird? Well, To hold all the aces is close. I don’t think either that or “To have the upper hand” are quite right though. Both suggest that you are in a position to defeat an opponent, whereas “Ter a faca e o queijo na mão” seems to be defined as having the power or ability to achieve something, more generally (ref: Priberam). Anyway, it’s better than anything I can think of, so I’m not complaining! But I had a poke around and I came across This Guy’s Very Good WordPress Post . He describes it as having all the necessary items to hand to get the job done: “Assim, sempre que alguém tem as capacidades ou os instrumentos para terminar uma tarefa, cumprir um objetivo ou obter um qualquer benefício, diz-se que essa pessoa tem a faca e o queijo na mão.” In english, if you were in this situation, what would you say? “I’ve got all my ducks in a row”.

Thanks to Cristina for the corrections

Posted in English

Hmm…

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Making another entry in my big book of reasons to be annoyed at Português em Foco.

Here’s the model for one of the idiomatic expression questions:

And after three attempts at answering the question, this is the correct answer it gave me

Obviously “á frente” in the model is a cockup, for a start, because á doesn’t exist, but swapping the order of frente and atrás too… Tsk tsk… Very bad form, old chap.

Posted in Portuguese

Consensual

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Quero fazer um post curto em inglês porque estou com pressa mas jurei que escreveria mais em português, portanto vamos a isto…

Hugo Gonçalves - Revolução

Vi um vídeo de uma booktuber portuguesa a falar sobre um livro de Hugo Gonçalves. Ela disse que “não é um livro consensual”. Em inglês está frase soa um pouco ameaçadora, como se o autor quisesse prender um grupo de leitores numa gaiola e ler-lhos, quer queiram quer não. Mas isto é um “falso amigo”. Consensual está relacionado com “consenso” (consensus em inglês) e não tem nada a ver com “consentimento” (consent em inglês). Noutras palavras, o livro é polémico e haverá muitos pessoas que gostam e muitas que odeiam. A coerção não está em jogo. Que alívio!

O vídeo está aqui para quem quiser ouvir. Ela diz a palavra aos 0:35.

Posted in Portuguese

Eurovision

Posted on by Colin Lusk

A canção escolhida pelo público do festival da canção deste ano, que vai representar o país na* Eurovisão, é o “Grito” de Iolanda. É assim-assim: melhor do que os mais recentes mas não chega aos calcanhares de “Amar Pelos Dois“. Mas não sou crítico de música, portanto não vou falar mais sobre assuntos que não me dizem respeito. O que me interessa mais é uma história que li recentemente sobre o Festival de 1972, dois anos antes da canção mais influente da história das entradas portuguesas, “E Depois do Adeus“.

Eurovision flag

Naquela altura, Portugal estava entre a morte do seu ditador e a morte da sua ditadura, durante a época da liderança de Marcelo Caetano. Um artista chamado João Abel Manta publicou numa revista uma imagem satírica. Uma cançonetista de cabelos brilhantes estava de pé no centro da bandeira nacional, com o círculo dourado e o escudo formando, respectivamente, a cara e a boca dela. A imagem brincava com a ideia do patriotismo ser desvalorizado por associação com aquele espetáculo (ou pelo menos assim afirmou o advogado do artista!) mas foi interpretada** como um ataque à*** bandeira e ao valor do patriotismo, que se encontra sempre na lista “top 4” de virtudes e de valores de qualquer ditadura.

Foi processado mas acabou por ser absolvido.

Saiba mais aqui

*surprisingly a Eurovisão is feminine despite being “um festival”. Não faço as regras.

**I make quite a lot of erros de concordância but this sort of thing is really hard to spot because the noun it’s referring to is about 40 words back.

***”ataque a” , not “ataque em”. I live with the same of translating too literally from English.

Thanks to Cristina of Say It In Portuguese for raising the quality of the language in this post from “Nul points” to “Waterloo”

Posted in Portuguese

Random Witterings

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Há uns dias partilhei o texto sobre os principais partidos de Portugal (que aliteração maravilhosa!) porque achava que os estudantes podiam gostar antes das “forthcoming elections” (eleições que vêm) mas os donos do grupo deixaram-no no limbo até ontem, e agora toda a gente acha que nem sequer sei quando as legislativas tiveram lugar.

Noutras notícias, falei com uma ex-professora que me disse que ela tinha votado no Chega. Eu pedi uma explicação porque queria saber. Recebi 53 respostas a fio. Não estou a exagerar: 53, maioritamente com gráficos de barra ou vídeos de estrangeiros de pé na rua. Geralmente, gosto de falar com pessoas com as quais descordo, porque é desafiante, mas nesta situação, faltou-me a paciência para responder a tantas informações.

Thanks once again to Cristina for pointing out the errors in the original version of this page 

Posted in Portuguese

Canadians Are Very Helpful

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Acabo de ler a seguinte frase:

(Ela) tem ainda muita dificuldade em andar e o medo tolhe-lhe a vontade quando pega nas canadianas

Estava a imaginar esta cena, com um par de canadenses: Margaret Atwood e Geddy Lee… Ups! Ó Geddy, afasta-te da minha imaginação porque és masculino. Então, Margaret Atwood e Céline Dione, agarradas pela menina, apesar da apreensão dela. Parecia-me um cenário pouco provável. E na realidade, uma canadiana não significa uma nativa do Canadá mas sim uma espécie de muleta moderna, com um tubo de alumínio e um cabo de plástico.

Posted in English

The Dark Night of the Poll

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Pardon my English. I wrote a slightly bland Portuguese text earlier, wishing the new government well because, no matter what happens, that’s what we should always hope after any election, but the more I find out, the worse it seems.

I’ve been to visit my daughter so I spent most of the day on a train, trying to work, all squished up between a window and some big geezer, so I had only really caught snatches of what happened. The first thing I looked at when I woke up said the Socialists were ahead, but that turned out to be bollocks. Well not bollocks, but it must have been a cached page from earlier in the night. More up-to-date sources said the Aliança Democrática had won by a super-narrow margin, but although I could see the percentages were all roughly in line with the polls, the big shock was how many deputados Chega picked up. I knew it was grim, but when I was finally off the train, I listened to a podcast that spelled it out in more detail and it’s bloody awful. They’re still only in third place, but they got 48 seats, about a quarter of the parliament.

The actual winner isn’t decided yet, because it’s not like a British election where you find out who has won basically straight away; some of the overseas votes haven’t been counted and the president will only name a prime minister after that. Luís Montenegro, the likely PM, has assured everyone he won’t cooperate with Chega, but… Well, it’s hard to see how he can keep that promise, since even with the IL on his side he is well short of a majority. Likewise if the Socialists were to do a deal with the Bloco Esquerda, the Partido Comunista Putinista and Livre to form a sort of “Geringonça 2”, it wouldn’t secure 50% either. So Chega look like they hold a lot of power right now, like some sort of evil version of the Lib Dems in 2010. Ventura has been waving his dick around proclaiming victory, and everyone else is pretty depressed.

Part of the problem seems to have been that another, completely irrelevant right-wing party, the ADN, got a lot of votes intended for the AD, so they went from 11,000 votes to more like 100,000. This transfer of a huge block of votes away from the centre right caused the AD to lose a lot of marginal seats it would otherwise have won. Seen in this light, Montenegro’s decision to form the AD doesn’t seem so clever, doesn’t it? Gain 2 deputados from your new ally, lose christ-knows-how-many potential seats for your own party. What a master-stroke.

But it’s fair to say that even without that anomaly, any vote that sees a bunch of fart-sniffing yahoos like Chega gain one million votes should give us all pause.

I don’t really have anything intelligent to say about all this. Being an optimistic soul, I can imagine a way through all this that leads to a positive outcome, but the negative outcomes seem more likely, and I don’t know anything anyway, so if I waffle on, it is only going to create a lot of pointless noise.

Sigh.

Posted in English

Bom Garfo? Não.

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Decoding names for people who don’t eat much. The list is from an article by Miguel Esteves Cardoso, reproduced in Português em Foco

  • Debiqueiro – “que ou o que debicar“. Debicar means peck, so this is a person who pecks at their food, which is a familiar idea of course.
  • Furão – literally this means a ferret, but figuratively can be a person with a pointed nose, a curious person (“nosy”, so fits with the last meaning!) and also a person who doesn’t eat much. I’m not really sure how ferrets became associated with abstemiousness, but OK.
  • Lambisqueiro – I’d seen the word “lambiscar“, from which this is derived, before and always assumed it was related to lamber (“to lick”) and maybe it is, but there’s no reference to licking in the definition; lambiscar just means “comer pouco“
  • Languinhento – according to priberam, this can mean wet, sticky, or listless, so I guess this is just more in the way of implying that a person who doesn’t eat much won’t be strong and sturdy.
  • Penisqueiro – derived from peniscar, which sounds like a name for a red lamborghini, but actually is just a verb roughly synonymous with lambiscar, meaning comer pouco.

He also uses plenty of words like “estranho” and “esquisito” (basically “weird”) and also talks about “fastio” to describe a person’s “repugnância pelo alimento” or “falta de apetite”

Posted in English

Artificial Puntelligence

Posted on by Colin Lusk

I did market research on you… Well, sort of. I did a course on AI recently and in the early stages it gets you to do some basic interactions with Chat GPT. If you haven’t tried Chat GPT, you really should, it’s a lot of fun and it’s a good idea to make friends with it now before it takes over the earth. The exercise was to try and get it writing marketing materials about a product or service. I don’t really have a service to market but I decided to tell it about this blog and have it tell me how it would turn this rambling nonsense into a going concern.

Naturally, I won’t be doing any of it, but I thought it was a fun exercise.

Here’s what it said was the “sales profile”

Buyer Persona: Portuguese Language Enthusiast

  1. Demographic Information:
    • Age: 25-45
    • Gender: Predominantly female, but also male
    • Location: Mainly foreigners living in Portugal or spouses of Portuguese people in Britain
    • Education: Varied educational backgrounds, but with a strong interest in language learning
  2. Psychographic Characteristics:
    • Language Enthusiasts: They have a genuine interest in learning European Portuguese and exploring its intricacies.
    • Self-Motivated Learners: They are committed to learning the language independently and seek resources to enhance their skills.
    • Curious and Inquisitive: They enjoy exploring the cultural and linguistic nuances of European Portuguese.
    • Tech-Savvy: They are comfortable using online platforms and resources for language learning.
  3. Pain Points and Challenges:
    • Limited Resources: They struggle to find comprehensive European Portuguese learning materials due to the dominance of Brazilian Portuguese resources.
    • Lack of Community: They desire a supportive community of fellow learners who can share experiences, tips, and resources.
    • Cultural Integration: Foreigners living in Portugal may face challenges with cultural integration and seek guidance on cultural aspects.
  4. Unique Selling Points:
    • Perspective of a Fellow Learner: Your blog provides an authentic perspective as a fellow learner, which resonates with the target audience.
    • In-Depth Language and Cultural Content: Your blog covers more advanced topics, offering valuable insights and discussions beyond basic language learning materials.
    • Comprehensive Resource Listings: Your curated lists of European Portuguese resources (audiobooks, textbooks, language hacks, online learning sites) provide convenience and save time for learners.
  5. Marketing Strategies:
    • Online Forums and Groups: Engage with relevant Facebook groups, subreddits, and language learning communities to share valuable content and establish yourself as a knowledgeable resource.
    • Guest Blogging: Collaborate with other language learning blogs or websites to reach a wider audience and increase exposure.
    • Social Media Presence: Maintain active profiles on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn to share language learning tips, cultural insights, and promote new blog posts.
    • Email Marketing: Develop a newsletter or mailing list to deliver valuable content directly to subscribers’ inboxes and nurture a community of learners.

I feel like this is pretty good – it’s obviously understood the brief. It asked me some questions beforehand but I didn’t really give it any clues as to what to say. I asked it what made it so sure language learners would mostly be of the female persuasion:

Apologies if my previous response gave the impression of certainty regarding the gender composition of your target audience. The assumption of a predominantly female audience was based on a combination of factors commonly associated with language learning and cultural interests. However, it’s important to note that gender preferences and interests can vary greatly among individuals, and it’s always recommended to rely on actual data and insights from your specific audience.

And the age? I’m a good ten years older than it’s maximum range, so that piqued my interest

Apologies for any confusion. The age range I suggested (25-45) was based on a general understanding of language learning demographics and the assumption that individuals in that age bracket may have a higher likelihood of pursuing language learning as a personal interest or for professional purposes.

Fair enough. It went on to tell me stuff about your objectives… well, that’s simple enough to guess, surely: it said proficiency, cultural integration, travel, personal enrichment and professional advancement. No huge surprises there.

But my favourite thing – as always – is to get it to come up with puns and I spent far, far too much time on that and pretty much forgot about the rest of the course. Here are some of my favourite blog titles

  • “Portu-Guess: Can You Decode These Tricky Portuguese Expressions?”
  • “Bacalhau to the Basics: A Delicious Dive into Portuguese Cuisine” (I’ve actually written one with a pretty similar name to this. Maybe Chat GPT is a dad too)
  • “Breaking the Mold: Portuguese Grammatical Gender – Because Rules Were Made to be ‘Quebrado'” (Genius! “Regras” is both feminine and plural, so when it says «quebrado» it’s really taking its own advice! 20p in the mealheiro for you, my lad!)
  • “Gender Bender: Turning the Tables on Portuguese Grammar – Let’s Make it a ‘Gênero’-us Affair!”
  • “Navigating the Subjungle: A Safari Through Portuguese Subjunctive Tenses” (Subjungle! Oh my god, why didn’t I think of that? “Welcome to the Subjungle” would have been a great title for this blog post)

And then there’s whatever this is:

  • “Wishful Conjugations: Portuguese Subjunctive Tenses Made ‘Subjimple'”

Subjimple??? This is the sort of thing that makes me understand how my wife feels when I make puns.

Chat GPT can speak portuguese just as easily as english, and even stick to european forms if you tell it to, but I get the feeling its pun capabilities are a bit limited. I prodded it to write actual portuguese puns, not just english puns that borrow portuguese words, but no matter how I phrased the question it could only write titles that hinted that the blog post contained puns, and couldn’t actually come up with any puns of its own. Buuuu!

  1. “Caldo Verde: Uma Sopa de Trocadilhos e Sabor”
  2. “Bacalhau ao Ponto: Pescando Risadas na Cozinha”
  3. “Sardinhas Grelhadas e Piadas Bem Passadas”
  4. “Pastéis de Nata: Uma Doce Poesia de Trocadilhos”
  5. “Francesinha Divertidinha: Rindo entre Camadas Saborosas”

Oh well, it’s reassuring to know that AI won’t be advanced enough to take all our jobs for at least another 6 months.

Arguing with Chat GPT
Cat GPT