Here’s a translation of a relatively upbeat, but very traditional Lisbon Fado written by Ricardo Borges de Sousa in the early years of the twentieth century and sung here by Maria Teresa de Noronha. It is well-enough regarded to be the subject of a whole episode of “A Trilogia do Fado” on RTP, but it isn’t the only version of the song; there seem to be lots of variants each with their own set of lyrics.
If only you would came back The sweet, far-off time Seated together at the fireside Listening to my mother sing
Ó tempo, tempo ditoso Da vida eterno sorriso Que tornas em paraÃso Um mundo tão enganoso Quando à minha mãe, choroso Após um beijo na face Lhe pedia que cantasse Uma trova de bonança Esse tempo de criança Quem me dera que voltasse
Oh time, happy time Eternal smile of life That turns in paradise Into such a deceptive world When my mother, tearful, After a kiss on the face was asked to sing A soothing song** That time of childhood If only it would come back
Times that will never come again Of our laughing childhood When I lived happily Chasing sparrows From the walls of couples That lived in our village White as lillies Mute with gratitude And they remember with live The sweet far-off time
*I really struggled to make sense of the first four lines when I was following the lyrics on letras.com because it has the word “ternas” in place of “tornas”, and fair enough, it does sound like that, but I couldn’t make it make sense. Why is it feminine and plural? is he talking about herself and her friends? But how does that follow on with the line before and after? It was definitely fishy but it could make sense if she was talking about that idyllic scene turning into a deceptive world, so maybe “torna-se”, but that would have the “se” in front of the verb because it’s after que. Tornasse? But why would it be subjunctive? I had a look around but most online sources seem to have screen-scraped letras.com so they had the same word. Then I found a site that used “terras”. I hate that less, but I still don’t buy it. And then finally I came across this site that uses “tornas” and I am absolutely ready to believe that!
**I wasn’t sure about this one, but when you look up trova and bonança, it makes sense. I tried the whole line in gtranslate and it said “a thunderous bonanza” which doesn’t really fit the mood.
Annoyed to find I got about a third of these wrong. Even after two more attempts at guesses I was still two short of a full house. Maddening! How can prepositions be so completely hatstand? So I’m putting the whole exercise up here and writing up the reason for each one in a way that will probably make the whole thing illegible but hopefully should pound the message into my brain. The original text is from Visão, I think, but it doesn’t seem to be online so I can’t link to the original – it’s cited in Português em Foco.
A fellow preposition non-understander in action
Green is for the prepositions themselves
Pink is for the explanations
Cresce a moda dos treinadores que vão a (I put à , but they’re visiting clients “at home”, not “at the house”) casa, mas só para (straightforward “for”) quem pode pagar‑lhes e detesta ginásios!
O professor alerta para (straightforward “for” although I went for “a” and I think it feels like a more direction-y “to” than I would intuitively expect because even when it told me I was wrong I tried “de” and “com” and this ended up being one of the two that I were still wrong at the end) os esforços exagerados que poderão ocorrer nos ginásios. É preciso dividir o nosso corpo em partes e trabalhar uma de (um(a) de cada vez just means “one at a time”) cada vez, em sessões diferentes. Deve‑se dar descanso ao (straightforward “to the”) fÃsico e manter uma alimentação saudável prescrita pelo (straightforward “by the”) dietista. Paulo aconselha, no (counter-intuitive use of “no” when a literal translation would push me towards “ao” for “at least”) mÃnimo, três meses de trabalho para (straightforward “for” in the sense of “in order to”) se obter resultados concretos. O negócio parece correr‑lhe de (de feição is an expression meaning “de forma favorável ou propÃcia”) feição!
For those who don’t already know, my daughter is a budding writer and somehow in between studying for her Computer Game Development Degree in Dundee, she is working on her first novel. No, I don’t know where she gets her time management skills from. Not from me. Anyway, she has started to document her process in a WordPress Blog. If you are interested in books or in writing, you might like to get in on this phenomenon now so that when they are making it into a Netflix series you can say you knew about her before she got famous.
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 lÃngua falada pelos habitantes duma ilha húmida perto da França:
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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)
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.
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. LuÃs 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.
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”
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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!
(Not endorsing her per se, but in this election, oh my god, yes… and anyway, if ever a country was long overdue for a female leader, it’s that country)
Thanks to Cristina for unfudging the last one which was a bit wrong
Oof, well here’s an eleven minute summary of right vs left in Portugal, I guess!
I thought he’d make both characters as bad as each other but I guess he’s more concerned with stopping the loony right than the loony left and it’s pretty clear where his sympathies lie
Luso 