Category: English

Posted in English, Portuguese

O Passaporte

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Short text about Madeira. Thanks to Talures for the corrections.

Perdi o meu passaporte. Tem de estar em casa mas não o encontrei. Acho que o escondi subconscientemente, porque vamos de férias à Madeira daqui e a duas semanas, mas há uns dias ouvi um homem a descrever a aterragem, no aeroporto da ilha, do avião em que viajou… Valha-me Deus.

Past Caring

Actually I don’t even know why I said I heard someone say this. I read it in a book: Past Caring by Robert Goddard, which is… Perhaps not his best work but still pretty good. He knows how to spin a yarn. The action begins and ends in Madeira, which is why I fancied rereading it, but most of the meat of it is in Britain and the accents of the few portuguese characters who appear in the audio version have accents midway between Speedy González and Mario the Plumber.

(Regra geral, sempre reescrevo os meus textos quando corrigidos e agradeço os professores logo depois, mas estou tão fora da minha rotina que perdi a noção de quantos textos estão por corrigir. Muitos, acho eu. E há tantos que quase me sinto assustado pelo tamanho da tarefa…)

I’ve finished now though. I’m all caught up. Let’s hope I keep it that way.

Posted in English

These are a Few of My Favourite Things

Posted on by Colin Lusk

I was chatting to a fellow learner on Reddit the other day and mentioned the site which I now realise has been going for more than 7 years. Holy Moly! I must say I thought I’d be a lot more fluent now, and making far fewer errors, but I’m obviously daft, so here we are.

Anyway, it made me think about some of the high points in the evolution of the site. A lot of the posts are just me doing my homework, but I think I might try and make it a bit more accessible to people who might want to look through it without having to skip past the bits where it’s just me describing the potatoes on my allotment or whatever.

A guy who made a list

Part of that is going to be making a list of the most useful posts and adding it as a menu item. In fact, I’ve already started! There’s a menu on the right hand side (if you’re on a laptop) or bottom (on a phone) called “Favourite Posts” and I’ve added a few that I find myself constantly referring other learners to. It’ll probably grow over the next few days.

If anyone reading this has a favourite post of mine that they’ve found helpful and they think I should highlight, I’d love it if you could drop me a note in the comments.

Posted in English

Enta Sandman

Posted on by Colin Lusk

My daughter turned eighteen yesterday and I am, as the kids say, shook. I mentioned it on reddit on the first of June

Daqui a 101 minutos a minha filha faz 18 anos. Transformar-se-á instantaneamente numa mulher. Eu nunca mais verei a minha menina a partir de agora. 😭

…which is probably not really right. The corrections changed the meaning to “I’ll never again see her as my little girl”, but I was really trying to be dramatic with “I’ll never see my little girl again”, I’m too shook to even try and parse it back into decent portuguese, so for a change I’ll leave it uncorrected here. She is a lovely girl, and although any parent is bound to have a funny feeling seeing their baby suddenly standing there, old enough to vote, time marches forward, and I’m just as proud of her now as I was when she was taking her first steps in the hall.

A friend sent me a message, congratulating her, and included an intriguing phrase: their own filho had turned 40 on the same day and “pass(ou) dos intas para os entas”. I’d never heard that before, but seems pretty obvious what it means: going from the vINTA and trINTA to quarENTA, cinquENTA, sessENTA. It doesn’t seem to be used loads, judging by the results of a google search, but you can see a few examples in the wild. This guy for example.

I love things like this.

Posted in English, Portuguese

Educação Sexual

Posted on by Colin Lusk

I fancied doing another translation, and there’s a song I saw a while ago and mentally filed under “What the hell did I just see?” so here I am, coming back to give it a more thorough treatment.

I’ve definitely mentioned Joaquim de Magalhães Fernandes Barreiros before and I think described him as Portugal’s Benny Hill. He does smutty, innuendo-laden songs and he’s well-liked by many and perhaps a source of embarrassment to others. He’s well-known enough that Netflix chose him to promote its series Sex Education in Portugal – and here’s the result.

OK, well this is going to be fun. *Cracks Knuckles*

The first thing to point out is that a few times in the lyrics he addresses the listeners directly and he does this using the vós form of the imperative tense. This is pretty uncommon. In fact, the first time I saw it I almost had an aneurism becaue I thought it was a new tense that I’d never seen before. I’ll highlight it in the portuguese text for anyone who doesn’t recognise it.

Educação SexualSex Education
Rapazes e raparigas
Ligai o computador
Vamos todos aprender
Como é que se faz amor		Boys and girls
Turn on the computer
We’re all going to learn
How to make love
É hora de despertar
Para a vida sexual
Uns vão gostar de banana
Os outros de bacalhau		It’s time to wake up
To sexual life
Some people like banana
The others, cod
Seja homem ou mulher
Não importa a orientação
A realidade é sempre
Melhor que a fricção		Whether man or woman
It doesn’t matter the orientation
The reality is always
Better than friction*
Falai abertamente
De sexo sem timidez
Está na hora de começar
Aguentas oito de uma vez?		Speak openly
About sex, without shyness
It’s time to start
Can you handle eight at once?
Para cima, para baixo
Está no ir, está no quente
Enfiai devagarinho
E gozai suavemente		Up and down
It’s on the go**, it’s in the warm
Put it in slowly
And have fun***, gently
Para cima, para baixo
Está no ir, está no quente
Enfiai devagarinho
E gozai suavemente

Aguentas oito de uma vez?
Aguentas oito de uma vez?
Aguentas oito de uma vez?		Up and down
It’s on the go, it’s in the warm
Put it in slowly
And have fun, gently

Can you handle eight at once?
Can you handle eight at once?
Can you handle eight at once?

* Reality is better than f(r)iction is obviosuly a pun. There are a few ways of expressing the equivalent of “truth is stranger than fiction” in portuguese, but this is legitimately one of them – see this TSF Rádio Notícias article, for example.

**Not sure about the translation here. “Está no ir” isn’t a phrase that comes up a lot if you google it, but it does seem to mean what you’d think if you translated it literally “It’s on the go”

***Gozar usually means to enjoy something in european portuguese – “gozar de férias” (enjoy the holidays) is an example given on priberam, so I’ve just translated it like that. However, the fact that in brazilian portuguese it also means “have an orgasm” is pretty obviously going to be relevant, given what he’s singing about!

Posted in English, Portuguese

Da Weasel – Dialectos da Ternura

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Another translation today: it’s a rap, but it’s surprisingly easy to translate. Or rather, I didn’t have any impossible slang to deal with. I daresay a professional translator would laugh at it, but that’s OK.

Dialectos de TernuraDialects of Tenderness
Yoo
Ela diz que me adora quando a noite vai a meio
Eu sinto-me melhor pessoa, menos fraco, feio
Passa o dedo na rasta com a mão bem suave
Encosta o lábio no ouvido e diz-me: Queres que a lave?
Vamos para o chuveiro e ela flui com a água
Lava-me a cabeça, a alma e qualquer resto de mágoa
Diz que o meu amor lhe dá um certo calor na barriga
É aí que eu sei que quero ser para sempre aquele nigga
Que lhe mete a rir, rir, quando eu lhe faço vir
Da terra até à lua mano, é sempre a subir
E somos grandes, gigantes com dez metros de altura
Falamos vinte línguas, dialectos da Ternura
Tipo

Uhh, uhh!
Yeah, yeah!
Faz, faz!
Dá, dá		Yo!
She tells me she adores me in the middle of the night
I feel like a better person, less weak, ugly
She runs her finger over my dreadlock* with her soft hand
Puts her lips to my ear and says “Do you want me to wash it?”
We go to the shower and she flows with the water
She washes my head, my soul and any remaining pain
She says my love makes her warm in her belly
It’s then that I know that I want to be that nigga
That makes her laugh, laugh when I make her come
From earth to the moon, man, she’s always rising
And we’re big, giant, ten metres tall
We speak twenty languages, dialects of tenderness.
Like

Uhh, uhh!
Yeah, yeah!
Do it! Do it!
Give it! Give it!
Água morna em pele quente poro aberto não perfura
A minha alma já tá nua e eu faço-lhe uma jura, jura
Para sempre teu depois da noite volvida
Um segundo ao teu lado já preenche uma vida
O conceito de tempo não entra na sensação
Aquilo que vivemos tá gravado no coração
Segura na minha mão e continua a canção
É a melhor que já ouvi reinventaste a paixão
Ela diz que me adora quando o dia vai a meio
O copo passa de meio vazio para meio cheio
A palavra ganha vida e fala à minha frente
Sigo calmo atrás dela deixo crescer a semente

E Diz-me
Uhh, uhh!
Yeah, yeah!
Faz, faz!
Dá, dá		Warm water on hot skin, open pore, doesn’t pierce
My soul is already naked and I swear to her, I swear
Forever yours, after the night has passed
One second by your side is a full lifetime
The concept of time doesn’t enter the senses
What we’re living is carved on our hearts
Hold my hand and continue the song
It’s the best I’ve ever heard, you’ve reinvented passion
She tells me she adores me in the middle of the night
The cup grows from being half empty to half full
The word comes to life and speaks in front of me
I follow her calmly and let the seed grow

Uhh, uhh!
Yeah, yeah!
Do it! Do it!
Give it! Give it!
Em cada beijo há uma frase, em cada frase há um verso
Em cada verso há um lado do lado inverso
De uma história que assombra a memória
Da leveza irrisória de uma conquista notória
Faço V de vitória, porque hoje eu sou rei
Ao lado da rainha com que sempre sempre sonhei
Foi por isto que esperei, em cada noite que amei
Ou pensei que amei porque é agora que eu sei
A razão da palavra consagrada
Que tanta gente dá à toa em troca de quase nada
Ela não tá espantada, pelo contrário, relaxada
Revê-se na expressão da expressão enamorar

E diz-me
Uhh, uhh!
Yeah, yeah!
Faz, faz!
Dá, dá		In each kiss, in each sentence there’s a verse
In each verse there’s another page on the opposite side
Of a story that overshadows the memory
Of the ridiculous lightness of a notorious conquest
I make the V for victory because today I’m the king
By the side of the queen I’ve always, always dreamed of
It was this I was hoping for, every night I loved
Or thought it loved, because now I know
The reason for the sacred word
That so many people give thoughtlessly in exchange for almost nothing
She’s not shocked, on the contrary, relaxed
It shows in the expression, the loving expression

Uhh, uhh!
Yeah, yeah!
Do it! Do it!
Give it! Give it!

According to Priberam, Rasta can be a rastafarian and by extension can also refer to dreadlocks as worn by rastafarians.

Posted in English, Portuguese

Expensive Soul – O Amor é Mágico

Posted on by Colin Lusk

New Music Discovery Alert! I have gone down a bit of an Expensive Soul rabbithole today. They’re sort of funky, souly… something. That’s not really my kind of music, but I really like this. I especially like “O Amor é Mágico”, so I thought I’d break it down a bit. I’m not expecting profundity: it’s a love song, so you know what you’re getting.

There are quite a few versions of it online, including this blockbuster live orchestral medley, but I’ll keep it simple and stick with this acoustic version because it’s easier to hear. OK, here we go, it’s a translation day. Strap in.

It’s good isn’t it? The main guy has a really good voice and the instruments are all tight even though this is (I think) a very different arrangement from what they usually do. My favourite bit is between 1:15 and 1:20 when the rapper guy starts messing about waving his arms goofily and then looks a bit sheepish and stops as if he’s a bit embarrassed to have got carried away with the moment. Bless!

O Amor é MágicoLove is Magic
Não dei por começar
Mas aconteceu
Como da primeira vez
Baby isto sou eu

Era só olhar
Batia perfeito
Gelas* como o mar
Como ‘tar sem jeito

Tentei mudar-te um pouco
Mas agora sei
Que não devia

Tentei mostrar-te o louco
Que sou por ti
Desde esse dia

Não me deixes mais
Nesta situação
Quero ‘tar contigo
P’ra ter a noção

E o amor é rápido (yeeeah)
Sádico (uuuh)
Às vezes é trágico (yeeeah)
Mágico		I didn’t notice it starting
But it happened
Like the first time
Baby, this is me

It was just a glance
It felt right
You freeze like the sea,
Like being lost

I tried to change you a little
But now I know
That I shouldn’t

I tried to show you how crazy
I am for you
Since that day

Don’t leave me again
In this situation
I want to be with you
To get the idea

And love is fast
Sadistic
Sometimes it’s tragic
Magic
É mágico
É mágico
É mágico
É mágico
É mágico
É mágico
É mágico
É mágico		It’s magic
It’s magic
It’s magic
It’s magic
It’s magic
It’s magic
It’s magic
It’s magic
Podia dizer
Que fiquei sem chão
E o que tu me deste
Foi uma lição

Acredito ter
Aquilo que queres
Mas depois de teres
Aí não desesperes

Tentei mudar-te um pouco
Mas agora sei
Que não devia

Tentei mostrar-te o louco
Que sou por ti
Desde esse dia

Não me deixes mais
nesta situação
Quero ‘tar contigo
Pra ter a noção

E o amor é rápido (yeeeah)
Sádico (uuuh)
Às vezes é trágico (yeeeah)
Mágico		You could say
That I don’t have any grounds
And what you gave me
Was a lesson

I believe I have
What you want
But after you have it
You won’t despair

I tried to change you a little
But now I know
That I shouldn’t

I tried to show you how crazy
I am for you
Since that day

Don’t leave me again
In this situation
I want to be with you
To get the idea

And love is fast
Sadistic
Sometimes it’s tragic
Magic
É mágico
(repeat)		It’s magic
(repeat)
Yo, é de loucos o que sinto por ti
Sinto falta de ti
Desejava tanto que ‘tivesses aqui
E me desses o devido valor

Porque acredito que a vida não é nada sem amor
Não, sei que não sou perfeito
Nem nada que se pareça mas eu respeito
O que vai na tua cabeça

Que te gramo, que te adoro, que te amo
Que te quero, que te venero, que te sinto, que te espero
Não me deixes mais nesta posição
Nada é em vão tudo tem a sua explicação

E eu sei a minha
Quando te vejo, falo, toco,
Arrepio na espinha
E agora vai ser tudo de bom
Quero ver a tua cara quando ouvires este som
Ah e vou tentar ser mais coração mole
Vou ligar-te para irmos ver o pôr do sol

E o amor é rápido
Sádico
Às vezes é trágico
Mágico		Yo, what I feel for you is crazy
I miss you
I wanted so much for you to be here
And value me like I deserve

Because I believe life is nothing without love
No, I know I’m not perfect
Nor nothing that even looks like it, but I respect
What goes on in your head

I really like you**, I adore you, I love you
I want you, I worship you, I feel you, I hope for you
Don’t leave me in this position
Nothing is in vain, everything is because of you***

I know, my dear
When I see you, speak to you, touch you
I get shivers in my spine
And now everything is going to be all right
Ah, I’m going to try and be more soft-hearted
I’ll call you and we’ll go and watch the sunset

And love is fast
Sadistic
Sometimes it’s tragic
Magic
É mágico
(repeat)		It’s magic
(repeat)

* In the original lyrics. it said “Jaz” in place of Gelas but I don’t hear it that way. This is the version given on Sapo.pt and sounds more plausible to me.

**Apparently there’s an informal meaning of “gramar” which is “gostar muito de” which is a reliefe because all its other meanings are weird. I dunno. Maybe he does mean “I grow grass on you” but I think probably not.

**Everything has you as an explanation, literally

Posted in English

Let Us Now Learn From Absolute Bellends

Posted on by Colin Lusk

So according to my socials this morning, this comedian guy has been thrown off Instagram for making a Barbie joke. Let’s pick it apart and extract the juicy vocabulary goodness within.

“A Mattel lançou uma Barbie com Trissomia 21, uma edição especial. Não é uma ideia original, toda a gente sabe que os chineses já vendem bonecas com defeito”

The what now?

Trissomia rang a bell but I couldn’t quite place it so I looked it up, but of course I should have just read the text below, because it’s explained there: Downs Syndrome. Oof. OK, well if you’re going to go there, you’d better make it a good joke, because people don’t tend to be very sympathetic if you’re just going to be pointlessly spiteful and cruel.

The joke hinges on the word “Defeito”. I looked it up in some Brazilian and portuguese dictionaries to see if there was a meaning of defeito that would make it gel into a joke. For example, is “defeito” a standard, non-insulting way to describe a learning disability? If so, it would still be a shitehawk joke, but at least we’d be able to see that he was going for an actual double-meaning and the the joke would just about work as a critique of Chinese manufacturing. It doesn’t seem to be though. Learning disability in portuguese is “deficiência mental”, which, if you translate it to its english cognates still sounds pretty off but obviously words have slightly different weights in different cultures, so I can only assume it doesn’t sound insulting to native speakers. When I look up “pessoas com defeitos”, all the listings relate to people who are arrogant or lazy or have some other character defect. So it doesn’t really work. I get that he’s having a pop at Chinese manufacturing but in the process I think he’s just saying people with Down’s are defective. Which just seems cruel to me.

So yeah, it’s just a shitehawk joke. I don’t think he should have been thrown off Instagram for it though. People like Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle have been making shittier jokes than that for years and they never seem to be short of work. Of course their jokes are also quite well crafted, so there’s that.

Instagram could have just left it there and let the lack of laughs and the virtual heckles act as their own negative reinforcement mechanism, but that’s not how it played out.

Posted in English, Portuguese

Se Esta Rua Fosse Minha

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Translation time! This one is by Oquestrada and it’s cool. I especially like how the ghost of Ernie, the fastest milkman in the west, shows up and starts playing a pocket trumpet.

These are lyrics. I thought she was just freestyling in the middle but then realised the lyrics I was using for the translation were totally different! It’s actually an older song, from Brasil, possibly from the 19th Century, and I’d picked up those lyrics instead of the Oquestrada version. They’re really different; in fact, even the title is slightly different. Brazilians use “essa” slightly more often than portuguese people, so the name of the song is “Se Essa Rua Fosse Minha” – Essa, not Esta. Anyway, deleted it all, started again, and here you go, with the right version.

PortugueseEnglish
Se esta rua, se esta rua
se esta rua fosse minha
eu mandava-a, eu mandava-a
eu mandava-a ladrilhar
com pedrinhas de rubi
só para o meu amor passar
Ah, se esta rua, se esta rua
se esta rua fosse minha
com pedrinhas de rubi
só para o meu amor passar		If this street, if this street
If this street were mine
I’d order it, I’d order it
I’d order it to be paved
With ruby cobblestones
Just for my lover to pass by
Ah, If this road were mine
I’d order it to be paved
With ruby cobblestones
Just for my lover to pass by
Ah, lá porque és feia tem calma
não te faltam seduções
mais vale ser linda de alma
do que linda de feições
mais vale ser linda de alma
do que linda de feições
Ai o amor, o amor
o amor é como a lua
ora cresce
ora mingua é
Ai o amor, o amor
o amor é como a lua
ora cresce
ora mingua
ah, pois é		Ah, just because you’re ugly, calm down
You don’t lack seductions
It’s better to have a beautiful soul
Than beautiful features
It’s better to have a beautiful soul
Than beautiful features
Oh love, love
Love is like the moon
Now it waxes
Now it wanes
Oh love, love
Love is like the moon
Now it waxes
Now it wanes
For sure
Que bom ser pequenino
ter pai, ter mãe, ter avós
ah, ter esperança no destino
e ter quem goste de nós
e ter quem goste de nós
e ter quem goste de nós
Ai, é tao bom ser pequenino		It’s so good to be a child
To have father, mother and grandparents
To have hope in our destiny
And to have people who like us
And to have people who like us
And to have people who like us
Oh it’s so good to be a child
Se esta rua, se esta rua
se esta rua fosse minha
eu mandava-a ladrilhar
com pedrinhas de rubi
só para o meu amor passar
Se esta rua fosse minha
eu mandava-a ladrilhar
só para o meu amor passar
só para tu e tu e tu e tu e tu
passar		If this street, if this street
If this street were mine
I’d order it, I’d order it
I’d order it to be paved
With ruby cobblestones
Just for my lover to pass by
Ah, If this road were mine
I’d order it to be paved
With ruby cobblestones
Just for my lover to pass by
Posted in English

Comics Corner 🤓

Posted on by Colin Lusk

As a tremendous intellectual, I really like comics. Sorry, I mean graphic novels. I’ve said it a lot so it’s probably not a huge surprise. It was a good way to ease my way into reading portuguese and I still like to go back to the format when I fancy something easy. Bertrand has an offer on Banda Desenhada at the moment if you fancy stocking up. I quite fancy this one, myself, but I’ll probably have to find a few more. It’s not really worth ordering just one book from abroad because the P&P is quite high – you need a few to make it worthwhile.

Em www.bertrand.pt

Posted in English, Portuguese

Don’t Overthink It

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Here’s a question that came up the other day: what’s up with the word “sobrepensar”? Or as I asked reddit:

Se não me engano, li esta palavra num contexto que deu para entender “pensar demais” (igual a “overthink” em inglês), mas isso não é o significado pois não? Quer dizer “pensar bem”.

Infelizmente não me lembro a fonte mas… Existe este significado da palavra (calão? Uma modernice?) ou será que entendi mal o que li?

It seems not to be slang, but sobrepensar has two meanings. One (the most common?) is exactly what it looks like: ‘overthink’, but it can also mean to really think about something well. This seems a tiny bit confusing since there must be situations where its hard to tell whether the person you’re describing is really thinking clearly or going into an unhelpful spiral of unhinged thoughts.