I definitely have to see this!
Category: English
Niche Vocabulary
I’m noting down lots of new words in the book I’m reading but some seem too niche even to include. Like I’ve just come across “a ré” which can be a defender in a trial (feminine form of réu) but in the context I found it, it means “Espaço que se estende da popa até ao terço médio do navio” (https://dicionario.priberam.org/R%C3%A9) OK, well i know popa is the poop deck, but I couldn’t find Ré on any diagrams of ships. Anyway, after a lot of effort I found it corresponded roughly to what a British seaman would call the aft deck. Well, forgive me if I don’t spend much time committing that one to memory!
And then there’s “a cernelha”, the part at the back of a quadruped where the shoulder blades meet. I actually know the word for this in English because my daughter went through a horse phase. It’s caled the withers. Yeah, again, it seems unlikely I’ll need to know that one!
Um Contra o Outro
A little bird tells me that a well-known podcast might be publishing a Deolinda episode soon, and it reminded me that I hadn’t done a translation of one of my favourite songs of theirs, “Um Contra o Outro”.
It’s a really nice extended metaphor, based on the idea that the guy she’s talking to just wants to play videojogos all day and she’s challenging him to forget all that nonsense because he’s missing out on real life by not going out with her. There are some gaming terms in there – lives (not to be confused with your actual life!), stealth mode, levelling up and so on. It would be so easy to have the result be super corny, but I think it works pretty well.
I basically get most of what’s being said, but as usual, it’s hard to “pull it together” into a coherent narrative without working through it like this. And I’m glad I did. There were a couple of things I misunderstood – like I couldn’t work out why she mentions “cavalos” at one point but apparently she says “mostra o que vales”. Ahhhh! And I hadn’t really understood the nature of the challenge she lays down in the last few lines either.
I’ve linked the live video here because it’s very energetic. The original music video is a bit confusing since it just seems to be suggesting she just wants to play Jogo da Macaca or Jogo da Laranjinha with him. And maybe she wouldn’t say no, but I think the game she wants to play is one that’s going to take a lot longer, maybe even the rest of his life.
| Português | Inglês |
|---|---|
| Anda Desliga o cabo Que liga a vida A esse jogo Joga comigo Um jogo novo Com duas vidas Um contra o outro | Come on Unplug the cable That links your life To that game Play with me A new game With two lives One against the other |
| Já não basta esta luta contra o tempo Este tempo que perdemos a tentar vencer alguém Ao fim ao cabo Que é dado como um ganho Vai-se a ver desperdiçámos Sem nada dar a ninguém | This race against the clock* isn’t enough This time we waste trying to defeat someone When all is said and done** What is given with a win Will be seen as as time we wasted With nothing to give to anyone |
| Anda Faz uma pausa Encosta o carro Sai da corrida Larga essa guerra Que a tua meta Está deste lado da tua vida | Come on Take a break Park the car Get out of the race Let go of this war Because your objective Is on this this side of your life |
| Muda de nível Sai do estado invisível Põe um modo compatível Com a minha condição Que a tua vida É real e irrepetível*** Dá-te mais que o impossível Se me deres a tua mão | Level up Come out of stealth mode Activate a mode that’s compatible With mine Because your life Is real and unrepeatable It gives you more than the impossible If you give me your hand |
| Sai de casa e vem comigo para a rua Vem, que essa vida que tens Por mais vidas que tu ganhes É a tua que mais perde se não vens | Leave the house and come with me into the street Come, because this life you have, No matter how many extra lives you gain It’s yours that will lose out if you don’t |
| Sai de casa e vem comigo para a rua Vem, que essa vida que tens Por mais vidas que tu ganhes É a tua que mais perde se não vens | Leave the house and come with me into the street Come, because this life you have, No matter how many extra lives you gain It’s yours that will lose out if you don’t |
| Anda Mostra o que vales Tu nesse jogo Vales tão pouco Troca de vício Por outro novo Que o desafio É corpo a corpo Escolhe a arma A estratégia que não falha O lado forte da batalha Põe no máximo poder Dou-te a vantagem Tu com tudo E eu sem nada Que mesmo assim desarmada Vou-te ensinar a perder | Come on Show me what you’re worth You, in that game, Count for so little Swap one addiction For another Because the challenge Is body to body Choose your weapon The strategy that won’t fail The stronger side of the battle Put it on full power I’ll give you the advantage You with everything And me with nothing So even like that, disarmed, I’ll show you how to lose. |
*It says fight against time really but I think Lutar contra o tempo is a set phrase meaning like a time trial, race against time or some sense that you only have a certain amount of time to achieve the goal, so I gave it a rough equivalent in english.
**Listening to it without the written lyrics, I thought she was saying “do cabo” – so “at the end of the cable” which sort of made sense if you imagine holding a game controller that’s plugged into a game console via a wire, but I think it’s cabo as in “levar a cabo”, so she’s talking about what you have left over, at the end, when you’ve won, what you win isn’t as good as what you lose by staying indoors all day
***The source I copied the lyrics from has this as “real e repetida” which clearly makes no sense and if you listen closely that’s not what she’s saying. It’s almost like we can’t implicitly believe everything we read on the internet or something
Oh My God!
Did I really just translate “Deixa a janela do quarto aberta” as “leave the window one quarter open” instead of “leave the bedroom window open” in that last post? C2 level Portuguese, folks. Shoot me now.
Oh well, at least you know I’m not doing these translations with AI, no it’s all natural stupidity!
Anda Estragar-me Os Planos – Salvador Sobral
Spotify keeps recommending this song to me, and it’s a great choice! It’s worth noting before we start that the title is an example of a very ambiguous sort of portuguese sentence. Of course we’re used to having no subject pronoun, and but the tu form of the imperative tense usually overlaps with the ele/ela form of the present tense, meaning you could translate this as a statement “She/he/it keeps messing up my plans” or as an instruction, “Keep messing up my plans!” Since love songs addressed to an individual are more common than songs complaining about minor annoyances, I generally read it as the latter, but I haven’t listened closely enough to really know for sure
| Portuguese | English |
|---|---|
| Ah faltam-me as saudades e os ciúmes Já, tenho a minha conta de serões serenos Quero é ir dançar | I’ve lost all my sorrows and my jealousies I’ve had my share of quiet nights in* I just want to go dancing |
| Sei por onde vou É o melhor caminho Não deixo nada ao acaso Por favor, anda trocar-me o passo | I know where I’m going It’s the best path I’m leaving nothing to chance Please, trip me up** |
| Tenho uma rotina Pra todos os dias Há de durar muitos anos Por favor, anda estragar-me os planos | I have a routine For every day It’ll probably go on for years Please, mess up my plans |
| Tira os livros da ordem certa Deixa a janela do quarto aberta Faz-me esquecer que amanhã vou trabalhar | Take my books out of their order Leave the bedroom window open Make me forget that I’m going to work tomorrow |
| Ah, faltam-me as saudades e os ciúmes Já, tenho a minha conta de serões serenos Quero ir dançar | I’ve lost all my sorrows and my jealousies I’ve had my share of quiet nights in I just want to go dancing |
| Um, dois… Ah, faltam-me as saudades e os ciúmes Já, tenho a minha conta de serões serenos Tardes tontas, manhãs mecânicas Eu quero é ir dançar | One two, I’ve lost all my sorrows and my jealousies I’ve had my share of quiet nights in stupefied afternoons, predictable mornings I just want to go dancing |
*Serão doesn’t come up often as a noun, it’s more usually the third person plural future tense of ser, but it’s usually some kind of nocturnal activity – a party or some night time work. I’ve gone for translating serão serena as “quiet night in” because it makes the most sense in the context of the following line.
**Wow, “trocar-me o passo” seems hard to translate. In fact, I could probably break this footnote out into a whole blog, but… Anyway, literally, he’s saying “change my step”, but what could he mean? Well I checked Priberam and it certainly isn’t the same as “e troca o passo”, which is just a way of talking about decades when you don’t know the specific year. As I see it it can only be one of two things (1) something like “shake me up” or snap me out of my routine; based on the preceding lines, he says he has carefully planned everything out, but he wants the person he’s singing to to cause him to do something completely different, walk a different path, or just generally throw him off balance or (2) based on the fact that he’s going dancing and passo can mean a dance step as well as a walking step, maybe he’s saying he wants to trade dance steps with her – in other words, he’s just saying “dance with me”. And I guess there’s a third option (3) both: it’s intended to have a double meaning. I think I’m leaning towards option 3. It sounds like the main meaning of the expression is meaning 1, but he likely chose it for its proximity to dancing. I can only find one other place on the internet where the same expression is used in the first person, and it’s in a poem called Forte on this page, and it definitely sounds like it fits definition 1.
Troca-me o passo,
Faz uma revolução,
Põe o mundo inteiro em convulsão…
and there’s another example in the third person in this story about Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington in Lisbon
Ella não queria entrevistas. Por isso fugiu para o carro que a aguardava. Mas o repórter trocou-lhe o passo. E a conversa começou fria, sem balanço nem ritmo
This doesn’t sound quite as earth-shattering but there’s definitely a sense that the reporter has interfered with her plan to escape.
Swapping the tense I get a few more hits including a whole song about it (but without an indirect object) and this page which mentioned the Priberam definition but adds
A expressão também pode ser utilizada literalmente e significar trocar de pé, para acertar ou desalinhar o passo com outra pessoa.
and just to bring it full circle, this is again in the context of dance! So I googled trocar de pé and came up with a couple of videos of shuffle dance tutorials but also podiatrists, people worried about tripping on escalators and all sorts of things!
Oh well, it might be that I can never be fully certain about the exact meaning but it seems pretty clear in the context of the wider song, what he’s driving at! I’ve opted for “trip me up” because it seems the closest equivalent, being both foot-based and also an invitation to cause problems.
Academic Yob
I’ve already been gently and politely reminded that I need too adopt a more formal tone in forum postings on the university message boards. Not deliberate of course: I’m absolutely seeing conformity to local norms as part of the process of learning about portuguese culture, but informality and brevity are so ingrained in me it’s going to be hard to remember to write Estimado such-and-such before just launching into whatever thought brought me to the forum in the first place!
O Pico do Pico – and a new podcast
I came across this odd bit of history on Insta and I think since they are both wearing hats we can allow them into the blog this week. It’s not just a one-off either. Bruá Podcasts has a stable of mini audio series. I subscribed to what seems to be the main one, Sapiens and it seems to have followed the lead of The Rest is History, with a series of little subseries, one of which is called Portugal Negro: A História Silenciada, which seemed worth a listen especially since Hat Week this year happens to coincide with Black History Month. I started listening to the first episode, about a man called José de Magalhães who got involved in the pan-african movement started by WEB Du Bois, and I’ll probably report back on it in a few days when I have done the whole lot.
Os Chapéus dos Outros Cantores
Translation time!
I mentioned António Zambujo’s recently acquired brazilian hat yesterday, and it reminded me of this video where he’s singing with this choir of practitioners of Cante Alentejano, who wear traditional dress, including a very distinctive hat. Why Cante and not Canto? It’s just a regionalism. I’ve been meaning to do a proper post about Cante Alantejano for a while now and I must get around to that. Anyway, here we go…
| Português | Inglês |
|---|---|
| Trago Alentejo na voz Do cantar da minha gente Ai rios de todos nós Que te perdes na corrente Ai rios de todos nós Que te perdes na corrente | I carry Alentejo in my voice From the song of my people Oh the rivers that belong to us all You can lose yourself in the current Oh the rivers that belong to us all You can lose yourself in the current |
| Ai planícies sonhadas Ai sentir de olivais Ai ventos na madrugada Que me transcendem demais Aí ventos na madrugada Que me transcendem demais | Oh, plains of my dreams Oh the feel of the olive groves Oh the winds at dawn That are too overwhelming Oh the winds at dawn That are too overwhelming |
| Amigos, amigos Papoilas no trigo* Só lá eu as tenho E de braço dado contigo a meu lado É de lá que eu venho E de braço dado Cantando ao amor Guardamos o gado, papoilas em flor Que o vento num brado Refresca o calor E de braço dado, contigo a meu lado Cantamos o amor | Friends, friends Poppies in the wheat Only there do I have them And arm in arm with you at my side It’s there that I come from And arm in arm Singing of love We tend the cattle, poppies in bloom The wind in a howl Cools the heat And arm in arm, with you at my side We sing of love |
| Ai rebanhos de saudades Que deixei naqueles montes Ai pastores de ansiedade Bebendo água nas fontes Ai pastores de ansiedades Bebendo água nas fontes | Oh flocks of longing That I left in those mountains Oh shepherds of unease** Drinking water in the springs Oh shepherds of unease Drinking water in the springs |
| Ai sede das tardes quentes Ai lembrança que me alcança Ai terra prenhe de gente Nos olhos duma criança Ai terra prenha de gente Nos olhos duma criança | Oh place of warm afternoons Oh the memories that come over me Oh land, giving birth to a people In the eyes of a child Oh land, giving birth to a people In the eyes of a child |
*Adoro esta rima
**O que mais me surpreendeu é que achei “ansiedade” uma palavra mais “intraduzível” neste contexto do que a famosa “saudade”. Consigo imaginar a emoção de uma pessoa longe da sua terra: homesickness, sorrow, sadness, longing, não há problema com saudade. Mas “ansiedade” é cognata com a nossa “anxiety” o que é completamente fora da questão. Que mais? Linguee oferece vários alternativos, tipo “stress”, “trepidation”, “angst”. “Anticipation” é uma tradução muito comum: já ouvi montes de booktubers a falar da sua ansiedade por ler o novo livro numa série qualquer. A palavra serviria se o narrador fosse a caminho de casa mas não é. Optei por “unease” mas não estou cem por cento satisfeito!
Harry Potter and the Pin of Safety
Nice bit of vocabulary here…
I hadn’t come across “alfinetar” as a verb before but it’s obviously related to alfinete – a safety pin. So…. is Rowling putting a safety pin in the girl who played one of the lead characters in her most famous creation? And if so, why?
According to Priberam, alfinetar usually means what it sounds like – to pin something with a safety pin, pin it up, or prick something with the point. But it also has two figurative meanings – to satirise someone or to offend them with words.
I didn’t actually follow the story, but Watson is always being asked to repudiate Rowling to show what a good person she is, and of course Watson knows what will happen to her if she doesn’t so she always takes the bait. Rowling – surprisingly for someone of her age – is actually pretty good at bare knuckle social media brawling, so I suppose she must have clapped back on this occasion. I can’t really be bothered finding out how or why, but I like the word. Alfinetar. I must use that in future!
Improving Brazilian Jokes
I hope this works. I’m very pleased with myself but nobody seems to have upvoted it. Are they miserable sods, I wonder, or did I mess it up?
Luso 