Category: English

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The Quix and the Dead

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Reading a book this morning I came across an example of a word in the wild that I had never seen before

Quixitesco/a – meaning Quixotic. I believe the correct pronunciation is “key shot-esco”, based on hearing Booktubers pronounce the name Don Quixote and the only pronunciation quide I can find backs that up, although it’s Brazilian so there’s still a small shadow of doubt, but I’m fairly confident.

Anyway, it’s not exactly uncommon for me to spot new words in the wild, but I enjoyed this one so I thought I’d share!

By the way, the book is “O Vício Dos Livros” (addiction to books) by Afonso Cruz, one of my favourite Portuguese writers. His work is incredibly diverse, covering everything from children’s books to massive chunky tomes, but this one is very compact, neatly illustrated with short, digestible texts. The grammar is not too taxing, thank god, but the vocabulary is a bit harder so it’s a decent stretch read for a B1 or B2 student who doesn’t mind checking the dictionary from time to time. It’s also new, and very popular at the moment, showing up all over Portuguese bookstagram, and I am always, always on trend. 😉

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Cushiongate

Posted on by Colin Lusk

I’ve just written about O Superman, the satire on the career of António Ramalho Eanes. One of the things the book mentions is his visit to London where he does a typically Portuguese (?) thing: rearranging the cushion before sitting next to the Queen. I didn’t think much of this but you can actually see it happen in this video of the state visit.

Of course, the Queen is not scandalised by this and it doesn’t seem to be much of an issue. I don’t know why the satirist thinks it’s such a big deal but I guess it’s all grist to his mill, showing how uncultured and yokelish the president is that he’s never taken a ride in a royal carriage before!

The video is interesting (to me, anyway), since the announcer conveys the palace’s statement, putting forward Britain’s official stance towards the nascent democracy, which in a few short years had veered from fascism to a vanguardist, near communist junta, via a counter-revolution to a broadly left-wing government, ruling under a democratic constitution. So I’m glad to see they are recognising that process and trying to help it along.

I’m not sure, but I think we british play a larger role in the book. Early on, Cropcon, Superman’s home planet, is destroyed by a rival planet, which the author calls Brybton. Well, I don’t know what Brybton is meant to represent, but it sounds like “Britain” and “Bribe” might be contributing ingredients – in other words, the author reckons the military junta that acted as midwife to the democracy was unable to withstand the corrupting effect of international capital, as represented by England! I might be reading too much into that but it’s a fun historical factoid so I’ll enjoy it at least until someone tells me it’s wrong!

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Watorking

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Groan… I’ve just spent ages trying to work out what “tratabalho” means in this paragraph.

The book is “A Construção da Democracia em Portugal“, a translation of “The Making of Portuguese Democracy” by Kenneth Maxwell, by the way

The quotation marks make it look like it’s a deliberate change so I was theorising it might be a combination of “trabalho” and another word like “tratamento”. I was curious because I thought the author was being sarcastic or implying something about their motives.

It’s not though. After a lot of hoo-ha, I finally found a copy of the English version in Google Books and it just says “Task Force”, so it must just be a simple typo. Annoying!

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New YouTube Channel

Posted on by Colin Lusk

If you enjoyed the audiobook post a couple of weeks ago you might also enjoy this new YouTube channel started by Booktuber Silent Wanderer. It’s called Em Voz Alta and it’s looking to release two chapters per week of short stories read by Portuguese readers, many of whom I already know from their own channels. So far, they’ve finished O Principezinho (everyone’s favourite!) and they’re well into The Canterville Ghost.

Don’t forget, you can use the videos as audiobooks even if the screen is off by following the suggestions in my most recent post, Story Hour

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Story Hour

Posted on by Colin Lusk

One of the things that struck me after posting my list of audiobooks is that there aren’t many that are aimed at younger children, and if you’re a new reader that might be exactly what you need. I did check all the Portuguese children’s stories on Audible but with the exception of O Principezinho they were all Brazilian.

It seems like the best way to listen to stories for children is through videos. There are some on YouTube and some on the RTP Estudo em Casa site under “Hora da Leitura” (Reading Hour).

Here are a few lists you can tap into. If you want to listen to them as audiobooks, with the screen off and your phone in your pocket, there are a couple of settings you need to change on your phone, and I’ll put a video about that down at the bottom if you need it.

Obviously, you might be happy just to follow along with the video, especially since some of them show the actual text, or animations that can be good visual clues, but if you want to treat them like normal audiobooks, here’s a video that will explain how to set your phone up to play the audio only, even when the phone screen is off.

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The Greatest Stories Ever Heard

Posted on by Colin Lusk

As regular readers (hey, stop laughing – I have regular readers! I do!) will know, I am obsessed with audiobooks, so I have been trying for a while now to compile a definitive list of all the european portuguese audiobooks available, so I have been through every single audiobook in Audible and listened to the accent and I’ve wrestled with Kobo’s completely useless search function to bring a few golden nuggets from among the grit. You can find them all here. I’ll add to the list as new ones become available. If you know of any I’ve missed, please let me know. I feel like I’ve been pretty thorough but I’m just one person and it’s a big internet.

There are affiliate links on the page, by the way: I’m hoping my obsession will pay for itself one day.

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Practice Portuguese

Posted on by Colin Lusk

It seems like there’s a lot going on at Practice Portuguese, everyone’s go-to European Portuguese resource. The lads are now both full-time on the project as paid work, freeing up time for their non-paid work: dadding.

But even better, they’ve got a new app out that makes it easier to use their content on a phone. This could be a real game changer for a lot of people. At the moment it’s only in beta but I’ve downloaded it and it looks good.

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No Such Thing As Society

Posted on by Colin Lusk

I came across this paragraph in a book I read recently. It hit me because it’s a familiar quote but I also realised i didn’t know how to say “there’s no such thing as…”

“For the right-wing libertarian “there’s no such thing as society” (Margaret Thatcher) and liberty is individual or not at all”. And “Não existe tal coisa” is the key phrase meaning “there’s no such thing as”

Incidentally, that “direita” is causing me some headaches in the book I’m reading now “A Construção da Democracia em Portugal”. My confusion comes from the fact that one of the socialist leaders is a law professor – “Professor de Direito” – because “direito” means right as in right hand but also means right as in “human rights” and by extension, law. But I keep thinking he’s a Professor de Direita – ie, a right-wing professor, which is a bit weird if he’s helping lead a socialist movement. Direita isn’t a different word from direito, it’s just shorthand for right-wing, and wing is “ala”, which is feminine so the ending has changed.

There you go: quite a lot to unpack there! I have quite a few of these little nuggets saved up from the last few weeks of reading so I might do a few more of these posts. They help me to remember them and maybe they’re useful to other people too.

Posted in English

An Apple A Day

Posted on by Colin Lusk

The portuguese equivalent of “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” is pleasing because it rhymes just like the english version

Uma maçã por dia, não sabe o bem que lhe fazia

It isn’t usually used in that form though. If you look for the second part online it’s more often used with “um livro por dia”, “uma música por dia” “uma panda por dia” or any other noun you care to name