I was corrected by a brasileiro who changed my “história” to “estória” according to this page, I don’t think it’s quite right – história seems to be preferred and estória deprecated in European portuguese at least. In Brasil it’s used more for narrative fiction (“Story”) as opposed to actual history, but even then it’s obviously not that common becuase I use “história quite often and it’s only been altered once.
Update
Well, I’ve already had one more correction (below) on this subject so I asked around on iTalki, where a Portuguese guy agreed with my tentative conclusion and a second person unearthed a couple of online posting boards (here and here) to support the Estória=story version. Most of the posts bear out my guess that it was more of a Brazilian thing, and a lot of Portuguese people seem to be harrumphing a great deal. But not all: some find the estória/história split natural. Maybe a generational or regional split?
There’s a lot of confusion around. For example one of the Portuguese peeps hotly denies that estória is a valid word because it’s too modern (Século XX), whereas Ciberdúvidas says it’s old – possibly Século XIII, before Columbus was even born! Maybe it’s one of these words that was part of the language at the time the Americas were colonised, got preserved in the speech patterns of the colonies and then crept back into the European form of the language, where it had been long forgotten, via media output by the more vibrant New World countries in the twentieth century. There are lots of similar words in American english (“gotten” as the past participle of the english verb “get” is the only one I can think of off hand but trust me, it’s not the only one). There are other strands to pick at – such as a reference to the Galega word “hestoria”, which puts us back in Marco Neves territory.
One of the posters on the two new threads mentions this little gem
Eu me lembro de ter lido em Guimarães Rosa (não posso dizer se foi em Primeiras Estórias ou em Tutaméia, não tenho meus livros à mão aqui agora) uma frase que dizia:
“A estória não quer ser história”.
which doesn’t shed much light because Guimarães Rosa is brazilian too, but it’s a great quote and a great illustration of the two words in action!
Update to the Update:
First reply from a Portuguese student confirms it is not used in Portugal and is regarded as an error. Video here explains everything:
Thank you Paulo and Bru for your answers to my question and thanks Manuel for your comment on this post (further acknowledgement deleted at request of person in question)
Here’s the top Portuguese nugget from today’s conversation with my Brazilian language partner.
While discussing English idioms I mentioned the expression “break a leg” as used by actors and he replied that the Portuguese equivalent is “muita merda” (a lot of shit).
Favourite word of the day: “Leiloeiro” – auctioneer. It came up with my Brazilian language partner when we were discussing that Banksy stunt at the auction (o leilão). As it turns out, Shredded is a very difficult word to say if you’re Brazilian.
It was a welcome relief from politics. We’d just done Brexit (during which he discovered that we British have over 300 was of saying “completely buggered”) and Bolsonaro (he’s a fan, gawdelpus)
Anyway, for a bit of light relief – I did a consoante perdido on twitter today so here it is:
"Ó Fausto, você tem domínio sobre todos os poderes e as cidades do mundo. A Belíssima Helena é a sua esposa. Chega a hora para comprir a sua obrigação sagrada. Deve ajudar-me criar uma ave aquática." "Pois é, faço um pato com o diabo."#lostconsonants#consoantesperdidos
Faustus, you have dominion over all powers and cities of the world. Fair Helen of Troy is your wife. The time has come to fulfill your sacred obligation: help me create an aquatic bird.
OK, sure, I’ll make a [pato=duck/pacto=pact] with the devil.
Not sure how well it works. I was a bit worried the spelling of pacto would have changed due to the AO, meaning they’d be um… Homonyms… Do I mean Homonyms? I think I do. Luckily the Brazilians seem to have see sense this time.
Well the job interview went OK I think. She suggested we just do half portuguese (I didn’t time it – but suspect substantially less than half actually…) and it’s just a preliminary interview so no job offer but she has passed my details along to colleagues with access to the companiy’s external clients in the cities where they operate so they can decide whether my skills are a match for their needs. And again I declare not-being-laughed-out-of-the-room as a kind of moral victory!
The salary though, fam! I expected it to be much lower than UK, and especially UK consultant day rates of course, I’m not an idiot, but the monthly rate is substantially lower than I earn in a week doing the same job as a freelancer in the UK. Ouch. So it’ll need some thinking through, depending on other things like whether my wife gets a job and so on, but it’s looking like it might be a hard transition to make, even temporarily… I’d love to do it for a while, I’d luuuurrrve to, but…
I translated my CV into portuguese today to apply for a job in Porto. Long story, to do with Brexit and dual citizenship. TBH, it’s unlikely to happen (although not quite as unlikely as the job in Germany someone tried to get me onto last week), but I’m someone who believes in flying a lot of kites and seeing which one gets me electrocuted.
Anyway, it was very interesting and involved trawling through a lot of tech manuals looking for words specific to the tech niche I live in. Here are a few, which I think I’ll need to turn into a memrise deck at some point.
Race Start (Patrick via FLICKR Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 2.0 License)
This is a reply to a query about the difference between the english words “begin” and “start”. I’ve written it in portuguese and english, with the english starting about half way down, and obviously all the examples are in english, even in the portuguese text.
Pensei muito nisso e discuti com uns outros faladores de inglês, incluindo uma americana, mas acho que não há grande diferença entra os dois países neste assunto. Continuo a acreditar que “start” e “begin”, têm o mesmo significado em 95 por cento das situações. Quando não são sinónimos, parece que o padrão é, de forme geral, que “begin” encaixa a ideia duma transição mais gradual, e “start” é uma mudança que acontece de repente. Isso não é uma regra muiiiiito forte. É o que chamamos um “rule of thumb” ou seja uma regra que é só uma guia mas não se aplica em todos os casos.
Por exemplo:
Situações em que “begin” é preferível ou é a única palavra que cabe na frase
I began running when I was in high school [verbo]
I have been running for three weeks but I am still a beginner [nome = novato/iniciante]
A book should have a beginning, a middle and an end [nome=início]
Situações em que “start” é a única palavra que cabe na frase
I started running when the PE teacher blew the whistle [verbo]
I started the engine [verbo]
The car won’t start [verbo]
Press the start button on your laptop [nome]
Situações em que a escolha de verbos depende do movimento, e pode influenciar a imagem mental do escritor
He was walking slowly but as the rain got heavier he began to run
He was walking slowly but when he heard footsteps behind him he started to run
Escolhi “start” aqui porque queria dá para entender que a pessoa mudou a taxa dos seus passos de repente, talvez num pânico. Na primeira frase, usa-se “begin” porque na minha imaginação andava cada vez mais rápido enquanto que a chuva tornava cada vez mais pesado, até começou a correr.
Vi alguns websites que dizem que “begin” é mais formal. Não acho que isso seja correcto. As vezes pode ser mais elegante mas isso é porque o ar abrupto de “start” pode diminuir a elegância. Por exemplo
If you’re all sitting comfortably, I will begin my 3 hour long poetry recital [verbo]
É melhor do que “start” porque poesia é algo que começa suavemente. “start” não era errado, mas “begin” soa melhor. Portanto, acho que isso de velocidade de transição é uma regra melhor até que tens um melhor conhecimento das subtilezas (absurdidades) da língua!
Espero que isso te ajude!
Notas de rodapé
Há mais um significado de “start” que é o saltinho que uma pessoa faz quando leva um susto. É mais relacionado com um outro verbo semelhante: “startle” mas transmite a mesma impressão dum movimento súbito. Se tudo fosse calma na casa e, de repente, eu estourei um balão, a minha mulher diria ou
“Agh! You startled me” ou
“Agh! You gave me a start”
2. Aliás, também existe mais um verbo “commence” que é obviamente um cognato da palavra portuguesa “começar” mas é muito mais formal e quase nunca usado na dia-a-dia.
[English version] 🇬🇧
I’ve thought about this a lot and discussed it with some other english speakers including an american, although there isn’t much difference between the american and british usage. I still think “start” and “begin”, are synonymous 95% of the time. When they’re not synonymous, the pattern seems to be that “begin” conveys a more gradual transition and “start” is more sudden. The rule isn’t veerrry strong, but it’s a good rule of thumb when in doubt.
For example:
Situations where “begin” is the best or the only option
I began running when I was in high school [verb]
I have been running for three weeks but I am still a beginner [noun = novato/iniciante]
A book should have a beginning, a middle and an end [noun=início]
Situations in which “start” is the best or the only option
I started running when the PE teacher blew the whistle [verb]
I started the engine [verb]
The car won’t start [verb]
Press the start button on your laptop [noun]
Situations where the choice of words might depend on the style
He was walking slowly but as the rain got heavier he began to run
He was walking slowly but when he heard footsteps behind him he started to run
I chose “start” in the second example because I imagine the person suddenly changing pace when they hear someone following them, maybe out of fear. In the first, I chose “begin” because I think they might have gradually walked faster and faster as the rain got heavier and heavieer, until finally they start running.
I’ve seen websites that suggest “begin” is more formal. I don’t really agree with this, but sometimes the suddenness implied by “start” can puncture the elegance of a formal situation. For example, an announcement in a theatre
If you’re all sitting comfortably, I will begin my 3 hour long poetry recital [verbo]
Here, “begin” is better because it fits better with the gentle nature of a poetry reading. “Start” would not be wrong, but “begin” sounds right. That’s why I think this idea of gradual change vs sudden changes is a better guide than formal vs informal
I hope that helps!
Footnotes
There’s another meaning of “start”, which is the little jump someone makes when they get frightened suddenly. It’s related to a similar verb “startle”, so if I were to suddenly burst a balloon in the house when everything was calm and peaceful, my wife might say either
“Agh! You startled me” or
“Agh! You gave me a start”
2.There’s another verb “commence” that’s obviously cognate with the portuguese word “começar” but it’s much more formal and tends not to be used much in day-to-day conversation.
Luso 