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Category: English
Portuwelsh
I’m in Wales for the Hay festival and… Made a linguistic observation….
Bookish Vocabulary
Memrise Portuguese vocabulary deck for talking about books http://www.memrise.com/course/1932955/
Dois Falsos Amigos
It’s been a while since I posted any of those “Key Learnings” from lessons and I should probably do it more to give my crap memory a bit of a nudge to do its job. So here are couple of things I picked up from today’s Aula. They’re both really close near-cognates with subtly different meanings:
Consensual
This word looks like a straight-up cognate but it’s diverged slightly from the english meaning and stayed closer to “consensus” than “consent”.
É consensual no meio cientifica nao haver o direito de modificar o patrimonio hereditário da espécie humana.
…means something like “It’s agreed by everyone in the field of science that we don’t have the right to modify the human genetic heritage”
Presentear
This word obviously comes from the same root as the verb “to present” but it isn’t used in the positive sense – presenting people with gifts or medals, for example, only ironically in negative situations.
O objectivo é conseguir substâncias capazes de corrigir os efeitos com que a natureza vai presenteado os homens
…means something like “The objective is to find substances that can correct the symptoms with which nature has presented people”
New Shirt
VVN
I came across this abbreviation in Português Empresarial. Nobody seemed to know what it meant but a Brazilian named Cynthia solved the mystery. It stands for ” volume de negócios” -ie, a company’s turnover. I don’t know why the second V is there. Maybe the person who invented it had a stutter (“gagueira” if you want to know – or “gaguejar” in the verb form)
Podcast Latest
I tend to update every so often about the state of Portuguese language podcasts. Currently, Practice Portuguese seems to have entered another lull. Their podcasts are very infrequent and I have cancelled my subs because I don’t use the website much and it felt like I had given them enough money, but I might start it again if they seem to be doing more things I can use.
Meanwhile, my current favourite, Portuguese with Carla has followed their example by using a subscription model. They’re going to start releasing shorter podcasts for the general public and the full thing only for Carla’s own personal students. Since her time is limited and she charges pretty high-end rates, I can’t imagine there will be many of those, so it’ll be a pretty limited listenership, I should think. The first series, with 50 episodes, is still available though and still well worth a listen, especially for newbies, since it is very slow and very gentle but doesn’t lack depth! I think they are expanding in other areas too, and they even have a range of t-shirts with portuguese phrases on them*.
Say it in Portuguese is still knocking out the occasinal episode but is fairly dormant and Portuguese Lab Podcast seems to be chugging along, although I must admit I haven’t really got to grips with it yet.
*Speaking of t-shirts, I am definitely having something off Cão Azul next birthday…
O Vocabulário de Negócios
I’ve just put together a Memrise deck with vocabulary from Portugues Empresarial in case anyone’s interested in vocabulary related to business. I think I’d like to do more of these theme decks in future – maybe one for computing hardware and software, for example. It’s a bit more useful, I think, than the long lists of nouns and verbs I’ve done in the past.
Latest Monkey/Branch News
I came across another reference to monkeys and branches in Bruno Nogueira’s Mata Bicho podcast: “Cada macaco no seu galho”. It reminded me of the one I mentioned a few weeks back. I guess Portuguese speakers must really like monkeys because I can think of at least two other monkey-related expressoes: “Vai pentear macacos” and “macaquinhos na cabeça” (here). This new one means “Each monkey on his own branch” or, less literally “people should mind their own business”.
It’s mentioned in a song here (#braziliandialectklaxon)
By the way, I always thought Mata Bicho meant something like “bug killer”, which it kinda does but it’s an expression that can mean a tip (in some places) or a little drink taken at breakfast time. So I guess “hair of the dog” then…?
My Fin-dow Box
Today’s fish pun isn’t quite as good as yesterday’s, I know, and I promise this isn’t a new blog theme or anything, but I just wanted to share this new word I heard today: I mentioned the geraniums (gerânio) in my window box and it turns out the common name for them in Portugal is “Sardinheira”. Taking a line through other plant names: Pereira (pear tree), amendoeira (almond tree) cerejeira (cherry tree), bananeira (banana tree), framboeseira (raspberry bush) – and it seems to mean “Sardine Plant” which I like very much. It’s offishally the best word ever.
Luso 