Here’s an interesting-looking thing. It’s a sort of historical-based series. Time-travel involved? Not sure exactly but it seems to have a good reputation so I plan on taking a peek this weekend.
Category: English
Her Name Was Lula, She Was a Shoegirl
Another joke from the Caderno that I didn’t get at the time but have since had explained to me
Estão um pargo e uma lula a conduzir e o pargo ultrapassa a lula de maneira brusca. Vira-se a lula:
-Tás pargo, pá?
-Calula
A Lula is a squid (I knew that) and a pargo (well, o pargo, but you know what I mean) is a red snapper (I didn’t know that but guessed it some kind of marine creature). And the unpunned version of the dialogue would be
-‘Tás parvo, pá?
-Caluda!
or
“Are you stupid, mate?”
“Shut it!”
Thanks to Fernanda for deciphering this fishy confusion for me
Old Monkeys
Favourite new phrase of the week: “Macaco velho não pisa em galho seco.”, which means “An old monkey doesn’t step on a dry branch”, in other words, an experienced person doesn’t make stupid mistakes. I’m not sure how region-specific it is (I heard it in a Mozambican film). And of course, if using it, make sure and get that “lh” sound right in “Galho”, because if you pronounce it “Galo” it’s a “cock” and “Gálio” is “galium”, and monkeys seldom step on either of those things, no matter how dry or otherwise they might be.
Spice Oddity
Dawn of the Dedo
Well, Shit.
So something a bit depressing happened today: I got the result of my second B2 exam. As I might have mentioned, it didn’t go as well as I hoped but I was expecting to creep up a bit from the miserly “suficiente” I got twelve months earlier to a “bom”. Today, it finally came through and it said…. “insuficiente”… meaning I have actually got worse after a full year of study.
Except of course, I haven’t, I’ve got quite a bit better. My conversation is still a bit stilted but I can write reasonably well, understand most of the podcasts I listen to, and I read 17 Portuguese books last year, some of them pretty heavy. So, what went wrong? Well, ultimately, I suppose, I am still pretty weak on a lot of important points of language. Add to that a lack of exam prep and just general having-a-bad day, and you get a pile of poo. It was a bit of a blow to my confidence. I’m not going to bloody stop though. Exams are a useful way of motivating myself (well – heh – sometimes) but I’m in it for the books and the mind-expansion, so. I’m not going to lie down in a ditch and give up because I got one shit result.
Tense, Nervous Headache
I had a but if a shock today when I saw a weird verb conjugation in a book I was reading (“Pessoas que Usam Bonés-com-Helices” which I recommend as a funny, short, cheap read!). It’s the word “tremei” in the final bubble here:
I asked Mrs L what it was and she said it was the “imperious” tense, which sounds a bit Slytherin to me, but never mind. Then I came across two more examples in my other book, “Para Onde Vão Os Guard-Chuvas” in a chapter narrated by the angel of death. I was thinking “God, not another tense! And this one apparently waits three years and then mugs me three times in one day!”. However, apparently that’s not what it is – it’s just the imperative, and the reason I didn’t recognise the ending was because it was the vós part of the verb, which hardly ever comes up in normal life.
Whew!
Oh Look, Another Podcast!
I heard about the Portuguese Lab Podcast via a F**ebook group (which I joined grudgingly – I have been studiously avoiding becoming enmeshed in Zuckerberg’s tentacles). It seems like a good addition to my existing stable of audio, maybe taking the place of Say it in Portuguese, which seems to have gone quiet lately.
Fado Bicha
I heard this um… bloke? To be honest, I don’t know, but let’s say bloke because beard. So as I was saying, I heard this bloke on Cinco Para Meia-Noite and I think he has a really interesting voice, quite different from most fadistas, and yet, you know, the same. I can’t seem to find any music online other than on Youtube but I’m definitely adding a few videos to my PT Music playlist.
A bit disappointed
Well, I’ve done the exam. It went OK. I mean, I’ve no doubt I passed and with a better mark than last time, but I have a nagging feeling of disappointment that I didn’t smash it. I’ve had a whole year since I took the test for the first time and barely passed. Now I think I’ve bumped my mark up from “barely scraping by” to “not bad I suppose”. That’s not much to show for the effort I’ve put in (and I really have you know!)
Anyway, for now, I’m not going to be disheartened. I’ll crack on with what I was doing and maybe try to be more active in writing and talking. That seems to be the key, I think: producing language, not just passively absorbing it by listening or reading (although I will still be doing those things too)
Luso 