I fancied doing another translation, and there’s a song I saw a while ago and mentally filed under “What the hell did I just see?” so here I am, coming back to give it a more thorough treatment.
I’ve definitely mentioned Joaquim de Magalhães Fernandes Barreiros before and I think described him as Portugal’s Benny Hill. He does smutty, innuendo-laden songs and he’s well-liked by many and perhaps a source of embarrassment to others. He’s well-known enough that Netflix chose him to promote its series Sex Education in Portugal – and here’s the result.
OK, well this is going to be fun. *Cracks Knuckles*
The first thing to point out is that a few times in the lyrics he addresses the listeners directly and he does this using the vós form of the imperative tense. This is pretty uncommon. In fact, the first time I saw it I almost had an aneurism becaue I thought it was a new tense that I’d never seen before. I’ll highlight it in the portuguese text for anyone who doesn’t recognise it.
| Educação Sexual | Sex Education |
| Rapazes e raparigas Ligai o computador Vamos todos aprender Como é que se faz amor | Boys and girls Turn on the computer We’re all going to learn How to make love |
| É hora de despertar Para a vida sexual Uns vão gostar de banana Os outros de bacalhau | It’s time to wake up To sexual life Some people like banana The others, cod |
| Seja homem ou mulher Não importa a orientação A realidade é sempre Melhor que a fricção | Whether man or woman It doesn’t matter the orientation The reality is always Better than friction* |
| Falai abertamente De sexo sem timidez Está na hora de começar Aguentas oito de uma vez? | Speak openly About sex, without shyness It’s time to start Can you handle eight at once? |
| Para cima, para baixo Está no ir, está no quente Enfiai devagarinho E gozai suavemente | Up and down It’s on the go**, it’s in the warm Put it in slowly And have fun***, gently |
| Para cima, para baixo Está no ir, está no quente Enfiai devagarinho E gozai suavemente Aguentas oito de uma vez? Aguentas oito de uma vez? Aguentas oito de uma vez? | Up and down It’s on the go, it’s in the warm Put it in slowly And have fun, gently Can you handle eight at once? Can you handle eight at once? Can you handle eight at once? |
* Reality is better than f(r)iction is obviosuly a pun. There are a few ways of expressing the equivalent of “truth is stranger than fiction” in portuguese, but this is legitimately one of them – see this TSF Rádio Notícias article, for example.
**Not sure about the translation here. “Está no ir” isn’t a phrase that comes up a lot if you google it, but it does seem to mean what you’d think if you translated it literally “It’s on the go”
***Gozar usually means to enjoy something in european portuguese – “gozar de férias” (enjoy the holidays) is an example given on priberam, so I’ve just translated it like that. However, the fact that in brazilian portuguese it also means “have an orgasm” is pretty obviously going to be relevant, given what he’s singing about!
Luso 