Posted in English, Portuguese

Efe(c)tivamente

Posted on by Colin Lusk

O blogue de hoje é mais uma tradução. O título não segue o acordo ortográfico mas não me importa. A palavra “efe(c)tivamente” é cognata com a palavra inglesa “effectively” mas tem um valor ligeiramente diferente porque é usada muitas vezes em situações nas quais usamos “really”. Lê a segunda definição nesta página para mais informações.

PortugueseEnglish
Adoro o campo as árvores e as flores
Jarros e perpétuos amores
Que fiquem perto da esplanada de um bar
Pássaros estúpidos a esvoaçar
Adoro as pulgas dos cães
Todos os bichos do mato
O riso das crianças dos outros
Cágados de pernas para o ar		I love the field, the trees, the flowers
Jugs and everlasting loves
That are close to the tables of a bar
Stupid birds, fluttering
I love the dogs’ fleas
All the woodland creatures
The laugh of children and others
Terrapins with their legs in the air
Efectivamente escuto as conversas
Importantes ou ambíguas
Aparentemente sem moralizar		Effectively, I listen to important and ambiguous conversations
Apparently without moralising.
Adoro as pegas e os pederastas que passam
Finjo nem reparar
Na atitude tão clara e tão óbvia
De quem anda a enganar
Adoro esses ratos de esgoto
Que disfarçam ao pilar
Como se fossem mafiosos convictos
Habituados a controlar		I love the whores* and the pederasts who pass by
I pretend not to notice
In the clear, obvious attitude
Of one who is being deceptive
I love those sewer rats
Who hide behind the pillar
As if they were convicted mafiosos
Used to being iin control
Efectivamente gosto de aparência
Imponente ou inequívoca
Aparentemente sem moralizar		Effectively I like imposing or unequivocal appearance
Apparently without moralising
Efectivamente gosto de aparência
Aparentemente sem moralizar
Aparentemente escuto as conversas		Effectively I like appearance apparently without moralising
Apparently I listen to conversation
Efectivamente sem moralizar
Efectivamente, sem moralizar
Aparentemente, sem moralizar
Efectivamente		Effectively without moralising
Effectively, wothout moralising
Apparently, without moralising
Effectively

*This could be translated a few different ways but I guess this is the one he means, unless the paedos were chasing a magpie!

Posted in Portuguese

Frases de Engate

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Claro que, como estudante desta língua, não tenho tempo para praticar a arte de sedução e ainda por cima a minha esposa não me permitiria, mas o Dia dos Namorados está quase a chegar e achei que alguns de vocês, os meus caros leitores, podiam gostar desta lista de frases de engate que roubei desta página do Observador de há oito anos.

Confesso que gosto muito da terceira (ah ah, soou como um daqueles anúncios de Clickbait “A terceira vai te chocar!”) mas concordo com o cabeçalho; são mesmo horríveis. Este julgamento não visa criticar o machismo implícito nas frases. Isso seria aceitável se fossem engraçadas mas…. eh pá… “Posso pagar-te um copo ou preferes dinheiro?” Boa sorte em limpar a Sagres da tua camisa depois de dizer essa merda!

Vou explicar cada uma em inglês para quem não sabe, mas estou demasiado constrangido para pedir ajuda de um professor , portanto pode haver alguns erros. Desculpem. (Obrigado pela ajuda, Cristina)

  • Que pernas tão bonitas. A que horas abrem? [“What great legs. What time do they open?”]
  • Ó fêvera! Junta-te aqui à brasa! [fêvera = febra, so “Hey, fresh meat, come over here to the charcoal”]
  • Ó joia! Anda aqui ao ourives. [“Hey, jewel, come to the goldsmith”]
  • Usas cuecas TMN? É que tens um rabo que é um mimo! [“Do you wear TMN knickers? Because your bum is a treat” (TMN seems to be a brand of undercrackers, but it used to be the name of a telecoms company who used a mime (“mimo” can mean both “mime” and “treat”) in its ads. You can see an example here. Considering how old it is (the ad gives prices in Escudos!) I can’t imagine this is going to get you very far in 2024]
  • Ó flor… Dá para pôr?! [“Hey, flower, can you be laid?” Not sure about this one: por can be used for laying flowers eg on a grave, and there’s obviously a double meaning, so I think this is probably the closest I can get] [No, apparently it’s even cruder than that. It means “Hey, flower, can I put my dick in you?” Fuxake, rapazes, não têm rizz nenhuma?]
  • Ó estrela, queres cometa? [“Hey, star, do you want a comet?” I guess this is meant to sound like “comer esta”]
  • Andas na tropa? É que já marchavas. [“Are you in the army? It’s just that you were looking really good” Assuming this is the fifth, informal definition of “marchar” here)]
  • Contigo… era até achar petróleo! [“With you… it was like striking oil” This is a weird one because it sounds like something you say after you’ve slept with someone, not before]
  • Posso tocar no teu umbigo… por dentro? [“Can I touch your navel… from the inside?”]
  • Tens um rabo que parece uma cebola. É de comer e chorar por mais! [“You have a bum like an onion. You eat it and cry for more”]
  • Sabes onde ficava bem essa roupa? No chão do meu quarto… [“D’you know where those clothes would look good? On my bedroom floor”]
  • Com umas boias dessas o Titanic não tinha ido ao fundo. [“With floats like that, the Titanic would never have sunk”]
  • Posso pagar-te um copo ou preferes dinheiro? [“Can I buy you a drink or would you prefer money?”]
  • Tanta carne e eu em jejum… [“So much meat and I’m fasting”]
  • Não és ave-maria, mas és cheia de graça! [“You’re not a hail Mary but you’re full of Grace”]
  • Estou a lutar desesperadamente contra o impulso de fazer de ti a mulher mais feliz do mundo. [“I’m desparately struggling against the impulse to make you the happiest woman in the world”]
  • O teu pai deve ser terrorista porque és cá uma bomba! [“Your dad must be a terrorist because you are da bomb!”]
  • Perdi a chave da minha casa, posso ir dormir na tua? [“I’ve lost my house key. Can I sleep at yours?”]
  • Com uma montra dessas… Imagino como é que é o armazém! [“With a shopfront like that, I’m picturing what must the storeroom be like!”]
Posted in English

A Couple of Unrelated Blatherings

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Writing this lot out so I remember it.

Plantention

Niche point about the difference between planning to do a thing and intending to do a thing. I recently had an exercise to paraphrase the following snippet

“visa colocar o país”

It’s obviously not a full sentence so it’s a little difficult to do. “Visa” here doesn’t mean a visa you use to get into a country, it’s part of “visar”, which means “aim”, either literally (aiming a weapon) or in the sense of intending or having an objective.

So a good translation would be something like “intends to put the country” (in the original, it was followed by something like “…on a path toward sporting success”). Well, I suppose I was thinking something like that needs a long term strategy, or, if you like, a plan, so the word I used in place of “visa” was “planeia”. That’s not precise enough though. Planear is about the journey to get to your objective, and visar is more to do with your intention.

Better synonyms of visar would have been “pretender”, “tencionar” or “objetivar”

O Papel Absorvente

I also had to come up with a synonym for “o papel absorvente”. You’re obviously supposed to think of aborbent paper like kitchen towel (as opposed to papel higiénico, which is toilet paper), but it’s a trick! Papel can also mean “role”, and in the context “a escola assume um papel muito absorvente na vida deles” (from here) it was saying that school occupied a role in their lives that absorbed a lot of their attention and free time.

Status

I said something about “estado social” intending to say “social status”, but it means “social state”. The word for status is actually “status”, which is weird becuse you don’t get many words in portuguese that start with st-. But there you have it: status social.

Equipa/e

I knew “equipe” was a “francesismo”*, but I was a bit thrown by seeing it used in the wild so I looked up both equipe and equipa in Priberam. The lexicographers haven’t really been very helpful in explaining it, but the TL;DR is that yes, equipa is the preferred spelling. It’s just that the frenchified version is allowed and is sometimes used. I suppose it’s like cafe/café in english. É doesn’t really exist in our alphabet, so cafe is the closest standard english spelling but nobody is going to have an aneurism if you bust out an accent.

Homem Rico vs Rico Homem; Velha Casa vs Casa Velha

Um rico homem seems to mean “a good/valued man” as opposed to just a rich man. It’s the eighth definition on Priberam, although they use it for netos rather than homens. A question on Wordreference Forums refers to a blog (sarcastically?) asking of José Socrates is “um rico homem ou um homem rico” but I can’t find the original.

There’s also an old-fashioned expression “rico-homem“. with a hyphen, which seems to mean a member of the nobility.

Velha casa seems to be more deprecative, meaning outmoded or old fashioned, as opposed to simply old. This meaning of velho is the fourth one in Priberam, but they use it with technology rather than houses. My sense is that this one isn’t as clear-cut. I don’t see many references or explainers, and it’s translated all sorts of ways in Linguee.

*Which sounds like it should mean “earthquake in Paris” but actually just means a word or phrase borrowed from french, just like anglicismo means a word or phrase borrowed from english.

Posted in Portuguese

Foyles

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Estávamos no centro de Londres para assistir a uma peça de teatro. Como o teatro fica perto da livraria Foyles, entrámos para que eu pusesse vasculhar nas estantes portuguesas. Antigamente, esta livraria era a melhor fonte de livros portuguesas, mas a secção portuguesa tinha encolhido ainda mais desde a minha última visita. O Império francês devorou mais estantes e sobram três e meia. 😢

Posted in Portuguese

Maria Cachucha

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Escrevi um texto na segunda-feira, que terminou com “tinham batido a bota longe antes”. Infelizmente esta frase está errada porque “longe” é uma palavra que descreve distâncias físicas. Por exemplo, a Ilha da Madeira fica longe de Portugal continental.

A substituição sugerida foi “no tempo da Maria Cachucha”. Quem é, ou quem foi, esta senhora? Ninguém! Ou seja, “ela” não era um ser humano, mas sim uma dança (igual ao corridinho! Que maravilha que quase todos os mistérios da língua portuguesa se resolvem da mesma maneira: “é uma dança”!

A cachucha era oriunda da Espanha mas segundo o Ciberdúvidas “teve uma certa voga na França” e depois, em Portugal, foi escrita uma letra gracejadora e zombeteira, a Maria Cachucha para acompanhar a música. Portanto, no século XIX, as pessoas dançavam os passos espanhóis ao seu som. Daí “no tempo da Maria Cachucha” significa muitos, muitos anos atrás.

Posted in English

New Things I’m Thinking of Trying.

Posted on by Colin Lusk

I’m going to make more of an effort to work on my spoken Portuguese, probably adopting some of the tips on this guy’s video, to work on my listening comprehension and my accent & rhythm of speech.

I occasionally tune in to what Internet polyglots are saying. Some of it is a bit wanky but sometimes they have really good ideas to give my routine a bit of a shake-up, and this video has lots of stealable material in it.

Important note to self: do it with portuguese though, not Swedish.

Posted in English

B👄cas

Posted on by Colin Lusk

I’m still watching videos from the occasionally excellent improv music show, Canta-me Uma História.

One of the things they often say during the live shows is “Não Mandem Bocas”. It’s used in the theme song and in the host’s t-shirt. So what does it mean? Don’t send mouths? Eh?

A boca, in this context, is a criticism. Specifically, a low-effort, smartarse remark. It’s the eleventh definition on Priberam – “comentário provocatório ou crítico”. So basically, a heckle. The audience has access to a big screen at the back of the stage and they can use it for requests and messages, so it seems they have a rule not to spoil the vibe by shit-talking the performers while they’re half way through some parody number they’ve written.

Posted in English, Portuguese

Falem Agora

Posted on by Colin Lusk

I don’t know how this song by Fábia Rebordão ended up on my playlist, but Spotify is convinced it’s something I should listen to. Good shout, Spotify, it’s pretty good. The theme is not wanting to listen to malicious gossip. It’s light and fluffy and fun to listen to.

PortugueseEnglish
Não ouço essas conversas
Isso é banal
Por serem tão perversas
Fazem-me mal		I don’t listen to those conversations
That’s boring
By being so perverse
They make me ill
Falem agora
Que eu estou por fora, e até já
Não se incomodem, deixem lá
Que eu já estou fora		Speak now
I’m outside and for the time being
Don’t bother, it doesn’t matter
Because I’m outside
Conversas de café
Não quero ter
Falar de outros não é
Só mau dizer		Conversations over coffee
I don’t want to have
To talk about others, it’s not
Just nasty talk
Falem agora
Que eu estou por fora, e até já
Não se incomodem deixem lá
Que eu já estou fora		Speak now
I’m outside and for the time being
Don’t bother, it doesn’t matter
Because I’m outside
Quem diz que viu, quem mente
Essas coisinhas
Nas costas de outra gente
Eu vejo as minhas		Whoever said they saw, whoever lied
Those little things
Behind other people’s backs
I watch mine
Falem agora
Que eu estou por fora, e até já
Não se incomodem deixem lá
Que eu já estou fora		Speak now
I’m outside and for the time being
Don’t bother, it doesn’t matter
Because I’m outside
Um caso mal contado
E outros que tais
Desligo passo ao lado
Leio jornais		A badly explained case
And so on
I switch off and step aside
I read the newspapers
Falem agora
Que eu estou por fora, e até já
Não se incomodem deixem lá
Que eu já estou fora		Speak now
I’m outside and for the time being
Don’t bother, it doesn’t matter
Because I’m outside
Posted in English

Armar(-se) Ao

Posted on by Colin Lusk
Image by rawpixel.com on Freepik

I’ve come across phrases like “Armar-se em valente” before, where “armar em” means put on a show. So armar-se em valente might be making a big show of what a heroic figure you are (shortly before being flattened) but I came across a slightly different version the other day: armar aos cucos. There are variations too: Armar aos cágados and Armar ao pingarelho. These all seem to mean more-or-less the same thing: to make yourself the centre of attention – for example by giving a huge tip (the example I saw at first) or by having an eye-catching look like in this make-up tutorial.