This was mentioned on an episode of “Uma Nespera No Cu” so I had to look it up and now I can never unsee it.
O Pastor
I was bowled over by Jéssica Cipriano’s version of Madredeus’s O Pastor when I watched it the other day, shortly after hearing her version of Olá Solidão. It’s so, so good. When she really cuts loose at around 4.20, my eyes were filling up and my soul left my body. I think the pianist, David Antunes, was right there with me too. Holy shit! How is this woman not a million times more famous? How do I not even see an album of hers on Spotify? How is she not smashing Eurovision? It’s some sort of conspiracy to hide her from the ears of foreigners, I reckon.
Here’s the original from the 1990 album, Existir. You can see it’s got a richer musical arrangement, and the singer’s voice is beautiful in an ethereal way. but it’s too ethereal for me, and the band has never really grabbed me for that reason, even though they were the first portuguese band I ever listened to. They remind me of bands like Clannad, the Cocteau Twins and Enya. I feel like the voice is being used as a musical instrument; there’s not much emotion there and the words don’t really matter so much so it’s hard to get into.
| Português | Inglês |
|---|---|
| Ai que ninguém volta Ao que já deixou Ninguém larga a grande roda Ninguém sabe onde é que andou | Oh, nobody goes back To what they left Nobody lets go of the big wheel Nobody knows where they’ve been |
| Ai que ninguém lembra Nem o que sonhou Aquele menino canta A cantiga do pastor | Oh nobody remembers Not even what they dreamed That child sings The song of the shepherd |
| Ao largo Ainda arde A barca Da fantasia O meu sonho acaba tarde Deixa a alma de vigia Ao largo Ainda arde A barca Da fantasia O meu sonho acaba tarde Acordar é que eu não queria | In the distance It’s still burning The boat Of fantasy My dream ends late Leave your soul on guard In the distance It’s still burning The boat Of fantasy My dream ends late Waking up is what I didn’t want |
O Namorado
A minha filha está a estudar numa faculdade na Escócia. Começou recentemente a namorar com um jovem que está a estudar no mesmo curso. Está muito feliz. Ainda bem porque isso significa que não tenho de o assassinar. Ah ah, estou a brincar. Ou estou*?
Os dois vão passar uns dias connosco durante os feriados. De vez em quando, ela envia-me uma mensagem a dizer algo como “Vais gostar dele pai. Ele está ansioso por te conhecer.”
Acho que ela está ligeiramente preocupada caso eu não o aceitar. E é verdade que os pais das raparigas exibem uma certa hostilidade para com** os namorados delas. Porque são preciosas e ninguém é digno das nossas princesas. Muitas vezes, quando ela era nova, perguntei-me: “E se ela levar um javardola qualquer para casa?”
Mas ela não é parva. Escolheu um rapaz inteligente, respeituoso e com um bom sentido de humor, que gosta muito dela. Não me admira, porque confio nela e sei bem que ela não aceitaria um homem que não a apreciasse. Mas entendo o constrangimento por parte deles. Ela também vai conhecer os pais (e o cão) dele. Pais de namoradas podem ser intimidantes e cães são… são cães, basicamente. Quando era pequena um cão bateu nas costas dela com as patas*** anteriores que a derrubou, e desde então, está de pé**** atrás.
Mas tenho toda a certeza que vamos ter umas boas festas: eu, ela, o namorado e até o cãozinho.
*”Or am I?” makes me laugh, but it is of course not really a portuguese expression.
**Para com seems to be one of those things that exists in portuguese that doesn’t really have a close analogy in english, but here’s a Ciberdúvidas page that explains how it’s used.
***I wrote pés because I am a silly man
****I originally wrote that she had “uma pulga atrás da orelha” but I think that’s a different kind of distrust, but let’s look on the bright side, at least I managed to recycle the word “pé” from the previous clause.
Thanks again to Cristina of Say It In Portuguese for correcting the text – although I might have messed a couple of them up through my own lack of understanding and you can blame me if I have!
Uma Visita Ao Hospital
Passei umas horas no hospital esta manhã. A minha esposa trabalha lá como assistente de cuidados de saúde. Saiu da casa para o seu emprego às 7 horas, mas às 9, ligou-me para dizer que se sentia fraca e com tonturas, portanto o médico tinha-a enviado para às urgências onde vários funcionários mediram a sua pressão arterial, fizeram-lhe um teste de gravidez (que seria uma surpresa, e muito inconveniente, mas a menos, desde que a macaquinha se foi embora, já temos um quarto a mais onde podemos colocar um berço …. ah ah ah) e geralmente inspecionaram a saúde geral. Cheguei uma hora depois com uma garrafa de água e toda a empatia que tenho.
Os enfermeiros e médicos foram muito simpáticos mas havia um jovem funcionário à porta do cubículo onde se encontrava a minha esposa que estava a explicar várias teorias de conspiração parvas ao seu amigo (que entretanto estava a tentar fazer o seu trabalho) e eu fiquei cheio de vontade de lhe dar um par de bofetadas* para restaurar um sentido de realidade.
Depois de algum tempo um médico chegou ao pé da cama e informou-a de que tinha de ficar no hospital durante 3 dias. Nós dois começamos a gaguejar, ultrajados, mas o homem estava a brincar – o seu problema de saúde não passou de uma ligeira desidratação. Eh pá… não nos faças isso!
Regressámos para casa e ela está a fazer uma soneca no sofá.
*Originally “bofetadas na cara” but bofetadas can only be in the face, apparently – cf Priberam
I published this one in a hurry because I needed to rant a bit, but thanks again to Cristina of Say It In Portuguese for correcting the text by email within a few minutes of my uploading it!
Olá Solidão
Today’s translation is from Os Quatro e Meio. Why are they called that? You’d think, wouldn’t you, that maybe there were 5 of them but one was a dog so they only count him as half because he can’t play the mandolin. But no, there are six of them. So… what, are three of them dogs? How many mandolins do they need in one band? I’ve googled it but I’ve no idea how to account for the numerical disparity* Anyway, they hail from Coimbra and they are alumni of the student music scene down there but they branched out and found themselves a following in the country as a whole. They seem very earnest young men and you can see how they’d appeal to people who like easnest young men, preferably with eyebrows and suits, and it’s a good pop song: simple, catchy and with plenty of scope to let loose on the vocals In fact, here’s Jéssica Cipriano absolutely singing the hell out of it with a very minimal musical accompaniment and it’s even better than the original. I’d never heard of her before but she has an absolutely phenomenal voice.
The translation is mostly pretty easy, although I struggled a bit with “Fiz bandeira de um velho ditado / Melhor só que mal acompanhado”. Nothing hard about it, but when I translate it the two lines didn’t seem to fit together which made me think I’d missed something and I tried experimenting with alternative meanings of “acompanhar”. For example, it’s the verb Google Mail uses when it asks if you want to follow up an email that you’ve sent and not had a reply. So I was thinking maybe “it’s only better than barely following things up….” Desparate stuff. Anyway, the punctuation makes the difference because of course “Melhor só que mal acompanhado” is the ditado mentioned in the first line. He decided to live by the idea that it’s better to go alone than in bad company
| Português | Inglês |
|---|---|
| Eu já fui assim Tão focado em mim Sem querer conselhos De ninguém Fiz das nuvens lar Saltei sem olhar Crendo que no fim sairia tudo bem | I used to be like that** So focused on myself Without wanting advice From anyone I made a home in the clouds I jumped without looking Believing in the end it would be fine |
| Fiz bandeira de um velho ditado: “Melhor só que mal acompanhado” Nem pensava em apoiar os pés no chão Olá, solidão Olá, solidão | I made a flag of an old saying: “Better alone than in bad company” I never thought of keeping my feet on the ground Hello solitude Hello solitude |
| Eu tinha um lugar Com vista pra o mar Que ninguém chegou a conhecer Voei rente ao céu Tudo era só meu E o que ainda não era Iria ser | I had a place With a sea view That nobody ever got to know I flew close to the sky Everything was all mine And whatever wasn’t yet Was going to be |
| Olho em volta, agora estou sozinho Não liguei às placas do caminho Nem parei pra perguntar a direção Olá, solidão Olá, solidão | I look around, now I’m alone I didn’t pay attention to the road signs I didn’t stop to ask directions Hello Solitude Hello Solitude |
| Fiz bandeira de um velho ditado: “Melhor só que mal acompanhado” Nem pensava em apoiar os pés no chão | I made a flag of an old saying: “Better alone than in bad company” I never thought of keeping my feet on |
| Olho em volta, agora estou sozinho Não liguei às placas do caminho Nem parei pra perguntar a direção Olá, solidão Olá, solidão | I look around, now I’m alone I didn’t pay attention to the road signs I didn’t stop to ask directions Hello Solitude Hello Solitude |
| Eu já fui assim Tão focado em mim Sem querer conselhos De ninguém | I was always like this So focused on myself Without wanting advice From anyone |
* EDIT: A helpful reader has suggested this web page as the source of the name: “Começámos por ser só cinco. Salvo seja, já que o Rui [Marques, contrabaixista] não tem dimensão para isso. Não é que o valor dele ano seja igual ao dos outros mas a estatura dele deixa um pouco a desejar” – I assume that “ano” is a typo for “não” or possibly “anão” heh heh
** Thanks to Liliana for suggesting I tweak the tense here (see comments below 👇)
Exercícios Lacunares
Now that I’ve finished Qual É A Dúvida I’ve returned to the bloody awful, boring “Português Outra Vez“, aimed at C1/C2 level students. On the face of it, there’s no reason it should be so dull: both books are just page after page of exercícios lacunares (missing word problems), but they’ve ordered it into three sections and within each section they’re all the same *kind* of missing words. I’m currently part way through 60 pages of verb+preposition. I have a copy of the Guia Prático de Verbos com Preposições for any that I don’t already know. Helena Ventura is co-author of both books, so the examples are often quite similar.
Now, that much repetition could be useful if it was drilling the variations of dar+preposition or passar+preposition but there’s surprisingly little repetition of those. Dar appears just twice, I think, and ser, passar, ficar seem only to be there once. Instead we’re doing easy things like gostar de, precisar de, plus some fairly obscure ferns that only ever take one preposition anyway. It’s not ideal and I am finding it much harder to stay motivated. I’ll see how it goes but I might just open a window and fling it at the pigeons outside.
The other two sections are expressões idiomáticas and vocabulário. I feel like this is all good meat-and-potatoes stuff, necessary for building core competencies for the advanced exam, so I hope the pigeons enjoy it.
More practically, I suppose I should hope between sections to break up the monotony or something.
Aaaaanyway, enough moaning. I’m writing out some that I got wrong, hoping they’ll stick in my mind better:
Não Conseguimos convencê-lo; ele torce pelo Benfica e não muda de ideias. I got torcer por, but failed to realise that Benfica needed a definite article. Torcer por =Ser adepto de = to be a supporter of
Todas as pessoas devem ser compassiva e solidárias, olhando a quem está em situação de pobreza e depende da ajuda dos outros. Again, i got the right formula – olhar a – but I used the imperativo. That probably would have worked if there were a full stop after “solidárias” but it doesn’t make sense as it is and I should have rethought it. Olhar a =ter em consideração =to look out for
Quantas costeletas tocam a cada pessoa? Parecem-me poucas para tanta gente. I had no clue here and just guessed badly. Tocar a = calhar a =to… Hm, it’s a difficult one to translate neatly but the whole sentence is like “How many cutlets are there for each person”. It can also mean “to have to do with” or “to compete for”
O António foi falar com o chefe e foi pedir-lhe pela colega da receção, para que o chefe a promovesse, pois ela merecia. I got the wrong end of the stick with this one. I didn’t realise Antonio was a worker in the same firm. I thought he was a customer who was recommending the receptionist for promotion. Conseqiently I messed it up. Pedir por =interceder a favor de= to ask on behalf of, to act as an intermediary.
Há pessoas tão ambiciosas que não olham a meios para atingir os fins. I missed the relevance of this. And used “ser contra” instead. Olhar a =atender a = care about. So in this case they don’t care what means they have to use to achieve their ends. We’ve all met people like that, eh? Some people are so ambitious to be a good portuguese students they will even stoop to doing the actual exercises diligently.
Não compares um Ferrari com um Toyota! São completamente diferentes! I used a in place of com. Classic overliteral translation from English. Compare x WITH y, not x TO y. Comparar com = colocar em igualdade com =Make a comparison. The way this is phrased implies that the comparison will always be of equality, but priberam is much closer to the English notion of comparing. Ie, you can make an unfavourable comparison, but even though “this is a million times better than that” is a comparison, people will often be opposed to you comparing Shakespeare to Dan Brown or whatever, feeling that Shakespeare is somehow demeaned by being spoken of in the same breath as such a terrible writer, and I assume that’s what’s going in in the example.
O Amor Infinito Que Te Tenho
I read this banda desenhada back in 2018 but I found it heavy going at the time and I decided to go back to it. At the time, what I said was
Hum… O livro tem 60 páginas e contém 10 contos. Obviamente, estamos na presença dum autor que usa um estilo bem lacónico. As histórias são esquisitas, escuras, perturbantes – mais parecidas com os contos de Franz Kafka do que uma BD tradicional. Na verdade, apenas dois contos têm a marca duma BD: balões de texto. Os outros são, antes, pequenos trechos de ficção, alguns pouco maiores do que um tweet, ilustrados com desenhos escuros ou arrepiantes. Fico contente por ter lido mas não tenho a certeza se apreciei. Vou colocá-lo numa prateleira longe da minha cama para não ter pesadelos.
But here’s what I came up with in 2023, with more fluency of reading (not having to hit the dictionary every 30 seconds)
Ah ah, a opinião do eu de há 5 anos não está assim tão longe da verdade, apesar do seu fraco domínio do idioma, mas aquele rapaz com 48 anos não tinha noção da paixão que fundamenta a maior parte do livro. No primeiro conto, o narrador tem um amor escondido. Está esboçado na forma dum monstro ou um demónio que brama fora do apartamento da amada. Noutros, encontramos outras formas de amor: amor de filhos pelos seus pais, netos pelos avós, e de uma barata gigante pelo dono da casa onde vive. Coisas quotidianas, estás a ver? Cada história tem o seu próprio estilo artístico, mas há uma sensação arrepiante que se difunde pelo livro todo. Trata-se de um amor assombrado por uma angústia existencial.
Once again I’m indebted to Cristina of “Say it in Portuguese” for correcting the errors in the original draft.
Lordy Lord – Another One!
Ouro Sobre Azul
Well this is a new one. What does it mean? It was sent to me in an email and it’s interetsing because what the person seemed to mean by it is not exactly clear from the explanation Ciberdúvidas gives. First, here’s Ciberdúvidas
‘Numa distribuição circular das cores verificamos que o amarelo se opõe ao azul assim como o vermelho se opõe ao verde. Por esse facto, o contraste entre o azul e o amarelo bem como o contraste entre o vermelho e o verde são os mais bem definidos.
in Ciberdúvidas da Língua Portuguesa, https://ciberduvidas.iscte-iul.pt/consultorio/perguntas/ouro-sobre-azul/13660 [consultado em 29-11-2023]
Como o ouro brilha, o contraste é ainda mais impressionante. Esta combinação era muito frequente no vestuário das rainhas e até dos reis desde o Renascimento aos finais do século XVIII.’
So, basically, the first two sentences explain that Gold and Blue are opposite each other in a colour wheel so they are a strong contrast and they stand out well. So… it means it’s a contradiction then? the exact opposite? That didn’t seem to be what my email correspondent meant. But the second part of the text gives more of a clue: the fact that the yellow pops out so well makes it a popular combination in royal clothing (remember the Queen’s controversial hat a few years ago?). So that might mean it’s something different but in a good way.
And sure enough, if you look up the phrase on reverso-context, it gives most of the translations as something like “the icing on the cake”: something that would be a nice, striking addition to an already good thing, which I think is how it seemed to be being used. I think this is a rare example of Ciberdúvidas not being very helpful, but maybe that’s because they assume the person asking the question already knows the definition so it didn’t need spelling out. Fair enough!
I Keep Reading Back…
…Over my old posts and thinking I’ve made some pretty good points over the years. I just wished I remembered them after writing them down. Instead, when I stumble upon a post from 4 years ago about prepositions I think “Oh that’s very clever. Did I write this?”
Some of it’s pretty good. I need to take a weekend out and read the whole lot to see what I could learn from it. It might be depressing though. The other day I wrote a blog post and then realised I’d already done one on the same topic (here). Then the other day, when I was looking for something, I came across a post from 2021 about “assim ou assado” and realised I’d forgotten that and duplicated it too, following on from the Raquel Sem Interesse book I read in the summer.
Hugh Laurie said that at his age reading was like filling a bath with the plug out, and I feel the same with portuguese. I’m only retaining about 10% of what I learn, I think. I’m on a slippery slope that ends with someone asking me if I know who the prime minister is.
Luso 