I’ve heard the word “Beto” or its diminutive, “Betinho”, being used a few times as a sort of derrogatory word for a rich, posh person – someone the kids today would call privileged. I think I first came across it in 1986 A Série but didn’t really wonder where it came from. Apparently it’s from the early eighties when a Brazilian Telenovela called Dancing Days first aired on portuguese TV. There was a character in that called Beto, who was the son of well-off parents. He was played by Lauro Corona. The series aired in the late seventies and made its way to Portugal in the early eighties, so it still would have been quite a new word in 1986 when Nuno Markl puts it into the mouths of his protagonists.
Anyway, here’s a clip from the original series. It has strong eighties vibes to me, but I guess these trends don’t fit precisely into decades, do they?
Episode 8963 of the series “words that mean wildly different things on different sides of the Atlantic”
Biscate seems like a useful word to have in your back pocket, but use it with care. In Portugal it refers to a side job, side huddle, or short term job. In the world of the gig economy, it seems like a good one to know.
Olha, aquele é mecânico nos estaleiros, mas faz uns “biscates” de electricidade por fora!
When this came up in online discussion, some Brazilian contributors found this funny because that’s not what it means in Brazil at all. Over there it refers to a woman who has lots of sexual partners – so equivalent to slut or slag or other derogatory terms.
A menina que ficava com todos garotos do colégio era chamada de biscate.
César from the Homo Causticus blog gave me a challenge a few days ago, to write about Brazilian Portuguese. Since this is a blog about European Portuguese, I thought the best way to do that would be to compare the two flavours. I’ve written it in English and then translated each paragraph into Portuguese as I go, just for the challenge. Thanks to dani_morgenstern and butt_roidholds for the corrections, but it’s quite long so if I have missed any errors, that’s all on me.
I quite often see people online asking what is the difference between Brazilian and European Portuguese and sometimes people will reply “there’s no difference, it’s just the accent”. Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. The accents certainly are different, but there’s a lot more to it than that. If you’re starting out on your Portuguese journey, you should definitely stick to just one version at first, at least until you have a good grounding in the language, because in addition to the accent you’ll find Brazilian Portuguese has quite a lot of differences in vocabulary, slightly different grammar, differences in spelling, even after the Acordo Ortográfico. They even have different ways of saying “you”. Brazil is a larger country with a more powerful media industry so I think Brazilians are probably less aware of the differences than Portuguese people are because they are less likely to be exposed to TV or movies in the other dialect.
Muitas vezes, vejo pessoas online a perguntar qual é a diferença entre Português brasileiro e Português europeu, e às vezes a resposta é “não há diferença, só há sotaques diferentes. Hum… Até certo ponto, Senhor Cobre*. Os sotaques são mesmo diferentes mas há mais do que isso. Se estiveres no início da tua “viagem” portuguesa, recomendo que permaneces com um único dialeto do idioma até ficares mais confiante porque, além do sotaque, irás achar que o português brasileiro tem diferenças de vocabulário, uma gramática ligeiramente alterada, algumas variações de ortografia (apesar do AO) e até uma outra maneira de usar o pronome da segunda pessoa singular. Brasil é um país maior com uma mídia mais ativa, portanto acho que os habitantes estão menos conscientes da distância entre os dois, porque estão menos expostos aos meios de comunicação do outro lado do Atlântico.
Of course, both countries have a range of accents, but in very general terms, Brazilians tend to be a lot easier to understand. They pronounce a lot of things in really surprising ways, but once you tune into it, it’s at least pretty clear. They don’t swallow as many letters, and you don’t find yourself struggling to pick out four or five words that have all been run together. The main thing that sounds weird to European ears is the way Ds and Ts sound when they appear before an E or an I. The D in a word like Divertir, say, sounds like a hard J, or like the DG sound in the English word “edge”. Meanwhile, the T in the same word sounds like the CH sound in a word like “Chips” . Check this page for an example. Brazilians also tend to hit vowels with a bit more emphasis, including the last syllable in a word ending in e. A word like “verdade” for example would be a two syllable word in Portuguese because the final E practically disappears and the D has a pleasing breathy quality to it (I really like it!). The same word in Brazilian has three syllables and sounds like “verDADgee”. There are examples of both on this page for you to compare. The effect is that Brazilian Portuguese has a “bouncier” rhythm to it.
Claro que ambos os países têm um leque de sotaques, portanto não faz sentido falar de “sotaque português” e “sotaque brasileiro” mas, regra geral, os brasileiros são mais fáceis de entender. O seu modo de falar tem aspetos muito estranhos (aos nossos ouvidos anglófilos), mas uma vez que nos acustomamos aos sons e aos ritmos, é bastante claro. Não engolem tantas letras e não deixam as palavras aglomerarem-se umas com as outras, dizendo “quéq tázafazer” em vez de “O que é que estás a fazer”. O que mais marca um aluno europeu é a sua maneira de pronunciar os Ds e os Ts que vêm antes dum É ou dum I. O “D”, numa palavra como “Divertir”, soa como um J duro ou o DG de “edge” em inglês. Os brasileiros também pronunciam os vogais com mais stresse, inclusive a última sílaba duma palavra que termine com E. Uma palavra como “verdade”, por exemplo, tem duas sílabas em português de Portugal. O “E” final quase desaparece e o “D” soa suave e ofegante (adoro!). No Brasil, a mesma palavra tem três sílabas distintas porque o “E” é mais forte. Além disso o “D” antes do “É” muda para DG como já disse: verDADgee. Isso significa que o português brasileiro tem um ritmo mais…hum… saltitante, digamos assim…?*
*Throughout this paragraph I originally used feminine articles for the names of letters “a D” and so on, because the word letra itself is feminine, but apparently when you use the name of the letter in its own you’re really indicating symbol /sign so you use male articles “o D”. I was referred to a Ciberdúvidas article on the subject.
You /Tu
There are lots of different ways of addressing someone in the second person. In European Portuguese it’s usually Tu for informal situations but there are gradations of formality that require “você” ou “o senhor” or whatever, and the verbs all get conjugated in the third person. There’s also this weird pronoun “vós” that most textbooks just ignore. Let’s try not to even think about that one. In Brazil, on the other hand, it’s just você across the board, and you only really need to learn first and third person verb endings. These people learning Brazilian Portuguese have it easy eh?
Há muitos métodos de falar com alguém na segunda pessoa em português. Em Portugal, é geralmente “tu” no dia-a-dia, mas em situações mais formais, usa-se você ou “o senhor” ou algo do género, que exige um verbo na terceira pessoa. Ainda por cima existe o pronome vós que se usa em determinados contextos (embora a maioria dos livros sobre gramática portuguesa para estrangeiros o ignorem) mas nem pensemos nisso. No Brasil, pelo contrário, usa-se sempre você. Aquelas pessoas que aprendem português brasileiro têm uma vida fácil, né?
Vocabulary /Vocabulário
Like US English, Brazilian portuguese has evolved slightly differently and diverged from its European cousin. In some cases, it has retained aspects of the language that the Portuguese have dropped (sorry, I’m not going to give any examples of this because I’d be out of my depth but I’ve been told it’s true). In other cases, they have developed new words over the course of years, based on preference, contact with other languages and just the sheer passage of time. Of course, this is going to be most obvious in slang. My favourite example of diverging vocabulary is the translation of “The Girl on the Train” by Paula Hawkins. In Portugal it’s called “A Rapariga No Comboio” but nobody in Brazil says Comboio, even though it’s a legitimate word in Brazilian Portuguese, they say Trem instead, and although Rapariga does exist it’s… Not a nice word. So the book is called A Garota No Trem instead.
Assim como o inglês americano, o português do brasil evoluiu diferentemente e afastou-se do seu primo europeu. Em determinados casos, retém aspetos antigos da língua, que já desapareceram do português europeu (desculpa, não tenho exemplos mas ouvi falar disto). Noutros casos, desenvolvem-se novas palavras e expressões ao longo dos anos, por causa de preferências regionais, do contacto com outras idiomas e da passagem de anos. Claro, este fenómeno é mais óbvio no calão. O meu exemplo preferido de divergência de vocabulário é a tradução do “The Girl on the Train” de Paula Hawkins. Em Portugal, o título do livro é “A Rapariga no Comboio” mas no Brasil ninguém diz “comboio”, mesmo que a palavra exista, antes dizem “trem”. E rapariga existe também mas no Brasil, é uma palavra feia. Portanto o livro foi intitulado “A Garota No Trem”
Grammar /Gramática
There are only a couple of differences in the actual grammatical structure, so far as I’m aware, but feel free to shout out any others in the comments. Firstly, in Brazilian Portuguese, the object pronoun basically always comes before the noun, so it’s more consistent. So “I bought it” = “o comprei” in Brazil and “I didn’t buy it” is “não o comprei”, whereas in Portugal it would vary according to context: “comprei-o in most cases, but it flips in negative sentences (“não o comprei”) or a few other contexts (more detail here if this is not familiar).
The other big one is the use of the gerund. Again, I’m afraid this is another area where Brazilian is probably easier than European Portuguese, at least for English speakers. In European Portuguese if you want to say “I’m talking” you say “estou a falar”, which is fine, but falar is an infinitive so if you translate it literally you get “I am to speak”. Brazilians just say “estou falando”. Falando is a gerund, so it is really equivalent to “talking”, in English, so in short, it’s much more like English grammar.
Tanto quanto sei, há apenas duas diferenças de gramática. O primeiro tem a ver com a próclise e a ênclise. A próclise aplicar-se quase sempre em português brasileiro – ou seja, o complemento vem sempre antes do verbo (O comprei /Não o comprei) . Em Portugal, por outro lado, a posição depende do contexto (Comprei-o /Não o comprei)
A segunda diferença é o uso do gerúndio em tempos verbais do presente contínuo. Este é mais um exemplo dum aspecto da língua no qual o português brasileiro é mais fácil (para nós anglófonos) do que o europeu. O brasileiro “estou falando” soa mais parecido com o inglês “I’m talking” ao contrário ao português europeu, no qual se usa o infinitivo, tipo “estou a falar” que soa estranho aos nossos ouvidos.
Spelling / Ortografia
And so finally we reach spelling. Well, that’s easy, the AO has sorted it all, right? Sadly, no, there are still a few spelling variations around. Brazilians seem to like circumflexes (^) more than the Portuguese do but there are far fewer than there once were.
Finalmente chegamos à ortografia. Foi tudo resolvido pelo AO, certo? Infelizmente não, porque ainda existem várias diferenças de ortografia. Acho que os brasileiros gostam mais do acento circunflexo, mas, hoje em dia, não há assim tantas diferenças entre os dois dialectos.
Continuing to fanboy about this song. Here’s a translation, highlighting the “Proparoxítono” words.
I’ve borrowed pretty heavily from some of the many versions on Lyricstranslate. They’re all by brazilians, I think, and they’ve done a great job, so I’ve cleaned up the english and made a few other changes but generally assumed they know more than I do about the point of the song. I found “flácido” really difficult to translate. It obviously means “flaccid” but that word just sounds so wrong in a song. I’ve gone for “sagging” since it fits in both the lines it’s used in. I think that’s the best I can do but this is the sort of thing that makes you realise how hard the job of the translator is.
A couple of interesting things to add:
Firstly, I didn’t notice when I heard it but the first two lines end in the same word. That’s a bit of a cheat, Chico, come on! It’s the only example of that though.
Secondly, he keeps the rest of the line unchanged almost all the time but there are a few other small changes, which I’ve highlighted in orange. The fact that portuguese doesn’t use many subject pronouns helps in this regard. In the first line, “fosse” goes from “it was” to “he was” with no need for other changes. You just get it from the context, because “única” changes gender, meaning it is now referring to the man, not to the (a) vez.
Amou daquela vez como se fosse a última Beijou sua mulher como se fosse a última E cada filho seu como se fosse o único E atravessou a rua com seu passo tímido Subiu a construção como se fosse máquina Ergueu no patamar quatro paredes sólidas Tijolo com tijolo num desenho mágico Seus olhos embotados de cimento e lágrima Sentou pra descansar como se fosse sábado Comeu feijão com arroz como se fosse um príncipe Bebeu e soluçou como se fosse um náufrago Dançou e gargalhou como se ouvisse música E tropeçou no céu como se fosse um bêbado E flutuou no ar como se fosse um pássaro E se acabou no chão feito um pacote flácido Agonizou no meio do passeio público Morreu na contramão atrapalhando o tráfego
He made love that time like it was the last time He kissed his wife like she was the last woman And kissed each child like they were the only one And he crossed the street with his timid steps He climbed the construction like he was a machine He built up four solid walls at thenext level Brick after brick in a magical design His eyes were crusted with cement and tears He sat down to rest like it was Saturday He ate rice and beans like he was a prince He drank and sobbed like he’d been shipwrecked He danced and laughed like he was listening to music He tripped on the sky like he was a drunk And he floated on the air like he was a bird And he ended up on the ground like a sagging package He agonized in the middle of the public pavement He died on the wrong side of the road disrupting the traffic
Amou daquela vez como se fosse o último Beijou sua mulher como se fosse a única E cada filho seu como se fosse o pródigo E atravessou a rua com seu passo bêbado Subiu na construção como se fosse sólido Ergueu no patamar quatro paredes mágicas Tijolo com tijolo num desenho lógico Seus olhos embotados de cimento e tráfego Sentou pra descansar como se fosse umpríncipe Comeu feijão com arroz como se fosse o máximo Bebeu e soluçou como se fosse máquina Dançou e gargalhou como se fosse o próximo E tropeçou no céu como se ouvisse música E flutuou no ar como se fosse sábado E se acabou no chão feito um pacote tímido Agonizou no meio do passeio náufrago Morreu na contramão atrapalhando o público
He made love that time like he was the greatest He kissed his wife like she was the only one And kissed each child like they were the prodigal son And he crossed the street with his drunk steps He climb the construction like it was a solid He built up four magic walls at thenext level Brick after brick in logical design His eyes were crusted with cement and traffic He sat down to rest like he was a prince He ate rice and beans like it was the greatest meal He drank and sobbed like he was a machine He danced and laughed like he was the next one He tripped on the sky like he was listening to music And he floated on the air like it was Saturday And he ended up on the ground like a timid package He agonized on the middle of the shipwrecked pavement He died on the wrong side of the road distrupting the people
Amou daquela vez como se fosse máquina Beijou sua mulher como se fosse lógico Ergueu no patamar quatro paredes flácidas Sentou pra descansar como se fosse um pássaro E flutuou no ar como se fosse um príncipe E se acabou no chão feito um pacote bêbado Morreu na contramão atrapalhando o sábado
He made love that time like he was a machine He kissed his wife like it was logical He built up four sagging walls at the next level He sat down to rest like he was a bird And he floated on the air like he was a prince And he ended up on the ground like a drunken package He died on the wrong side of the road disrupting Saturday
Construção – Chico Buarque
The song was written in the seventies, during the dictatorship when Buarque was living in exile. There are a lot of theories about exactly wht he’s trying to do, but he hasn’t really spelled it out, preferring to let people speculate. There’s a definite shift between the three stages: the first one seems quite factual, the second sort of carefree, the third nightmarish. The social criticism is about the fact that, at the time, a lot of people were moving to the cities in search of a better life but finding that living conditions and working conditions were pretty terrible.
Is exactly the sort of thing I love. The writer is Ricardo Araújo Pereira, comedian, columnist and all round good guy (well, as far as I know) Anyway, in the passage above, he’s describing a song I don’t know and saying that if a foreigner were to hear it, although they would rightly spot that it sounds lovely, they probably wouldn’t understand it and certainly wouldn’t notice that the last word of every line is “proparoxítona”* and nor would they understand that the word “proparoxítono” itself is proparoxítona**. And he’s right: it is a lovely song and when I read this in bed last night I had no clue what Proparoxítono meant but I knew I had to find out as soon as I woke up.
First of all, let’s hear the song
Oh my god, that is the good stuff alright. I know it’s Brazilian Portuguese, not Portuguese Portuguese but Jesus Christ it’s good. Inject it directly into my veins! There is something slightly strange about the rhythm of the verse though isn’t there? And I never would have spotted what it was.
Before I get I to it, let’s lay a bit of groundwork by thinking about where the stress falls in a Portuguese word.
The vast majority of words in Portuguese put the stress on either the final syllable (if the last letter is r, l, z, m, u, i or n) or the penultimate one (basically, all other letters). Any exceptions to the rule need an accent to be added as a hint to the reader. So for example there are a lot of words that end in – ável or – ível that are pronounced with the stress on the a and the i respectively. If the accent wasn’t there you’d have to say incrivEL and confortavEL. But it’s pretty easy and you get used to it, and before you know it, you’re just used to the rhythm of Portuguese speech without even being conscious of it.
Proparoxítono means that the stress falls on the antepenultimate (last-but-two) syllable. These always have to have an accent because they break the normal rules, like bêbado (BÊ-ba-do) and mágico (MÁ-gi-co) and sábado (SÁ-ba-do) and última and único and tímido and… Well, and every other word he finishes a line with in the song, which is why you get this effect that’s really unusual in a Portuguese song, where the last two syllables of every line are unstressed.
Oh my god, that’s so satisfying. I love it! It’s the most value I’ve ever got out of a single paragraph, I think: a new word, a new song and a new way of noticing the rhythm of Portuguese music.
Anyway, if you want to know more, this video has some good analysis. It’s in Brazilian Portuguese too, so be warned if you’re trying to avoid the dialect. It’s worth making an exception for though.
*it has an a in the end here, unlike in the title, because its an adjective and palavra is feminine
**Now I know what you’re thinking: “Isn’t that the stuff Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying think should be used to cure Covid?” Close, but no, it’s not that either.
Oi galera, estou escrevendo um comentário sobre um livro brasileiro embora eu aprenda português europeu. Blz!
Eu já conheci a obra de um dos autores, Gregório Duvivier por causa de uma conversa pública com Ricardo Araújo Pereira e ouvi falar dos seus programas televisivos. A cara é legal!
Neste livrinho, os dois rescrevem o mito de Sísifo, mesclado com outros fios culturais: Hamlet, a crise ambiental, memes, o teatro do absurdo. Nas palavras do Duvivier “‘A história se repete’ dizia Marx, ‘a primeira vez como tragédia e a segunda como farsa’. Acrescentamos ‘a terceira vez como um gif'”. Para mim, esta explicação vale o preço do livro em si. Fez-me rir “kkk” disse eu. uh-oh, vem aí o cancelamento. “kkkkkk”, acrescentei, porque três cás* só não dá para ganhar amigos no mundo anglófono.
Apparently in Brazil K is written “cá”, not “capa” which makes sense because cácácá sounds like laughter whereas capacapacapa just sounds like a bunch of rooks fighting over a bag of chips.
Ouvi este Audiolivro sem saber nada sobre o autor. ‘tá bem, suponho que seja brasileiro… O sotaque do narrador é brasileiro também mas isso não me assustou assim tanto porque fala de modo tão claro que percebi todas as palavras mesmo que algumas fosem desconhecidas, e deu para entender o enredo sem problemas!
Parece que os contos são satíricos. Confesso que não sei nada sobre sociedade brasileira daquela época, portanto é provável que tenha perdido muito do humor mas o seu estilo é divertido e tanto quanto entendi, gostei.
Quite interested to see this word “esquerdoide” or “esquerdoido” pop up a few times on Portuguese language twitter on both sides of the Atlantic. It seems to be the equivalent of the word “leftard” used by obnoxious maga types. It’s used in more-or-less the same way: identify some stupid thing said or done by one person or a small group of people on the other side. If it’s apocryphal or even if you just made it up, it doesn’t matter much. Then generalise that to characterise everyone in the other party as sharing the same opinion and being a bunch of leftards /esquerdoidos who aren’t smart like what we is. Sad.
The guy in the original tweet here is some Bolsonaro fartcatcher, so in American terms, this is like – I dunno – Stephen Miller, or Zac Goldsmith in the UK, mouthing off and one of their supporters jumping in and going “Yes, yes, they are all crazy aren’t they! Shit in my mouth please” or whatever people say when they wholeheartedly support the government in the face of all the evidence and are willing to let them get away with absolutely anything.
Side-note. “Coringa vírus” is presumably a reference to the movie Joker which is called Coringa in Brazil.
Li este livro com os meus olhos e os meus ouvidos. Tentei lê-lo há alguns meses mas não consegui. Desta vez, experimentei uma versão traduzida em inglês e, de vez em quando, fez uma pausa e escutei um audiolivro lido por um brasileiro. De forma geral, evito sotaques brasileiros porque estou a estudar português europeu mas claro está que esta história é um clássico da literatura brasileira e é melhor ouvir no seu sotaque nativo, acho eu.
A pergunta incontornável é esta: será que a mulher do narrador, Capitu, traiu Bentinho ou não? Cá para mim, acredito que não. Há uma altura, muito cedo no enredo, em que eu reparei numa inconsistência no discurso dela que pode ser uma mentira, mas além disso, não parece provável. A ideia da infidelidade dela era uma preocupação dele logo no início, e acho que precisou pouco para se tornar obsessão.
Depois da “descoberta” da traição, a personalidade do Bentinho mudou, e tornou-se ainda mais “casmurro”. Recusou escrever o nome da sua mãe no túmulo dele, e justificou esta decisão duma maneira inchada. Não queria ter nada a ver com Capitu. Quando ela faleceu, Bentinho mal a mencionou, e até a morte do seu filho deu em alívio em vez de tristeza. Isso, sobretudo, chateou-me porque, mesmo que eu não tenha razão sobre a traição, o rapaz é uma criança que não merece nada de mal. No final, o narrador pareceu-me menos simpático do que anteriormente. Porém, adorei a “maquinaria” da história, o estilo e a maluquice deste homem insólito que estragou a sua própria vida por causa da teimosia.
Luso 