Posted in Portuguese

A Festival Eurovisão da Canção

A minha filha torceu muito pela Finlândia. Não faço ideia porquê, mas acho que gostou das roupas bizarras e do comportamento ultrajante mais do que da* música. Acabou em segundo lugar, atrás da cantora sueca. Não vi o espetáculo (estava a escrever português, como um bom aluno) mas vi algumas artistas: a portuguesa, Mimicat de que gostei bastante (melhor concorrente desde o Salvador Sobral na minha opinião), o sérvio (que grande seca) e a francesa (uau, o vestido dela era incrível!)

Parabéns aos concorrentes todos mas sobretudo aos vencedores, a Suécia.

* I missed out the “de” part of this preposition both here and in front of “comportamento”. Remember if you use gostar de the “de” has to apply to all the things you’re liking!

Favourite Eurovision Reel
Posted in English

Saudade, Saudade

Maro - Saudade, Saudade

It’s been a busy year in the Saudade mines and Portugal now has such a vast surplus of their untranslatable major export that they’ve taken to giving double portions away with every Eurovision entry. “Saudade, Saudade” is a good song. It’s a strange choice for a Eurovision entry, but that’s not a huge surprise: they’ve been sending strange choices to Eurovision for some time now and it keeps things interesting! I actually really struggled to listen to it on yesterday’s Eurovision final, because I was trying to tune in to the Portuguese lyrics but it wasn’t till the second listen that I realised it’s almost all in English! In my defence, there was a lot of background noise!

The only Portuguese verse (not counting the word “Saudade” itself of course) is

Tem tanto que trago comigo
Foi sempre o meu porto de abrigo
E agora nada faz sentido
Perdi o meu melhor amigo

E se não for demais
Peço por sinais
Resta uma só palavra

Which translates as

He has so much I carry inside myself
He was always my port in the storm
And now nothing makes sense
I lost my best friend

And if its not too much,
I ask for a sign
Only one word remains

Bolo de Berlim, bolo de arroz, queijada, pão de ló

By the way, we set out to get a range of snacks from lots of European nations to eat while watching but we ended up just loading up on cakes from the Portuguese stall at Richmond’s Duckpond Market