I put this in Twitter the other day but it seemed relevant to the blog too: I was playing with the subtitle feature on youtube to see if it would recognise what I was saying as actual Portuguese words but I left it on English language, and…
Tag: humour
I considered…
…using this graphic as a sort of site icon. It reminded me of something though, and I couldn’t think what. Then it clicked: the name Portugal doesn’t come from the Arabic word for orange at all, no matter what I said last week. It’s clearly a corruption of “Pokeball”
Live-Tweeting in Portuguese
Fomos ao “Reading Festival” hoje (vamos aos fatos: ontem. É depois da meia-noite agora). Decidi de tweetar/ pipiar “ao vivo” e em Português durante o dia inteiro. Traduzi o nome do festival “Festival da leitura” porque o nome da cidade – “Reading” também significa “A Leitura”. É uma piada.
Língua Dos Pês
I mentioned a little while ago that I was intrigued by a Luisa Sobral song called “Língua Dos Pês”, which means “The Language of Ps” or if you prefer “P Language”. As it turns out, this is a song with a back-story. It’s a made-up language, similar to the Pig Latin or Egg-language (aka Eggy-Peggy or Egglish) that you might be familiar with if you went to the right school. It isn’t a proper language or even a secret code, more of a language game you can play just for the fun of it.
Like everything else in Portuguese, it has a European and a Brazilian variant. As you know, this blog is fully on-side with Europe, so we’ll stick to that. Basically, all you need to do is repeat each syllable of each word, but with a P at the start, either before the vowel or in place of the consonant. So for example the name of Luisa’s album is also her first name, Luisa, which, in Língua dos Pês is Lu–Pu–I–Pi–Sa–Pa.
It sounds quite nice in Portuguese:
da-pa ten-pen-ta-pa-ção-pão son-pon-o-po-ra-pa de-pe u-pu-ma-pa me-pe-tá-pá-for-por-a-pa*
which is why she is able to sing a song in it, but it’s awkward in English:
He-pe-llo-po My-py name-pame is-pis Col-pol-in-pin
and similarly, eggy-peggy sounds like a disaster in Portuguese
Peggor eggexeggempleggo eggestegga freggasegge
And it gets worse if you use the actual Portuguese word for egg:
Povoor ovoexovoemplovoo ovoestovoa frovoasovoe
Geggood legguck preggoneggouncegging theggat!
It’s interesting that certain types of language game suit specific languages better than others, although I admit I don’t know quite what it means.
OK, are you ready to look at that video again? Well, the one I posted last time, from the children’s TV show “Panda and Friends” was pretty toe-curling, but there’s a much better version here in an an interview with O Observador. She talks a bit about the track and the album in general, then starts singing Língua Dos Pês at about 5:42 and carries on with “Onde Foi o Avô?” (“Where did Grandpa go?”) and her single “João”.
If you need any help, there’s a translation of the song here but only into straightforward Portuguese. You’ll have to do the rest yourself!
Further reading:
Wikipedia Page about Língua dos Pês, with various dialects (includes links to other similar dialects in other languages)
The Brazilian equivalent if you’re interested is called Língua do P.
*=this is a line from a poem by José Jorge Letria. I heard it on a podcast and didn’t understand the whole thing but picked out “A poem born of an impulse, of a fever… of the sonorous temptation of a metaphor” early on. Ooh yeah, more of that please!
A Standing Start
I’m pretty good at Portuguese. I mean, I’m not a great linguist like Nigel Farage with his wine list, but I’m OK on a good day. So why is it that I still can’t seem to just start a conversation from scratch? I met a Portuguese lady the other day near my house and decided to do what all the famous internet polyglots do and start talking to her, but I hadn’t warmed up by thinking in Portuguese beforehand so, translated into english, the exchange went like this:
ARE YOU PORTUGUESE?
GOOD MORNING*!
I CALL MYSELF COLIN
I AM FROM OVER THERE!
…
…
…
BYE
There was some nervous laughter in between and she tried to look sympathetic to my attempts but it was basically just me broadcasting my own hopelessness. This is a pretty good example of how it’s always a good idea to do some practice to get your brain in gear before having a conversation. This is doubly true if you have an exam: never go in cold. It’ll be much harder.
*=It was 8.30PM
Portanhol
Hoje de manhã, ethcutei uma gravathão de “Jothé e Pilar” para praticar Portuguêth. Infelithmente, ethquethi-me que a Pilar del Rio, a ethpotha de Jothé Tharamago era ethpanhol e por itho, agora falo Portuguêth athim.
Key Learnings 2: Frankenwords
Yesterday’s exercise involved two lists of words. I had to take a word from each list and make a phrase or portmanteau word. Por Exemplo, “Estrela de Mar” or “Belas Artes”. I managed to get the first dozen or so with the aid of a dictionary but I was left with three in each list that I couldn’t budge. I decided to pair them up at random and enter them into Google Search and see what sites/pictures each brought back. If a particular combination came up with nothing but pictures of cheese wheels then I’d know I had a winner.
On the first try, I was a bit taken aback with the phrase “Troca de Casal”. Oo-er, madam! Mrs Lusk walked in to find me giggling at a screen full of saucy looking men with moustaches rubbing their hands and leering at the sight of scantily-clad raparigas. Apparently, Troca de casal means “wife-swapping”.
The correct combinations, if you’re interested, were “troca-tintas” (literally, a paint-slinger, or more figuratively, someone whose words can’t be trusted. In short, a bullshitter) and “Cabeça de casal” (head of the household”)
| água
azul belas cabeça castanho chapéu estrela guarda luso |
novo
obra pé porta saca surdo trinca troca fim |
rico
mar fato prima mudo claro voz tintas escuro |
sol
artes brasileiro colônia rolhas semana cabra casal espinhas |
Lying to Examiners for Fun and Profit
Reflecting on my exam experience, I had another idea that might be of use to potential CAPLE candidates: Lie.
Lie through your teeth!
Lie like a lying liar who lies!
Embrace your inner Jeffrey Archer!
What do I mean by this? Well, sometimes questions come up about issues in life that are tricky to explain. Sometimes it’s better to not explain those things and instead just simplify the whole answer. For example, I had already decided that if they asked me “Tem animais de estimação?” I was going to say no. OK, I can talk about the guinea pigs (“A minha família e eu tínhamos alguns porquinhos da Índia. Eram muito fofinhos, mas só viveram até aos cinco anos.” etc) but there was no way I was going to tell them that hoje em dia we have stick insects. Every time I’ve mentioned stick insects in Portuguese it has resulted in bafflement and me needing send pictures and explain that, no, I’m not talking about termites or locusts or anything else. It’s a guaranteed recipe for confusion and it’s just not worth the hassle.
During the exam today, I mentioned that I was born in Edimburgo. The invigilator asked did I ever go back there to visit. Now, as it happens, we are planning to go back quite soon. Why? Well, the truth is that A Minha Esposa had intended to do the Edinburgh Marathon but she had a cold during peak training times and then some other things came up and all in all, she wasn’t fully prepared, so she dropped out, but we’d already booked accommodation at mate’s rates so we decided to…
Now, do I want to start explaining this, off the cuff in an exam? If it were a lesson, I might have a go. I could probably pull it off but it’s a complicated sentence with far too much potential for getting snookered by grammar, so I just lied and said she was going to do the Marathon. That’s a much easier sentence. I can do that, easily. Go!
As I was leaving, she offered these words of encouragement
Verificaremos que a sua esposa terminou a maratona. Se não, o Senhor Colin está desclassificado.
I’m not sure what it means, but I think she was wishing us a happy holiday.
A Tentativa, O Balde e Eu
Uma descrição da situação no que estou a falar com um amigo e preciso duma palavra. Tenho certeza que sei esta palavra mas neste momento não posso lembra-la.
“Eu baixo o meu balde para ao fundo do poço de vocabulário mas quando vem para cima o balde está vazio”
Totes planning to use this often in the future. It’s strangely easy to remember, pleasing on the ear and has two new (to me) words in it.
*Uncorrected Portuguese Klaxon*
Hashtagging in Portuguese
I got retweets for this. Actual retweets!
The hashtag game was inspired by a news story about a Portuguese spy who was caught flogging state secrets to the Russians in the latest bout of eighties nostalgia. People were understandably curious about what the Russians could actually want but I can’t pretend I understood all the suggestions, especially where they related to politicians.
Luso 