TED.com with Portuguese subtitles

Some of you may know about the excellent website TED.com already – experts from various fields around the world talk for a short time about their “idea”. A great way to learn something new, fast.

I was happy to discover that TED.com’s own internal video streaming set up now has optional subtitles included, mostly in English. And several videos have subtitles in Brazilian Portuguese. If you read this blog and don’t live in Brazil, and so don’t have access to DVDs with Portuguese subtitles etc. then this site would probably help you a lot. For a real challenge, watch the video with no sound, using only the mute images and subtitles to help you out. If you have time, watch the video again – repetition reinforces new vocabulary.

Here is one such video with Portuguese subtitles about the nature of happiness – very thorught-provoking.

www.almanaquebrasil.com.br

I recently checked out this website. It claims to be an almanac of Brazilian popular culture. It certainly has a lot of content on many strange and interesting aspects of Brazilian people and life. For example, I discovered that there are parts of Brazil with their own currency – a measure designed to keep money in the local economy. I also read an article about an incredible British lady called Margaret Mee who spent years cataloguing flowers in the Amazon, and so on…

Anyway, short, pithy, well-written Portugese articles are here.

40 ways to make the world a better place

To celebrate 40 years of their publication, Veja magazine has invited specialists from different fields to comment on how to make Brazil a better place. The list, with short explanations, is an excellent mini-manifesto on how to make the world a better place. Apart from being very interesting, it’s also packed with loads of essential vocabulary!

You can read it here: http://veja.abril.com.br/100908/p_110.shtml#17

Radiohead in Brazil

Radiohead have a huge following in Brazil and are playing a number of shows here as part of their tour for In Rainbows, their latest record. One of my English students from here in Natal got a flight down to Rio to see them on the weekend and he was on cloud 9 when he got back. He said it worth every centavo!

I read this report last week which was quite funny. The address for picking up Radiohead tickets was given out wrong resulting in much confusion for desperate fans. Click here for that.

Here’s a report with links to photos and other stuff about their concert in Rio. Click here for that.

Here’s a video of one of their earlier songs – Fake Plastic Trees – with Portuguese subtitles.

Finally, quite a few international artists have been coming to Brazil recently, including Keane and Iron Maiden. Pictures of these and others are here. For videos of them in Portuguese, just search “legendado” with the name of the band on YouTube.

Vagalume gap fill (or how to learn Portuguese through pop songs)

There’s a very cool website called Vagalume in Brazil which has lyrics for thousands of songs, both from Brazil and internationally. But Vagalume excels where other similar sites might fall down… it often includes the music video to watch at the same time AND it has a snazzy function called “Aprenda” which hides a random selection of the lyrics. Your job is to listen to the song and write them back in – then check your answers at the end to see how you did.

English teachers love this website because it provides ready made examples of “gap fill” activities but there’s no reason you couldn’t use it for learning Portuguese. Just pick a Brazilian band or singer (such as Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Ivete Sangalo or whoever), click “Aprenda”, play the video and try and fill in the missing gaps.

Here’s a link to the top 100 most popular artists. Scroll down, find a Brazilian name and see what you think of the music… http://vagalume.uol.com.br/top_artistas.html

(ps. The site also has some good interviews, games and other resources – all useful for people learning Brazilian Portuguese)

CARAS

If you`re ever in a waiting room in Brazil, you`re bound to have copies of CARAS lying around. CARAS means faces (or, in slang, it could mean “guys” or people). It`s the Brazilian version of Hello! or OK magazine, filled with pictuers of dream houses, weddings, fashion and celebrities.

The CARAS website has some good content for all ages and if Hello! magazine was your thing in English you should definitely check this out to help your Portuguese: http://www.caras.com.br/

What I really, really want, though, is a link to CARAS International which is a weekly publication from the same people with bilingual English-Portuguese articles about celebrities from around the world. I`ve only seen the print edition (pictued above) so keep an eye out for it if you`re in an airport somewhere, or in a Brazilian waiting room.

But, I can`t find an online edition for CARAS International… If anyone knows of one, post the link here please?

Calvin and Hobbes

This is too good not to pass on…

Someone is translating (I think unofficially) Calvin and Hobbes into Brazilian Portuguese. Comics are a fantastic way to practice a language as the dialogue and pictures set the context and you have a “punch line” to try and work towards. So, I’ll be reading this frequently I guess.

http://depositodocalvin.blogspot.com/not

R.E.M. in Brazil

R.E.M. have been touring South America, with several shows in Brazil – their first since 2001. Sadly, I wasn’t  able to make it as they’re only playing some 3000kms away in the south of the country. Anyway, here is a good-quality Brazilian-Portuguese-subtitled video of the band performing their hit Everybody Hurts.

Michael Stipe reportedly wrote the chorus to the song Imitation of Life with the line “that sugar cane that tasted sweet” after his visit to Brazil in which he tasted a drink made from sugar cane. The song is very popular in Brazil and here is a subtitled version of the track. The only problem is that the lyrics don’t make a lot of sense in English, let alone in Portuguese, so good luck…

The  press have been covering R.E.M. coming to Brazil. Here is an interview with leadsinger Michael Stipe from Folha Sao Paulo and here is a report from Globo about R.E.M.’s support of Obama (including a subtitled video clip). And here are some photos from their Sao Paulo show. Stipe’s only televison interview came with Globo news and you can watch it here (dubbed).

Another globo quiz…

Test your geography with another quiz from Globo. Can you tell the difference between two countries with similar names in Brazilian Portuguese? I got 9/10. Click here to access the site.

Dictionary of the financial crisis

Found this handy article which has a glossary of words used in describing the present financial chaos. It was put together by the magazine VEJA and does quite a good job of explaining both English and Portuguese words in a fairly simple way. Useful if like me you’ve read everything there is to read about the recent crash and still come out scratching your head. Read it here.