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.

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.

Globo quizzes

The Globo website G1.com.br has some nice animated, interactive quizzes on different topics. They only take about 5 minutes to do.

September 21st was International Day of Peace so there’s a Q&A on famous peacemakers of our times. Click here for that.

And if you’re keeping a close eye on the US President election. Test your knowledge of who’s who with this short interactive quiz in Portuguese. Click here for that one.

Haunted houses

I read a strange article on BBCBrasil.com – about a haunted mansion in Nottinghamshire in the UK. It had some good vocabulary in, any road…

Click here to read it. There is some word help and a short quiz if you want to test your comprehension.

Word Help

batidas = knocks / hits
fantasmas = ghosts
manchas de sangue = stains of blood
mal-assombrada = haunted
paredes= walls
prestações da hipoteca = mortgage installments

Quiz

Can you put these elements of the story in the order in which they appear?

A Details of Mr.Rashid’s family
B The price of the mansion when Mr.Rashid bought it
C Mr.Rashid’s beliefs about the paranormal
D Mr.Rashid’s business background
E Details of Mrs.Rashid’s reaction to blood stains
F The location of the mansion

Reading the Olympics

Olympics 2008

So, the Olympics start tomorrow – the Opening ceremony will begin at the unhelpful time of 9am in Brazil. I recently read a series of short interviews in TAM Nas Nuvens Magazine which were with Olympic debutant Brazilian athletes. It was a good read – of special interest was one of them, Rogerio Clementino, who will be the first black competitor in show-jumping (hipismo) ever to compete at the games.

The interviews can be found on the TAM Nas Nuvens magazine. It takes a bit of getting used to navigating this website, but basically click here to access the site. Then click on the pictures of the magazines on the right hand side. Then click on Outros Ediçoes at the top of the page. Click on the No.7 July 08 magazine (with a picture of two brothers on the front). Once the magazine opens you have to navigate to pages 69-79 by clicking on the page numbers below. There is a indice at the top which helps a bit too. Found it? If so, then have a read of the 5 short interviews – using the English translation along side to help with any words you don’t know – and see if you can do this quiz.

Finally, if the Olympics is your thing and you can’t get enough of it – have a browse of the most recent Veja magazine which has dozens of articles on all sides of the Olympics.

Quiz Questions

Read the questions below and decide which athlete is being referred to (A-E). As usual click Answers at the top to see if you were right.

A = Cesar Cielo
B = Rogerio Clementino
C = Fabiana Murer
D = Bruno Fontes
E = Yane Marques

Which two athletes talk about the importance of understanding animals? 1___ 2___
Which three athletes have trained/will train in a country other than China or Brazil prior to the Olympics? 3___ 4___ 5___
Which athlete entered their sport thanks to encouragement from parents? 6___
Which athlete entered their sport thanks to the hobby of a cousin? 7___
Which athlete sees their humble up-bringing in life as a motivation to succeed? 8___
Which athlete says people often mistake their sport for another? 9___
Which athlete compares their sport to a game of chess? 10___