Reading the Olympics 2

Just two links for keeping up to date on the Olympics in Portuguese. Globo’s coverage is excellent with an interactive medals table that will take you to short articles on every medal won by every country. Click here for that.

The American sports network ESPN as a Brazilian channel with corresponding website which has some good stuff on too. Click here for that one.

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___

Imperatives (Look! Enjoy! Dream!)

Imperatives – what are they?

Imperatives are a strange beast in Portuguese. An imperative is a way of forming a verb to add emphasis. It is used for commands and orders, instructions (for example in recipes) and to sell products in advertising or in speech to stress what you want somebody else to do or understand. In other words, it’s what you think is “imperative” for other people to act on.

If you never studied English grammar (like me) I’m sure you’d never stopped to think about them before. This is because in English imperatives are the same as the present simple tense. We say “You look at the shop” and “Look at the shop!” and we use the same word in both sentences “look”. Or, “They read the instructions” and “Read the instructions” have different meanings and stress but the same word “read”.

Yes, but in Portuguese – what are they?

In Portuguese, you change the ending of the verbs like this: -ar verbs finish with e, and -er and -ir verbs finish with a. (Click here to read more if you don’t know what I’m on about). This totally scrambled my brain when I was taught it in Portuguese class a few years ago. It wasn’t until I came to Brazil and it heard it in practice that I could comprehend the strange logic behind it. I now think having this extra way of providing emphasis lends Portuguese a subtlety lacking in English.

Anyway, let’s get to some examples. Common imperatives I have to use while raising my two year old son are:

Olhe! = Look! (from the verb olhar)
Pare! = Stop! (from the verb parar)
Sente! = Sit! (from the verb sentar)
Coma! = Eat! (from the verb comer)

And some from adverts…

Aproveite! = Enjoy! (from the verb aproveitar)
Relaxe! = Relax! (from the verb relaxar)
Aprenda! = Learn! (from the verb aprender)
Sonhe! = Dream! (from the verb sonhar)

An example of the last one is given in the video above. The video is an adidas advert, in English with Portuguese subtitles, featuring famous footballers visiting San Marino. The adidas slogan for this campaign is Sonhe Grande – Dream Big. The video also includes an irregular imperative – the verb ver (to see) which becomes veja and not va. Veja (see!) is also the name of Brazil’s most popular news magazine.

Irregular Imperatives

The are several irregular imperatives which, if you need more help, I recommend looking up in a grammar book. But, here are four important ones:

The verb ir (to go) is vá. For example: A mother says to her child “Vai para cama” (You go to bed) and then when the child disobeys she turns the suggestion into an order “Vá! Agora!” (Go! Now!)

The verb ser (to be) is seja. For example: Seja bemvindos – Be welcome
The verb estar (to be) is esteja. For example: Esteja aqui – Be here
The verb come (vim) is venha. For example: Venha cá – Come here

Portuguese that looks like English

Finally, it’s strange to me that some regular imperative -ar verbs, by losing the -ar and gaining an -e, end up looking exactly like English. The following four verbs appear exactly the same in English as in Portuguese: Imagine! Compare! Ignore! Use! The only problem, of course, is we don’t pronounce them the same…

Retro Venus Williams

Venus Williams recently won Wimbledon for the 5th time. The BBC Brasil website posted 5 photos from a book about her, in which she is photographed in black and white in “olden days” tennis gear.

Click here to see the pictures, (the link should be on the right hand side of the page), look at the pictures and read the short text accompanying each one. See if you can answer these short multiple choice questions about what you read. This is a very short reading, 5 minutes maximum and there are 5 short multiple choice questions below to check for comprehension.

A short glossary of words from the commentary to the pictures

alma = soul
assinitura = signature
discursos = speeches
por acoso = by chance
radicar = to settle / to take root
torneio = tournament
visão = vision

5 Multiple-Choice Questions

1) The artist who took the photos is from…
A South Africa / B London / C New York

2) The commentary talks about Venus’ elegance under pressure under which picture?
A 2 / B 3 / C 4

3) Some photos were inspired by Josephine Baker who is a 1940s…
A singer / B tennis player / C actress

4) How many Wimbledons does the commentary say Venus has won?
A 4 / B 5 / C 6

5) The artist met Venus Williams for the first time in
A 1994 / B 2004 / C 2008

Ronaldo

I found a great little mini-site dedicated to the former best-in-the-world football/soccer player Ronaldo, the “baby-faced killer”, the “Fenomeno”. If you like football, or even if you don’t, read on.

Click here to get to the Veja website. Then scroll down and on the left, under Espiciais, click Ronaldo. Make sure you have your sound switched on – watch and listen to the slideshow, see some video clips, read the chronology and look at some of the stats of his playing and scoring record then attempt the quiz at the bottom. Everything’s there for you to have a very nicely presented 20 minute Portuguese lesson.

Here is a short glossary to help you with some words which come up in the chronology section:

acima de seu peso = overweight
anunciar = to announce
careca = bald head
joelho = knee
marcar = to score a goal
longe das gramados = (lit. far from the grass) off the pitch/out of action/away from football.
madrugada = after midnight, the early hours of the morning
palhaço = clown
partida = match/fixture
perna = leg
sofrer = to suffer
torcedor = a fan/supporter
travestis = transvestites
xixi = urine/pee