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.

The importance of a comma.

This has been on an email doing the rounds. Allegedly, it’s to draw attention to 100 years of the Brazilian Press Association. Whatever, it’s quite a clever little piece on the importance of using your commas well. If you don’t get all of them I’ve put the “solutions” in English in the Answers section above. NB. Number two only makes sense if you know that in Portuguese numbers – a comma does what a point does in English and vice versa (ie. 3,000,000.00 in English = 3.000.000,00 in Portuguese). Oh, and the word for comma in Portuguese is vírgula.

Sobre a Vírgula Muito
legal a campanha dos 100 anos da ABI(Associação Brasileira de Imprensa).

1. Vírgula pode ser uma pausa… ou não.
Não, espere.
Não espere.

2. Ela pode sumir com seu dinheiro.
23,4
2,34

3. Pode ser autoritária.
Aceito, obrigado.
Aceito obrigado.

4. Pode criar heróis.
Isso só, ele resolve.
Isso só ele resolve.

5. E vilões.
Esse, juiz, é corrupto.
Esse juiz é corrupto.

6. Ela pode ser a solução.
Vamos perder, nada foi resolvido.
Vamos perder nada, foi resolvido.

7. A vírgula muda uma opinião.
Não queremos saber
Não, queremos saber. 

Uma vírgula muda tudo.

ABI: 100 anos lutando para que ninguém mude uma vírgula da sua informação.

SE O HOMEM SOUBESSE O VALOR QUE TEM, A MULHER ANDARIA DE QUATRO À SUA PROCURA.

Se você for mulher, certamente colocou a vírgula depois de MULHER. – Se você for homem, colocou a vírgula depois de TEM.

CELPE-Bras: what is it?

I have taken the rather bold step of wanting to get an official Brazilian Portuguese qualification before my wife and I and our kids head out of Brazil by the end of August. Basically, I wanted something on my CV which showed I had some competency in the languae. After a bit of work online, and talking to people in the know, I’ve decided to go for the CELPE-Bras test.

CELPE-Bras is the official Brazilian Portuguese test for foreigners. It’s put together by the Brazilian Ministry of Education and can be taken at test centres around Brazil and in many major cities around the world too. I like the test because it’s a modern integrated test. That is to say, its not multiple grammar-heavy, technical, concerned with translation or gap filling. It has quite a lot in common with the English test TOEFL in which the four skills (reading, wrting, speaking, listening) are tested simultaneously which far better reflects the reality of life. For example, when you’re on the phone writing down a message for someone you’re exercising listening, speaking and writing skills at the same time.

So, in part 1 of the test we read an article and write a response (in a certain style and register) about what we read. Likewise, we listen to or watch a piece of news and write about that. In part 2 of the paper we are given a short article and asked to speak about it and answer open questions with an examiner.

Whatever your level of Portuguese, everyone takes the same test and then is graded as being either Intermediate, Upper Intermediate, Advanced or Upper Advanced. In order to obtain an Advanced level, for example, your results for BOTH part 1 and part 2 need to be Advanced or over.

Subscriptions are open for the next round of testing (which will be at the end of April). The test can be taken every six months so the next batch will be in October/November time. The website with more information about it all is here: http://portal.mec.gov.br/sesu/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=595&Itemid=303

There is a cost, but I don’t yet know what it is!

Book Review (part 1): Muito Prazer, Fale O Portugues do Brasil / Speak the Portuguese of Brazil

A new book has been published recently by the Brazilian publishing group DISAL. Its a 400 page textbook, with 2 CDs, for estrangeiros learning Porruguese. I can honestly say its the best manual for learning Brazilian Portuguese I’ve laid my hands on so far…

You can actually browse the first chapter here: http://www.disal.com.br/mtoprazer/

And, tomorrow (Friday 13th!) of March there is an e-lecture on the DISAL website by the authors on how to teach past, present and future to foreigners. Useful. I’m working at that time so I hope it will (and my friends assure me it should) be available for download afterwards.

More info on that event here: http://www.disal.com.br/html/eventos/ev7.html

I’ve written a full review of the book here.

Gender issues 3

I know I keep going on about the masculine and feminine of Portuguese nouns, but it`s partly because I find it so difficult to get right coming from English, a language without gender.

Recently, I`ve noticed that I occasionally get the ends of nouns wrong when I`m not sure if they are masculine (-o) or feminine (-a). I do this often when I`m trying hard to get my adjectives to agree with the gender of the noun and in so doing I accidentally change the noun! The problem is, sometimes, this can change the meaning dramatically.

Some examples (which I will keep updating)
bola – ball, bolo – cake
foca – seal (the animal), foco – focus
tira – cop, tiro – shot
vaga – space (as in parking space), vago – vague (which is actually an adjective)
verba – financial budget, verbo – verb

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)

Alanis in Brazil

I’m not a huge Alanis fan, but my wife is. We “nearly” got to see her live as she on tour in Brazil right now but it didnt work out for us this time. Here is an acoustic song from Alanis with subtitles in Portuguese. There are many more in YouTube with Portuguese subtitles – but I liked the lyrics in this one. Great for vocab!

Back again in 2009

Hello everyone,

Sorry for being offline for a while. Anyway, the internet is working and I’m back again. I’ll still be updating this blog sporadically but based on the way hits have worked out over the last 6 months since I started, I’m going to concentrate less on making this a unified resource of Brazilian Portuguese – rather, it will be more like a blog. Anything I find that may be of use I’ll put it on here.

OK, now to write a post.
DM

Best Brazil Blogs 2008

Hello folks, here we are back again after the Christmas and New Year break. Feliz Ano Novo!

Just saw this and thought it was worth passing on. The website bestbrazilblog has selected the best blogs for 2008 in various categories – ranging from religion to cartoons, sport to politics with lots inbetween.

Here is the list. You might find something you really like and want to read this year: http://bestblogsbrazil.com/2008/node/21

Madonna

Madonna performed to 70,000 people at the Maracana last night. Apparently, it rained for some of the show prompting Madge to reach for an umbrella at one point. Click here for a bunch of the news reports and pictures about it.

Two videos with subtitles of Madonna here. Just search “Madonna legendado” for a whole lot more including some interviews.