We Study Portuguese

What's in Your Wallet?

Class-Related Gibberish

[This particular post probably won't make sense to anyone but those of us in the advanced Portuguese class at Yamada. If you're just clicking through, you'll probably want to disregard this entry. I'd try to explain it, but I'm not sure even I understand what we're doing.]

Here is our script so far:

As requested, here is a text version of the script. Please print out a copy, and bring it to class.

And here is the sequence in which we will present:

Violence in the Classroom!

Actually, we got to see a capoeira demonstration. Click on the photo above to see more exciting pictures.

Forest Words

	Nicole asked me to post the photos I took in class of the blackboard, so she could refer back to the forest vocabulary list for her writing assignment. Unfortunately, Cristóvão, our teacher, kept getting in the way. Still, most of the words are visible. Click on the thumbnails for the full-size versions.

There and There

Portuguese does something interesting with the concept of here and there that I haven't seen in any other language. In English the word "here" refers to the location of the person speaking -- first person singular (I) or plural (we). The word "there" refers to a location removed from that of the speaker. This can be either the location of the object(s) or person/people to which the speaker is referring -- third person singular or plural (he/she/it/they) -- or the location of the person or people being addressed by the speaker -- second person singular or plural (you).

ENGLISH
First Person	I/we	here
Second Person	you	there
Third Person	he/she/it/they	there

Of course, we're not used to seeing complex charts illustrating the functional differences between "here" and "there" in English. With just two words, it's easy to tell them apart, even for non-native speakers. But look what happens in Portuguese.

PORTUGUESE
First Person	eu/nós	aqui/cá
Second Person	você/vocês	aí
Third Person	ele/ela/eles/elas	ali/lá

As you can see, the situation in Portuguese is much more complex. Unlike English, it has three words for "there". "Aí" is used exclusively for the second person to refer to the location of the person being spoken to, and "ali" and "lá" refer to the location of the person/people/object(s)/place being spoken of. It's really quite simple once you understand the distinction. Let's look at a few examples.

Suppose you're out hiking in the woods with a friend. He turns to you and says one of the following:

• Um urso está chegando ali.
• Um urso está chegando aí

Both of these sentences can be translated the same way in English ("A bear is arriving there"), but in Portuguese there is an important distinction. In the first case, your friend might be pointing to a stand of trees, behind which he can just make out the outline of an approaching bear about to emerge into sight some distance away. In the second case, he is telling you that a bear is approaching you and will momentarily be occupying the same space that you are currently occupying. Even without any change in intonation, any Portuguese native speaker will instantly recognize the latter sentence as a warning of impending danger.

Here's another example that illustrates how easily things can become confused when non-native speakers mix up these adverbs. I was in a very small bar in Brazil. The bartender had brought me my second soft drink still in its bottle and started hunting around for a drinking glass to give me. He had not noticed that I still had the glass from my previous drink. An American sitting next to me tried to tell him that by saying "Tem um copo aí" while pointing to me. The bartender didn't notice the pointing. He stopped where he was and looked all around for the glass that my friend had presumably seen in his vicinity. In this case, using "ali" would have conveyed the proper meaning, and there would have been no confusion.

A potentially more embarassing situation occurred when I was visiting some friends doing development work at a school in Mozambique. I had arrived there that day, and one of my friends was introducing me to a Mozambican teacher who happened to be passing by. My friend explained that I was visiting, and when asked if I was just there for the day, my friend explained to her that, "Ele vai dormir aí." Since the building where I would be staying had just been mentioned, my friend assumed that the context of "there" was already clear. And it would have been had she used "ali" rather than "lá". By using "aí", she was telling the teacher that I would be sleeping with her! (Or, if she were extremely literal-minded, she might interpret the sentence to mean that I would be spending the night on the patch of ground upon which she was standing at that moment.) Fortunately, the teacher seemed to understand that, when Americans say weird things, it's usually just a problem with the grammar. (Or maybe she liked the idea of me sleeping with her.)

Some Vocabulary Clarification

In the short story we read today, no one knew what the word "solvitur" meant. I couldn't even find it in my huge Aurélio dictionary. Online I was able to find the definition in a Portuguese dictionary of Latin phrases:

Solvitur ambulando -- Andando, resolve-se a dificuldade. (One solves the problem by walking.)

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In an earlier class, there was some confusion about the meaning of the Portuguese word "mosquito". Since it's spelled just like the English word "mosquito" and has a similar meaning, most Americans (and Brazilians) believe that the words are synonymous. They are not. If you want to talk about mosquitos in Portuguese (at least in Brazilian Portuguese), the correct term is "pernilongo". "Mosquito" refers to flying insects that are smaller than houseflies (moscas). It includes, but is not limited to, mosquitos.

English speakers and Portuguese speakers nearly always experience confusion when talking to each other about "mosquitos". To give just one example that happened to me, I had just whipped up a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough and was called away from the kitchen. The little girl (a Brazilian) who was helping me told me in Portuguese that I should drape a towel over the dough to keep "mosquitos" from getting into it. I thought that was a bit odd, since I hadn't seen a mosquito in months and have never in all my life had a problem with them getting into my dough. But I did drape the towel over it, since there were plenty of other insects around that might get into it. Only months later did I realize that that was exactly what she had meant -- small flying insects. Now I know.

Further confusion sometimes arises from the fact that the correct word for mosquito, "pernilongo", is extremely similar to the word "Pernalonga", which is the Portuguese name for Bugs Bunny (I suppose because of his long legs).

My Portfolio

In our last class, Nicole (one of my classmates) was asking how we had filled out our portfolios. (Self-study language students at the U of O are required to formally document all of their work by filling out a set of progress reports known as a "portfolio".) We have a new person grading them this term, and apparently he did not like the way Nicole had filled hers out. At the time, I had just submitted mine and did not yet know what sort of feedback I would receive. As it turned out, Ozzie (the official portfolio evaluator) liked mine, so I am posting snapshots of my portfolio data and Ozzie's comments for Nicole or anyone else in the class to peruse and see what makes Ozzie happy. Click on the thumbnails to see large readable versions.

Nooooooooooooooo!!!!!

This is very disturbing. Paulo Coelho hit the high point of his career with the publication of O Alquimista (The Alchemist), which can be described as sort of a cross between The Little Prince and The Celestine Prophecy. I'm always recommending it to my fellow Portuguese students as a great first book to read in that idiom, since it uses such simple language and is incredibly famous in Brazil, where it was on the bestseller list for years.

Unfortunately, despite an abundance of subsequent writings by Coelho, the quality has gone down a bit with each new book. Now it looks as though he's finally hit rock bottom. He's actually writing Turma da Mônica comics. If you're unfamiliar with that title, you can read some samples here. It's like Carlos Castañeda writing Richie Rich storylines.

Olga

I just found out that a new movie has recently been released based on one of my all-time favorite Brazilian books -- Olga by Fernando Morais. There is also a fairly well translated English version available used on Amazon. This is one of a handful of books I have recommended (and sometimes lent) to people interested in Brazil, and every single person who read it has told me they were glad they did.

Now it's a movie, and, although it hasn't yet reached the US, it will be representing Brazil at the 2004 Academy Awards. I'm very excited about this. You can find out more about the movie here and here.

Blog Thesis

Here's something interesting. A Brazilian blogger named Carmela wrote her journalism thesis on blogging. Here is an interview with her (from Blogumentary).