Real Brazilian Portuguese & Culture
“Rio Breaks” Documentary The DVD for the fantastic documentary “Rio Breaks” just went on sale in the US. Here is the trailer, and also part of the review of the film by The Economist: The film follows a year in the lives of two best friends, Fabio and Naama. They live in “Vietnam”, a particularly [...]
Increased Tourism In Rio’s “Pacified” Favelas: Encouraged by The Brazilian Government, But Is it Ultimately Fair to Inhabitants? The traditional conception of a favela is being subverted in Rio. Every day, dozens of tourists are led through some of Rio’s most dangerous slums to witness the conditions of the favela. In the wake of U.S. President [...]
A Look At BOPE – Rio’s Elite Special Forces Police Unit Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais better known by its acronym BOPE, is an elite special forces unit of the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. Due to the nature of crime in favelas (slums), BOPE units have extensive experience in urban warfare [...]
The Brazilian Favela – the media infatuation du jour, reporters just can’t get enough of it…. “Vanguard” is a no-limits documentary series by Current TV whose award-winning correspondents put themselves in extraordinary situations to immerse viewers in global issues that have a large social significance. This time they’ve gone to the Brazilian favela…. In this [...]
“Alagados” by Os Paralamas do Sucesso, in English This is one of my favorite Brazilian songs, and the music video, (a music videos is called a ”clipe” in Brazilian Portuguese) is just as joyous as the song itself, while at the same time shows and talks about the reality of living in the favela. (For some reason I couldn’t embed the [...]
DROPPING THE PLURAL IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE Informal speech in Brazil may avoid the plural altogether by using “a gente” - for we, and “todo mundo” – the entire world/everyone, for they. Both forms use 3rd person singular. It is also becoming common in colloquial or slang Portuguese to hear people dropping the final -s on plural nouns as it [...]
