Real Brazilian Portuguese & Culture
How and When Do People in Brazil Eat Eggs? When they talk about eggs, or at least chicken eggs, the English speakers of the world generally divide them into two colors – white and brown. Some have a distinct preference for white eggs, while others somehow feel that brown eggs are healthier, perhaps by analogy [...]
Why You Should Learn Portuguese If you are asking yourself “Why should I learn Portuguese?” here are a few really good reasons: The economy in Brazil is BOOMING, meaning that Portuguese is becoming more relevant to the global market. Is Portuguese the next Chinese? Well, maybe not, but it sounds much nicer. And also, it’s [...]
I am constantly coming across really cool Brazilian graffiti. I really love graffiti art, so I’m creating this post so that I can add pictures of graffiti in Brazil as I find them. Feel free to send me your pics (along with some information) so that I can put them up too! Cheers. [...]
How Do People Speak in Rio de Janeiro? The biggest tourist hot spot in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, has its own slang and almost overall dialect. Living in São Paulo and being around the Paulistanês “language” all the time, to me it’s quite refreshing to go to Rio and listening to Carioquês and its malandro nature. Cariocas (the Portuguese word for [...]
HOW TO LEARN PORTUGUESE The best way to learn Brazilian Portuguese (or any language) is to expand your vocabulary by gradually memorizing lists of related words. This technique will help orient your mind to making connections between words in a certain category or taxonomy, which will facilitate your retrieval of the newly learned words later [...]
HOW TO LEARN PORTUGUESE The best way to learn Brazilian Portuguese (or any language) is to expand your vocabulary by gradually memorizing lists of related words. This technique will help orient your mind to making connections between words in a certain category or taxonomy, which will facilitate your retrieval of the newly learned words later [...]
WHO IS NEYMAR? If you follow Brazilian soccer, you’ve definitely heard of Neymar, one of Brazil’s rising stars. Like most Brazilian soccer stars, he is known only by his first name, but Neymar’s actual full name is Neymar da Silva Santos Junior. He’s only twenty years old, but he’s already been approached by several European teams, [...]
A Little Bit About Brazilian Forro Arguably my favorite Brazilian dance, Forró originated in the Northeast of Brazil, and is also known asarrasta-pé, bate-chinela, fobó, and forrobodó. Danced to the music of the same name, the movements have a variety of influences: indigenous ritual dances, traditional Dutch and Portuguese rhythms, German folk dance, and African hip movements. The dance is [...]
The Geography of Brazil’s Poverty Here is a map that shows the proportion of poverty in Brazil by region: Documentary on Poverty in Brazil In December, The Brazilian government’s TV channel, TVNBR, released a very interesting short documentary about extreme poverty in Brazil. While Brazil has become a development success story due to a growing middle [...]
As Europe and United States stumble, Brazil has found its feet. Evidence of that is a surging middle class that is using its newfound wealth to reach for something more: luxury. Once a country associated with the slums known as favelas, Brazil is on its way to becoming a new engine of growth for [...]
We’ve already seen an American student’s perspective on studying at a Brazilian University, so here’s the much needed perspective of a Brazilian student, written by new Portuguese Blog authors, Luke and Daniela. We are looking forward to seeing more contributions from this team of linguists and Portuguese translators in the near future. UNIVERSITY IN BRAZIL [...]
I am writing a blog post about Justin Bieber. …Ok, now that I’ve cringingly come to terms with that fact, I thought that I’d start off by showing you this: THE BRAZILIAN DRUG LORD WHO LOVES JUSTIN BIEBER: When cops raided the home of Pezão, a drug trafficker in the favela of Alemão, they found [...]
Brazilian Halloween Instead of pumpkins and brooms, there will be pipes and red pants in Brazil this Halloween, (well, at least in the city of São Luiz do Paraitinga). That’s because on October 31st, this Brazilian city will celebrate the day of Saci, “O dia do Saci.” (Remember that article I wrote about frightening Brazilian [...]
Going to Brazil: What to Bring & What to Buy If you are planning a trip to Brazil, here’s a guide of what you should bring with you, and the things you should wait to buy in Brazil. BRING 1. Bug Spray. It is overpriced in Brazil and you will absolutely need it. Lots of [...]
The Brazilian SAT In Brazil, the closest thing to the national U.S. college entrance exam is the ENEM, or the Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio. In order to study at a university, students must take the vestibular, an entrance exam. But the vestibular varies from one university to another, so the Brazilian government implemented a unified exam, the ENEM, [...]
HOW TO LEARN PORTUGUESE The best way to learn Brazilian Portuguese (or any language) is to expand your vocabulary by gradually memorizing lists of related words. This technique will help orient your mind to making connections between words in a certain category or taxonomy, which will facilitate your retrieval of the newly learned words later [...]
PLASTIC SURGERY IN BRAZIL According to the Brazilian Society of Plastic Surgeons (Sociedade Brasileira de Cirurgia Plástica), Brazilians get more plastic surgery than any other country in the world. I read yesterday that in Brazil today, around 630 thousand plastic surgeries are performed per year. No other country has so many plastic surgeons per capita; [...]
What is a Pitanga? Pitanga is tangy. Very tangy. You know that taste of quinine, the stuff they use in tonic water? Well, pitanga has its own “ine,” “pitanguine” (I am not kidding). It’s sort of easy to evoke pitanga’s taste even afters years not eating it. Sweet, juicy, tart, marvellous. The texture is [...]
The article talks about Sao Paulo’s Rua Augusta, an area that in the last five years has transformed into a cultural hot spot. Via LA Times: Reporting from Sao Paulo, Brazil— Clubs with live music have woken up Rua Augusta, where rich and poor mingle and party into the morning hours. But you probably won’t [...]
Brazilian Novela “Fina Estampa” Watching Brazilian novelas is an excellent way to work on your listening comprehension skills, as well as to build your Portuguese vocabulary. Luckily, many novelas are now available online, and you can even watch entire episodes. One of the big novelas in Brazil right now is called “Fina Estampa,” which translates to ”fine pattern” [...]
