According to an article in The Economist, Brazilian Portuguese is the paramount language to learn. Check it out at: http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/helen-joyce/brazilian-portuguese-best-language The article explains that Brazilian Portuguese is great because “If you speak Spanish, French or Italian, you’ll find half the work is already done.” This is actually fairly accurate. I have never taken a Portuguese class. The most “studying” I have done is completing the first disc of Rosetta Stone. However, because of my Spanish skills I find that I can understand a lot of what people say. People here say they speak “portoñol,” a combination of Portuguese and Spanish. Right now mine is pretty heavy on the “ñol” and not so much on the “porto,” but hey it’s all a process. Reading tends to be the easiest for me, though there are, of course, certain traps one must be careful to avoid. For instance, at the airport I saw plastered on the side of a plane “No Brasil, No Mundo.” Which to a Spanish speaker makes Brazilians appear rather conceited, translating in Spanish to “No Brazil, No world.” In reality the advertisement says “In Brazil, In The World,” referring to the company for which it was advertising.
If you want to fake your way through the language rather than adding an “o” to the end of a word like most people do with Spanglish in Portoñol you add a hard “e.” It’s funny because many of the stores and bars here have English names but they are pronounced in Portuguese. For example there is a bar here called Coconut. They pronounce this “coco-nutch-eee.” Why they don’t simply name the bar Coco which is coconut in Portuguese, I am not sure. Perhaps places appear more chic when given a name in a foreign language, though the names rarely make sense. I was walking the other day and I saw a store called Container underneath the name it claimed it was an “Ecology Store.” This is apparently a clothing store; the mannequins in the window were sporting overpriced Abercrombie & Fitch shirts. I walked away very confused and wishing I had had my camera.
Additionally, the article in The Economist made me laugh when it claimed that Brazilians “are friendly, and shameless white liars. You’ll be told ‘Your Portuguese is wonderful!’ many times before it is true.” I’ll keep you updated as to whether I find this to be true.
Brazilians really know how to do a party right. I assuming most people already know this since all over the world people associate Brazil with Carnaval. In fact, if I had to venture a guess I would say that more people know that Brazil celebrates Carnaval than people know that they speak Portuguese and not Spanish. I was fortunate enough to get invited to a Brazilian university graduation party last Saturday (falling on Saint Patrick’s Day). Not sure exactly what this would entail, I started asking around. I was told at these parties people wear prom dresses, there is an unlimited amount of free food and booze, and people dance all night. I thought these were mere exaggerations; I assure they were not. The simplest way I can describe a Brazilian university graduation party is a prom, Bar Mitzvah, and wedding rolled into one and, eloquently speaking, on crack. I’ll try to paint a clearer picture.
The party I went to was thrown in honor of 20 Architecture students. Each student got to invite 50-70 family members and friends who sat at tables adorned with pictures of the student. All night waiters weaved through the crowds offering beer, wine, and water, as well as hors d’oeruvres, which consisted of fancy chocolates and mini fried pockets filled with anything from olives to tuna fish. Later on in the evening an all you can eat buffet was setup for people to serve themselves. There was also an open bar where you could get vodka with any crushed fresh fruit they had available, among other drinks.
