Learn Portuguese: And Learn Bateria Samba Drumming!

For lovers of Brazilian rhythm and anyone who wants to Learn Brazilian Portuguese, a great way to get into the culture is by checking out Samba New York!

At the rehearsal, they practiced choreography for an upcoming parade. The members were all different ages (adults) and some had come directly from downtown offices in their work-clothes. At the Halloween Parade I hadn’t noticed how LOUD they are! In a small rehearsal space, it’s necessary to wear ear-plugs, so they use a microphone to communicate during rehearsal!

Learn Portuguese: A ONDA QUE SE ERGUEU NO MAR – Novos mergulhos na Bossa Nova

Em A onda que se ergueu no mar de Ruy Castro, descubra as andanças de Tom Jobim pelo mundo; o longo verão de Brigitte Bardot em Búzios; a trágica história de Orlando Silva; as vidas paralelas de Dick Farney e Lucio Alves; céus e mares de Johnny Alf e João Donato; samba e swing no Beco das Garrafas; com Nara Leão em Copacabana; ao redor do pijama de João Gilberto – em A onda que se ergueu no mar, Ruy Castro conta novas histórias da música que voltou para conquistar uma nova geração. Hoje ela talvez seja mais ouvida do que em 1961, em salas de concerto, teatros, boates, bares, clubes, escolas, estádios, sem esquecer os elevadores e as salas de espera, os comerciais e as trilhas de filmes e novelas. Em discos também: nunca se ouviu tanta Bossa Nova em São Paulo, Nova York, Paris, Sydney, Tóquio. E quem se dispuser a entrar em todos os sites brasileiros e internacionais dedicados à Bossa Nova, arrisca-se a morrer de velhice antes de sequer arranhar a superfície.

Com Chega de saudade, de 1990, Ruy Castro foi um dos responsáveis por essa volta. Mas ali a história se encerrava por volta de 1970, quando a Bossa Nova foi dada como morta. Ruy mergulhou de novo no assunto – mas agora para falar da volta de uma música que, como as ondas, só esperava o momento de dar de novo à praia.

Ruy Castro nasceu em 1948. Começou como repórter em 1967, no Correio da Manhã, do Rio, e passou por todos os grandes veículos da imprensa carioca e paulistana. A partir de 1990, concentrou-se nos livros. Publicou, entre muitos outros, as biografias de Carmen Miranda, Garrincha e Nelson Rodrigues, e obras de reconstituição histórica, sobre a Bossa Nova, Ipanema e o Flamengo. É cidadão benemérito do Rio de Janeiro.

Play Brazilian Choro: My Choros: Music for Solo Guitar Songbook (Sheet Music) with CD by Gastão Weyne

Meus Chorinhos Book & CD

“My Choros: Music for Solo Guitar” Songbook (Sheet Music) with CD  by Gastão Weyne

“Meus Chorinhos” is a collection of 19 original Brazilian choros composed by Gastão Weyne, a Brazilian guitarist, intellectual & lover of choro. The choros were composed in homage to the great personalities of the Brazilian choro: Canhoto da Paraíba, Antonio Rago, Ronoel Simões, Izaías do Bandolim e Luizinho Sete Cordas, among others. These compositions are easy and fun! The CD that acompanies this book includes guitar arrangements of the tunes in the book.

MEUS CHORINHOS: MÚSICAS PARA VIOLÃO SOLO COM CIFRAS Livro & CD
Autor: Gastão Weyne

Álbum contendo 19 chorinhos de autoria de Gastão Weyne, intelectual e amante da música, compostos em homenagem a grandes personalidades do choro brasileiro (Canhoto da Paraíba, Antonio Rago, Ronoel Simões, Izaías do Bandolim e Luizinho Sete Cordas, entre outros). As composições são muito agradáveis e de fácil execução. Os arranjos para violão do álbum poderão ser ouvidos atrávés do CD que o acompanha.

IN PORTUGUESE ONLY

48pp

Comes with CD (audio for the 19 tunes in the book)

Tocando com Jacob PARTITURAS & PLAYBACKS Americans who are getting into choro especially like the CDs that come with this spiral-bound book, which include both original and “play-along” tracks. Book comes with parts for C and

Bb instruments.

Brazilian Choro: a Method for Mandolin by Marilynn Mair and Paolo Sá

Review by John Goodin

Brazilian Choro music has been very popular with American mandolin players in recent years and Choro workshops have often been featured at CMSA conventions. There are number of books on the market these days that offer fun and interesting approaches to the Choro repertoire but this new volume from Marilynn Mair and Paul Sá is unique in its scope.

Rather than offering another collection of interesting music with or without accompanying text, this book aspires to serve as a method to help the owner “play Choro with a true Carioca accent.” Aimed at both Brazilian and English-language audiences, the book and its accompanying CD present a combination of musical exercises, classic and recent Choro compositions, and essays on the history and practice of Choro.

The result is a potent 136 page text and CD combo that allows the mandolin/bandolim player to become immersed in the music, performance practice, and cultural aspects of Choro. For those of us in North America who have no access to this music in its native environment it provides the next best thing to being there.

The Context section at the very beginning is an excellent start, combining brief but definitive explanations of the music and its instruments while at the same time introducing some accessible tunes. This is followed by the first collection of exercises, which necessarily take up many pages.

Marilynn’s essay “Mandolin in Choro” is scholarly yet highly readable and her “A History of Choro in Context” is even more detailed in its approach. It includes fine sections on important persons in the history of Choro along with musical examples of their art. The book’s final section, “A Personal Touch”, includes original compositions from both Paolo and Marilynn that demonstrate their mastery of Choro style and give the student some satisfying material to work on.

The CD that comes with the book includes everything you could want. It has examples that illustrate various concepts and exercises and includes several complete performances from both Marilynn and Paolo. All told, this is a unique and highly valuable resource for the mandolinist who has been bitten by the Choro bug. Highly recommended.

Learn about Bossa Nova & Tom Jobim!

Songbook Tom Jobim Vol 3

MONTCLAIR, N.J.—A half-century ago, Charlie Byrd, Herbie Mann, and others returned from a trip to Brazil with a trove of recordings by Antonio Carlos (Tom) Jobim. Stan Getz listened to them and recorded “Desafinado,” which spent 70 weeks on the Billboard charts, and soon thereafter, “The Girl from Ipanema,” which won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1965. Since then, the global appeal and influence of the bossa nova and Jobim have been undeniable.

In this newly published English-language edition, Antonio Carlos Jobim: An Illuminated Man (2011), Jobim’s personal, intellectual, and professional history comes to life in elegant and melodic prose from his sister Helena, a poet and novelist of great range and power. Accompanied by dozens of revealing photos, the book provides a surprisingly intimate portrait of one of Latin America’s most widely celebrated musicians.

Here we see Jobim, who died in 1994 at the age of 67, not only as an outstanding creative artist who worked with the likes of Frank Sinatra, but also as a man devoted to his family, and as an environmentalist deeply concerned about the state of the natural world in his beloved Brazil and beyond.

Antonio Carlos Jobim: An Illuminated Man (2011)

The composer of hundreds of songs of inexplicable grace, Jobim recreated the world he lived in through mesmerizing music and down-to-earth poetry. In Antonio Carlos Jobim: An Illuminated Man, Helena Jobim brings new life to her brother’s vision and voice.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Helena Jobim is an award-winning poet and novelist born in Rio de Janeiro. Among other distinctions, she recieved the Brazilian Writers’ Union Annual Award for her entire body of prose in 1993. Two years later, her novel The Trilogy of Astonishment won the prestigious José Lins do Rego Award from the Brizilian Academy of Letters and was adapted for the screen by Marco Altberg. In 2006, she released Time’s Sand, a CD on which she read 33 of her poems set to a musical background by her brother, Antonio Carlos Jobim. She lives in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Dário Borim, Jr., is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Portuguese at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. He is also a translator, creative producer, and radio programmer. His writings have appeared in 15 peer-reviewed periodicals from Brazil, France, Peru, and the United States. He lives in South Dartmouth, Mass.

Learn Portuguese: Differences between Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese

Is there any major difference between Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese?

There are a lot of differences! Here’s an explanation of some of the differences between Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese. Enjoy!

**Use of the infinitive vs. the gerund **

Brazilians Working with Americans – Cultural Case Studies

I’m working
Portugal: Estou a trabalhar
Brazil: Estou trabalhando

I’m writing
Portugal: Estou a escrever
Brazil: Estou escrevendo

Both forms are understood in Brazil and Portugal, but while Brazilian form is used in certain regions of Portugal and is considered correct in some situations all over the country, the Portuguese form is not used in Brazil. Both of them are correct.

***Position of object pronouns ***

Someone told me
Portugal: Alguém disse-me
Brazil: Alguém me disse

Someone saw me
Portugal: Alguém viu-me
Brazil: Alguém me viu

Both forms are understood in Brazil and Portugal, but while Brazilian form is used in Portugal in some situations, the Portuguese form is not used in Brazil. Both of them are correct.

***Tu/Você (=you, singular) ***

Portugal
Tu: For someone we know and have confidence with (brother, friend, parents..)- informal
Você: People older than us that we don’t know that well (teachers, our parents’ friends..) – formal

Brazil
Tu: informal (only used in some regions)
Você: formal/informal

“Você” is conjugated like 3rd person, singular
“Tu” is conjugated like 2rd person, singular (in Brazil, it’s like 3rd person, singular, which is not correct – informal)

***Preposition “em” ***

Brazil
They have a choice of contracting or not the prepositions “em” followed by an indefinite article, adjective or pronoun
em um / num
em este / neste
em outro / noutro

Portugal
Portuguese people generally opts for the contracted forms
num
neste
noutro

***Articles (o,a,os,as – the) ***

In Portugal they use them very often and it’s not so correct to omit them unlike Brazilians who have a choice of omitting them or not.

My name is José
Portugal: O meu nome é José
Brazil: Meu nome é José

When my father…
Portugal: Quando o meu pai…
Brazil: Quando meu pai..

***Vocabulary ***

Brazilian has been influenced by Amerindian languages, such as Tupian, or Tupí-Guaraní, which was the language used by the natives. Brazil has also accepted more US technical terms into the language On the other hand, European Portuguese was influenced by French (because of the French invasions). Phonetically Brazilian Portuguese is closer to Spanish and Italian and European Portuguese is closer to Catalan and French.

English: pineapple, mouse (computer), screen, baby bottle, pantyhose, train, chiclet, nylon, sandwich

Portugal: ananás, rato, ecrã (Fr. écran), biberão (Fr. biberon), colãs (Fr. collants – they always say/write the french word, not colãs which is the most correct), comboio, pastilha elástica, nylon, sandes

Brazil: abacaxi, mouse, tela, mamadeira, meias-calças, trem, chiclete, náilon, sanduíche

** -c, -p ** Portugal conserves more latin roots:

English: optimum/eminently good, actor, act, fact…
Portugal: óptimo, actor, acto, facto…
Brazil: ótimo, ator, ato, fato…

**accent**
European portuguese is phonetically closer to Catalan and French while Brazilian Portuguese is phonetically closer to Spanish and Italian.

(how it sounds and not how it’s written)
Portugal: dia, Brasil, faláre, dizêre
Brazil: djia, Brásiu, fálá, dizê

*********************************************************************************************

Você ensina ou aprende português europeu?? Procura bons métodos para português intermediário?

Português XXI - Nível 3

Portugues XXI – Livro do Aluno 3 + CD é um bom método avançado de Portugues de Portugal. Você pode ganhar um livro de exercícios também se comprar o pacote: Portugues XXI – PACK Livro do Aluno 3 + CD, Caderno de Exercicio. No final de Portugues XXI – Livro do Aluno 3 + CD, o aluno nao só ficará a conhecer muitos aspectos que se relacionam com a vida cultural e social portuguesa, como se deverá sentir apto para: compreender diferentes tipos de textos de imprensa; apresentar os seus pontos de vista e defender opiniões; intervir em trocas comunicativas próprias de relações sociais; compreender folhetos publicitários; compreender comunicações, experiências, entrevistas e dialogos, a nivel oral; intervir em conversas sobre temas da actualidade, expressando opinioes e sentimentos; compreender e elaborar diferentes tipos de texto escrito. A Carla Guerreiro, professora de português, recomenda, “pois estes livros (nível 1, 2 e 3) apresentam atividades que permitem a utilização progressiva da expressão oral, pois os alunos têm de discutir sobre temas variados, dar a sua opinião, etc.”

Book Review: Português para Falantes de Espanhol

This Book Review by Professor Orlando R. Kelm first appeared in the Portuguese Language Journal. Professor Kelm recommends Português para Falantes de Espanhol – Ensino e Aquisição to all who are interested in the teaching of Portuguese for speakers of Spanish.

Professor Orland Kelm with his "Tá Falado" Podcast Team

Português para Falantes de Espanhol – Ensino e Aquisição: Artigos selecionados escritos em Português e Inglês / Portuguese for Spanish Speakers – Teaching and Acquisition: Selected articles written in Portuguese and English, by Wiedemann, Lyris & Matilide V.R. Scaramucci (Orgs./Eds.), 2008. ISBN 9788571132795

How does one write a review of a collection of articles on the teaching of Portuguese for speakers of Spanish when the collection already contains a preface that is written by none other than Francisco Gomes de Matos? There is a huge part of me that says, “If he says the book is good, then we should all read it.” Similarly, how does one write a review of the articles when the editors provide an excellent forward that already reviews the content and contribution of each of the articles? There is no need to repeat that either. Instead I would like to offer some observations about why it should not intimidate us to read a book that has a title that is nearly three lines long! Don’t let the title scare you away.

The First Symposium on Teaching Portuguese for Spanish Speakers was held in March of 2003 at the University of Arizona and it was organized by Ana Maria Carvalho, Antonio Simões, and Lyris Wiedemann. I was in attendance at that first symposium and I vividly recall the sense of mission that accompanied that event. For all of us who teach Portuguese, we all relate to the pedagogical issues when some students already speak Spanish and others do not. But the First Symposium also brought together a new combination of language instructors in that there were participants from Latin America, Brazil, and the United States. Although all teach students who speak Spanish, their challenges are unique. We came away with an appreciation of what it would be like to teach Portuguese at UNAM versus what it would be like to teach Argentine students in Brasilia.

Português para Falantes de Espanhol - Ensino e Aquisição

This collection is comprised of articles that were presented during the Second Symposium on Teaching Portuguese for Spanish Speakers. This was held at Stanford University in 2006, again with Lyris Wiedemann as the organizer and chair. I was in Brazil during that time and was unable to attend. As such, this collection provided me with a sense of what happened during this second symposium. It does not disappoint. Where the first symposium had the feel of bringing together early pioneers, the second symposium has a feel of scholarship. That is to say, in the first symposium participants were trying to validate themselves as a unit. This allowed the participants in the second symposium to jump right into the pedagogical and acquisition issues.

The scholarship in these articles can be subdivided into two major sections. First there are articles that contribute to the understanding of language acquisition and pedagogy, independent of the fact that the content deals with Spanish and Portuguese. For example Koike and Gualda discuss the effect of explicit and implicit teaching of grammar and Jensen uses data on language dominance to address syllable and stress timing patterns. This first area exemplifies that we have progressed beyond the “show and tell” phase of Portuguese for Spanish speakers. Instead, we are able to focus on the same issues that all linguists and language instructors are facing. Second, there are articles that build on the specific teaching of Portuguese for Spanish speakers. In this area we see articles like that of Scaramucci who discusses proficiency certification (CELPE exam) and Milleret, whose survey provides really interesting data on the Spanish language background of students in the southwest.

I join Francisco Gomes de Matos in recommending this volume for all who are interested in the teaching of Portuguese for speakers of Spanish. I thank and congratulate all involved.

Are you learning Portuguese at home? Professor Orlando R. Kelm‘s podcast, Tá Falado,  provides Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation lessons for speakers of Spanish.  This is an excellent podcast if you study Portuguese for Spanish-Speakers, or if you are a Portuguese-learner who does not speak Spanish.  Orlando R. Kelm is an Associate Professor of Portuguese at University of Texas at Austin

Antonio Carlos Jobim: An Illuminated Man

Antonio Carlos Jobim: An Illuminated Man (2011)

Antonio Carlos (Tom) Jobim died 17 years ago in a New York City hospital. It is high time we learned more about a priceless legacy to the music and music-lovers of the world. Poet and novelist Helena Jobim’s book, Antonio Carlos Jobim: An Illuminated Man,makes his personal, intellectual, and professional history come alive in a compelling story. It is, likewise, an illuminating document for researchers in the fields of music, literature, art, philosophy, and popular culture.As if it were not for the vast, intimate, and revealing set of photographs, the engaging elegance and unique structure of the prose, or even the enlightening description of creative processes and partnerships of a true twentieth-century’s genius, one single element adds much to Helena Jobim’s endearing biography of her brother: a portrait of Tom Jobim’s emotional world. We learn that some of his greatest anguish (but not resentment), for example, resulted from his own image in the Brazilian press: too often distorted and misunderstood. The harshest attacks on him arguably came from prejudiced critics who, rather unfairly and unwisely, regarded his music as imitation of foreign sounds. Helena Jobim’s moving and enchanting book explores the human dimension of a life dedicated to music that never surrendered to national borders. Quoting Pablo Picasso (and he loved quoting artists and poets) the maestro once explained that out of that anguish, his own “cube of darkness,” he was “born again” on a daily basis (163).Jobim’s exceptional talent as songwriter follows a tradition in Brazilian music since Chiquinha Gonzaga 150 years ago: sometimes to bridge over and sometimes to do away with the illusive divide between erudite and popular culture, including music and poetry. Toward that goal he was certainly lucky and clever enough to chose and to be chosen to work with giants of either end, classical or popular, whose art has also spanned all over that open field of borderless creation.

The author of “Waters of March” actually read, questioned, and recreated the world he lived in not only through mesmerizing melody, but also through down-to-earth poetry. Helena Jobim does justice to her brother’s poetic voice in many dazzling instances. It all starts on a high note of low spirits by a singular composer whose ecological concerns made him a bit gloomier every day. It is indeed too sad that he had to leave us prematurely, at the peak of his career, but before writing another 500 tunes of inexplicable grace. Tom could have added to one of those unwritten tunes his own verses which stand as epigraph in An Illuminated Man: “Every time a tree is cut down here on Earth, I believe it will grow again somewhere else, in another world. So, when I die, it is to this place that I want to go, where forests live in peace.”

(Post by Professor Dário Borim)

Learn Portuguese: Um Estranho em Goa by José Eduardo Agualusa

Um Estranho em Goa de José Eduardo Agualusa, mistura a literatura de viagens com uma aventura exótica, uma espécie de mistério que o autor não deslinda mas que lhe serve de ponto de apoio para mover personagens que enlaçam a Índia com Portugal e o Brasil. Goa e Luanda, Lisboa e Rio de Janeiro.

Um Estranho em Goa by José Eduardo Agualusa

«Um Estranho em Goa é uma pequena maravilha… À Goa de Agualusa, tão bem vista e descrita, tão bonita, e o Brasil dele, ou a melancolia angolana, enlaçam emoções e estabelecem uma pátria espiritual onde todos nós, portugueses da língua, nos reconhecemos. Sem carregar a prosa com pretensa literatice, comovendo sem ornamento, fazendo poesia ao de leve, abraçando a delicadeza e a estranheza do mundo, Agualusa fez-me viajar com palavras. Estou agradecida ao escritor.»  Clara Ferreira Alves, Expresso

«Uma das obras mais aclamadas e que serviu de redescoberta literária de Goa a milhares de leitores. Nela o autor angolano José Eduardo Agualusa desvenda, de forma misteriosa e singular, a identidade pós-colonial de Goa. Um livro-chave para compreender a Goa de hoje. »   Constantino Hermanns Xavier, SuperGoa
José Eduardo Agualusa nasceu na cidade do Huambo, em Angola, a 13 de dezembro de 1960. Estudou Agronomia e Silvicultura em Lisboa. É jornalista. Viveu em Lisboa, Luanda, Rio de Janeiro e Berlim. É autor dos livros A Conjura (romance, 1988), Prémio Revelação Sonangol, A Feira dos Assombrados (contos, 1992), Estação das Chuvas (romance, 1996), Nação Crioula (romance, 1998), Grande Prémio de Literatura RTP, Fronteiras Perdidas (contos, 1999), Grande Prémio de Conto da APE, A Substância do Amor e Outras Crónicas (crónica, 2000), Estranhões e Bizarrocos, com Henrique Cayatte, (infantil, 2000), Prémio Nacional de Ilustração e Grande Prémio de Literatura para Crianças da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Um Estranho em Goa (romance, 2000), O Ano Que Zumbi Tomou o Rio (romance, 2002), O Homem Que Parecia Um Domingo (contos, 2002), Catálogo de Sombras (contos, 2003) e O Vendedor de Passados (romance, 2004). As suas obras estão traduzidas para diversas línguas europeias.

Learn Portuguese: What influences from other languages can be found in Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese?

What influences from other languages can be found in Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese?

Influences from other languages

Flags of Brazil & Portugal

The evolution of Brazilian Portuguese has certainly been influenced by the languages it supplanted: first the Amerindian tongues of the natives, the Portuguese from Portugal, then the various African languages brought by the slaves, and those of later European and Asian immigrants. The influence is clearly detected in the Brazilian lexicon, which today has hundreds of words of Tupi–Guarani and Yoruba origin, among others. However, the vocabulary is still predominately Portuguese, since the contributions of other languages were restricted to a few subjects or areas of knowledge.

From South America, words deriving from the Tupi–Guarani language family are particularly prevalent in place names (Itaquaquecetuba, Pindamonhangaba, Caruaru, Ipanema, Paraíba). The native languages also contributed for the names of most of the plants and animals found in Brazil, such as arara (“macaw”), jacaré (“South American alligator”), tucano (“toucan”), mandioca (“manioc”), abacaxi (“pineapple”), and many more. However, it should be noted that many Tupi–Guarani toponyms did not derive directly from Amerindian expressions, but were in fact coined by European settlers and Jesuit missionaries, who used the Língua Geral extensively in the first centuries of colonization. Many of the Amerindian words entered the Brazilian Portuguese lexicon as early as in the 16th century, and some of them were eventually borrowed by European Portuguese and later even into other European languages.

The African languages provided hundreds of words too, especially in the following subjects: food (e.g. quitute, quindim, acarajé, moqueca), religious concepts (mandinga, macumba, orixá, axé), African-Brazilian music (samba, lundu, maxixe, berimbau), body-related parts and diseases (banguela, bunda, capenga, caxumba), places (cacimba, quilombo, senzala, mocambo), objects (miçanga, abadá, tanga) and household concepts, such as cafuné (“caress on the head”), curinga (“joker card”), caçula (“youngest child”), and moleque (“brat, spoiled child”). Though the African slaves had various ethnic origins, the Bantu and Guinean-Sudanese groups contributed by far to most of the borrowings, above all the Kimbundu (from Angola), Kikongo (from Angola, the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo^[6]), Yoruba/Nagô (from Nigeria), and Jeje/Ewe language (from Benin).

There are also many borrowed words from other European languages such as English, especially words connected to technology, modern science and finance, like app, mod, layout, briefing, designer, slideshow, mouse (computing), forward, commodities, commercial terms like kingsize, fast food, delivery service, self service, drive-thru, telemarketing, franchise, merchandise, but also cultural aspects such as okay, gay, vintage, junk food, hot dog, pet, lol, nerd, geek, noob, punk, skinhead, emo, indie, hooligan, cool, vibe, hype, rocker, hippie, yuppie, bobo, hipster, overdose, junkie, cowboy, mullet, country, sex appeal, drag queen, queer, bro, rapper, mc, surf, skating, gospel, praise, bullying, stalking, etc.

French (food, furniture, luxurious fabrics and abstract concepts). Examples are hors-concours, chic, metrô (with the French inflection), batom, soutien, buquê, abajur, purê, petit gâteau, pot-pourri, ménage, enfant gâté, enfant terrible, garçonnière, patati-patata, parvenu, détraqué, femme fatale, noir, rendez-vous, chez…, partouse, pédé, à la carte, à la …. Scholars affirm that even now, French remains as the largest foreign influence in Portuguese due to the fact that French borrowings were adopted by a strong cultural affinity. Brazilian Portuguese tends to adopt French suffixes as in aterrissagem, differently from European Portuguese. Brazilian Pt. also tends to adopt culture-bound concepts from French, but when it comes to technology, the major influence is the English, while European Pt. tends to adopt technological terms from French. That is the difference between estação and gare. An evident example of the dichotomy between English and French influences is the use of the expressions know-how, used in a technical context, and savoir-faire, in literal Portuguese saber-fazer, proficiência-da-feitura, saber-como), German and Italian (mostly food, music, arts and architecture), and, to a lesser extent, Asian languages such as Japanese. The latter borrowings are also mostly related to food and drinks or culture-bound concepts, such as quimono, from Japanese kimono. Besides strudel, pretzel, bratwurst, sauerkraut, Oktoberfest, biergarten, there are also abstract terms from German like encrenca or blitz. A significant number of beer brands in Brazil are named after German culture-bound concepts due the fact that the brewing process was brought by German immigrants. Besides, there were many Italian loan words and expressions which are not related to food or music: (italianisms) like tchau, imbróglio, bisonho, panetone, è vero, cicerone, male male, terra roxa, capisce, mezzo, va bene, ecco, ecco fatto, ecco qui, caspita, cavolo, incavolarsi, engrouvinhado, andiamo via. Due to its large Italian diaspora, parts of the Southern and Southeast states have an Italian influence over the prosody, the vocal patterns of the language, with an Italian sounding stress.

The influence of these languages in the phonology and grammar of Brazilian Portuguese have been very minor.Some authors claim the loss of initial es in the verb estar – now widespread in Brazil – is an influence from African slaves’ speech,and it is also claimed that some common factors of BP – such as the near-complete disappearance of certain verb inflections and the marked preference for compound tenses – recall the grammatical simplification typical of pidgins. However, the same or similar processes can be verified in the European variant, and such theories have not yet been proved. Regardless of these borrowings and changes, it must be kept in mind that Brazilian Portuguese is not a Portuguese creole, since it can be traced as a direct evolution from 16th century European Portuguese.

Português para a criançada: Os Tres Porquinhos

Aqui estão 2 historinhas para a criançada se divertir. Books for children in Portuguese are available at www.AtlanticoBooks.com!

Os Tres Porquinhos!TURN ON the volume if you want to listen!

Livros infanto-juvenis em português estão disponíveis aqui: www.AtlanticoBooks.com!

Os Tres Porquinhos!

Uma Princesinha Cor-de-Rosa!

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