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Team Exploradores - TAC 2014 TEAM Thread

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
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4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
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 Message 81 of 204
12 January 2014 at 7:21am | IP Logged 
Luso wrote:
Let me address this one: you have to see things in context. When there's some sort of significance, you have to use the corresponding article:

A terra do pau-brasil => o pau-brasil => o Brasil;
A terra onde os portugueses chegaram em 1 de janeiro de 1502 e pensaram tratar-se dum rio => o Rio de Janeiro;
Uma terra em Portugal que era um porto romano => o Porto;
Uma baía onde Pedro Álvares Cabral aportou em 1500 => a Bahia (old Portuguese);
Terras descobertas no dia de Natal => o Natal.

Some exceptions (if I'm not mistaken): you don't say "o Porto Seguro", nor "as Minas Gerais".

Sometimes, you don't have an article: Portugal, Marrocos, Lisboa, Paris, Londres (in fact, most cities), places named after saints (São Paulo, Salvador,...).

N.B.: I corrected your text. In Portugal (and, I think, in Brazil too) we reserve the words "amar", "amo" to persons (and only in special cases). In other contexts, we prefer to say "gostar de" or (rarely) "adorar".
Oops, I thought Brazilians just stick the article everywhere :p

@MBrecht92, as far as I know the group is still open :-)
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kujichagulia
Senior Member
Japan
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 Message 82 of 204
13 January 2014 at 9:00am | IP Logged 
The start of my TAC 2014 log

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Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
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3335 posts - 4349 votes 
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 Message 83 of 204
14 January 2014 at 4:08pm | IP Logged 
For the advanced learners who want to benefit from studying important subjects in
Portuguese:

USP - Veduca

The list of courses is vast, ranging from all fields and subjects.
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Luso
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Portugal
Joined 6061 days ago

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Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical)

 
 Message 84 of 204
21 January 2014 at 1:21am | IP Logged 
Expugnator wrote:
For the advanced learners who want to benefit from studying important subjects in Portuguese:

USP - Veduca

The list of courses is vast, ranging from all fields and subjects.


Very interesting. One other thing I find interesting (and you know I say this without irony) is that, whenever you find an academic or otherwise "formal" site in Brazilian Portuguese, you really have to strive to find the details that prove it's not an European Portuguese site. This always makes me wonder about the degree of difference between one and the other.

I really don't want to start a debate here (it's not the place, and it's just a thought anyway), but I think our "godchildren" should have this information.
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iguanamon
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Virgin Islands
Speaks: Ladino
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 Message 85 of 204
21 January 2014 at 5:15am | IP Logged 
True to the name of our team, I visited Portugal, last week. Having survived there for a week speaking a Brazilian version of Portuguese, I had no problems being understood and not much difficulty understanding what was being said to me, despite my lesser familiarity with the Iberian accent.

It might be different if I was an undereducated person in Brazil accustomed to speaking with others with a similar education level, using a lot of sociolect slang and not reading books or newspapers. The truth is that the standard languages have fewer differences than the hype would lead you to believe. It's more on a level of British vs American English- at least for me in my personal experience there last week, and believe me, I have a heck of a lot of experience with being a colonial in Britain.

Some examples, o bonde(BR) vs o elétrico (PT)= streetcar or tram; o ônibus (BR) vs o autocarro (PT)= bus; o café da manhã (BR) vs o pequeno almoço (PT)= breakfast, trem (BR) vs comboio (PT)= train, etc. Whenever I asked about the ônibus, trem or bonde, I was understood. I just couldn't get used to using "tu" in Portugal with the proper conjugations instead of você, so I didn't even try- no problems. For second language learners, the differences are overrated. Just learn whatever flavor of Portuguese or Spanish as best as you can. Try to be at least somewhat familiar with the other accents and flavors. You will be understood.

Most of the Portuguese I met were happy to speak to me in Portuguese and didn't laugh at my Brazilian pronunciation, grammar or word choice, at least not to my face. No one misunderstood me despite my "Brasilidade". I didn't end up with the wrong food order, have my jacket repaired wrong, buy the wrong train ticket or have people misunderstand my pleas for help. The Portuguese are a friendly people.

I did meet and talk with some Brazilian tourists in Lisbon. They had no difficulty at all surviving in Portugal. I also met some Brazilian immigrants in Portugal with their accents, vocabulary, word choice and grammar still intact, somehow managing to live and work there despite this massive handicap, :). I also met and spoke with Angolans, Guineans, Mozambicans, Cape Verdeans, Goans and even people from Macau with no problems. The same goes for the Portuguese immigrants and tourists I met when I was in Brazil a couple of years ago. They seemed to have no difficulty at all in Brazil. Yes, we all know that certain accents, social groups, varieties and usages can be almost impossible to understand, but in general, speaking with people with at least a secondary school education is not a problem. I don't want to start a debate either. My conclusion is that a lot of folks here on the forum are getting way too worked up over something that isn't really what it is hyped up to be.

I went to Lisbon for a week after having visited my kids (and my ex) over the holidays in England. They are English and live in northern England. They have very northern English accents and speech. Somehow we understand each other without interpreters. So I get to be a colonial in three European countries- the UK, Portugal and Spain. I flew home with Iberia airlines (nine and a half hours to Miami) and had to switch to Spanish, Latin American Spanish. There were no problems at all with the Madrid based crew and my Castillian seatmate. If I ever learn French, I'll have to go for Quebec French so I can be a colonial in France too (Haitian Creole probably doesn't count). Hurry up with that book, Arekkusu!

Lisboa is an amazingly beautiful city. Especially after having been in the cold, damp and dark of a northern England Winter. 16C in Portugal for a high isn't tropical believe me, but it sure felt better than the 3C and 6C with rain and wind that I had in Blighty. It just cuts right through you. I've just lived too long in the Caribbean! My blood is too thin. You gringos can keep your winter, thank you very much, :). Thank God for the BBC and Freeview. I didn't mind staying indoors a lot. I finally got to see "The Italian Job" on telly, uninterrupted- loved it. Hung out with the kids. Drank lots of tea. Then they had to go back to school and I stopped off in Portugal for a week on my way home.

You get a real sense of being in the capital of the Portuguese Empire in Lisbon. The city has so much history, wonderful food and great wine. It also has some pretty neat museums. I spent half the day in the Museu de Marinha (Portuguese Navy Museum) next door to the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos (Jerónimos Monastery) where I paid my respects at Vasco da Gama's tomb, Camões and Fernando Pessoa too! I also very much enjoyed the Museu do Oriente.

I thought about Serpent when I arrived because the big news was about Eusébio, a Pantera Negra, passing away. I saw some of the funeral procession on my way back to the hotel from the city center a couple of days after I first arrived. Estoril e Cascais are fabulous. Sintra is simply spectacular! I'd love to see Lisbon in the summer. Someday, I will be back, I'm sure. There's a lot more of Portugal to see. Maybe I might get to the rest of Lusofonia too.

One of the highlights of my week was getting to hang out with Luso for a bit. He was kind enough to spend some time with me and show me Lisbon. He introduced me to "ginginha", Cascais, one euro bookstores and Gato Fedorento. He's a fount of information about the history and culture of Lisboa and Portugal. His intelligence is only matched by his kindness and generosity. He is truly a gentleman and a scholar in every sense of the words- em qualquer idioma. Muito obrigado, Luso, por tudo! Segue, segue, segue!





Edited by iguanamon on 21 January 2014 at 11:49am

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1e4e6
Octoglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4290 days ago

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 Message 86 of 204
21 January 2014 at 5:41am | IP Logged 
Interesting, but what about e.g., Brasilians who need subtitles to understand Iberian
films, programmes, etc.? There seems to be less difficulty vice versa, but I think that
even on the forum here both sides have witnessed difficulties in understanding the
version of the other, either on their part or on the part of others, like when
Portuguese say that the accent is very "new" or, on the other extreme, close to
impossible to understand.

I had a classmate from Brasil in university who could not communicate fluidly with me
in Portuguese because he said that my accent and speech was very odd. I learnt
completely the Lisboa-style standard Iberian version using resources such as Lidel, and
books such as Language/dp/0486216500/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_z">Essential Portuguese Grammar. I did
not expect that he would find my accent so difficult to understand, or perhaps my
accent was neither Portuguese nor Brasilian, but just a poor foreign accent, I am not
sure. But I do not think that my accent could possibly be that bad...

My accent I try to model on hers:

vTP8NQ&feature=share&index=3">http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=EgzdAuCbBKw&list=FLR_dLBSVq1QCFpog-vTP8NQ&feature=share&in dex=3


I think that a Brasilian could understand this, but perhaps I am mistaken. Not sure.

Also about the weather--Britain's weather actually is not very cold, contrary to
popular belief. Manchester is not breaking negative temperatures everyday like last
year, contrary to the almost -50 C windchills in Ottawa, Montréal, and Toronto a week
ago. Most of our compartriots seem to like hot weather, but I doubt that one honestly
would truly enjoy Lisboa in July/August 43 C searing heat. But I may be biased--in
Paris two years ago, I almost passed out from walking in 33 C heat, and I consider
anything above 15 C as hot.

Edited by 1e4e6 on 21 January 2014 at 5:49am

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iguanamon
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Virgin Islands
Speaks: Ladino
Joined 5262 days ago

2241 posts - 6731 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)

 
 Message 87 of 204
21 January 2014 at 6:54am | IP Logged 
1e4e6, I don't doubt your experience. All I can tell you is that my experience was different. I saw and heard many Brazilian tourists and immigrants in Lisbon understanding and being understood with no problems. I met several Portuguese, fresh off the plane, in São Paulo and Rio living and working there with their accents intact, speaking, understanding and being understood in return.

We all think our accents are good, myself included, no knock on you, but my accent is still American tinged. They know, both in Portugal and Brazil, that I'm not Brazilian- no matter how good my Portuguese may be at the time. Sometimes, as a second language speaker, with a foreign accent, even a slight one, in another variety of your own language, it can be more difficult to understand or be understood. It is especially difficult if you're not accustomed to hearing your language spoken by a foreigner, especially by a foreigner who has learned the other variety.

Even today, I have difficulty in England with foreign accented British English. It seems that most of the staff at Heathrow are immigrants. I asked for a lot of repetition. Give me a native speaker and I have few problems, but give me foreign accented British English and it's not so easy, and I have two English kids. Same thing for my English ex. The last time we were in Miami a few years ago, she couldn't understand Cuban accented American English as well as I could whereas I had no problems.

As to Portuguese shows and films with subs in Brazil, well, even with all the connections between Britain and America, sometimes we have the same thing on US TV for non RP British accents. I love Blackadder and Red Dwarf. I always want to introduce my culturally deprived fellow Americans to the shows. I sometimes have to translate Baldrick and Lister ("I'm gong to go spare, I'm going to go absolutely spare!") for some people. Go figure.

Anyway that's the last I'll say about it. You have your experience, I have mine.

Vamos aprender idiomas!

Edit: In comparison to North America, Britain's winters are quite mild. Sorry to whinge about the cold but cold is relative. It's what you get used to. I live in the tropical Caribbean for a reason!



Edited by iguanamon on 21 January 2014 at 12:11pm

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1e4e6
Octoglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4290 days ago

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Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian
Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan

 
 Message 88 of 204
21 January 2014 at 7:59am | IP Logged 
It would be interesting if there exists someday a variant of Portuguese like how in
English there is the alleged Mid-Atlantic English. I think that the Açores are not
exactly halfway between Portugal and Brasil, but I think that they use an accent probably
more similar to the Iberian one. Did you go to the Alfama? It is extremely picturesque.

About Miami, there was I in 1991 on holiday, as a child, and still I remember the heat--I
felt like passing out there as well. But still, the temperature in Portugal can be
searing no verão--like an oven.

Edited by 1e4e6 on 21 January 2014 at 8:01am



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