Daily Life in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Frango Bem Passado

On countless occasions in a variety of restaurants in Rio, I or my dining companions have been served chicken that's more than just a little pink on the inside. Not quite done! The frequency in which this happens leads me to believe that Brazilians might like their chicken a little more on the rare side than we're accustomed to in North America. "Bem Passado" is the key word for well done in case you want to avoid this!

Brazilian Films in the News

I desperately need to work on my Portuguese. I went to see Cats last week in Portuguese - a humbling experience considering I've been here two and a half years. I know that generally one does not catch every single word of a musical even in their native language, but in my opinion the amount I understood was rather pitiful.

So, I will resume lessons. I will watch more Portuguese TV and movies. I might even start on a novella!

There are two Brazilian films  in particular which are making headlines back home:

• Lula, Son of Brazil, was sent in as Brazil's entry for the Academy Awards' Best Foreign-Language film category. This was a controversial entry, as it has not been a well-received film. The nominees will be announced January 20th.
• Wasteland - a film festival darling, documentary about a landfill outside of Rio - click here to learn more.

Expat Daily News put out an article recently on cinema from South America, check it out here.

What are your favorite Brazilian movies and programs?

Last Day of Vacation

 I'm writing this about a week before you're reading it, and I'm going to take a wild guess at the fun game we like to call "Guess DRL's Mood" - here's my official guess:

Why? Well, the day that this was published, I'll just be finishing up what I assume is a fantastic vacation with Mr. DRL and Canadoca, sem technology! No Blackberries, Internet, TV, Phones.... (of course, after waiting for my new blackberry and being without one for the last 2 months, what do you know? It is ready the night before we left... haha)

Where'd we end up going? I'll tell you tomorrow, when I'm back in Rio!

2009 Rio Expat Survey Results: Portuguese

It had to come up at some point!

I asked the participants of the survey how their Portuguese is. About half of the respondents can have a small conversation in Portuguese and get by.

3% chose the "Fala Portuguese? What's that" option, while 27% consider themselves fluent.

22% made efforts to learn the language before relocating to Rio, while 5% have NEVER taken a formal Portuguese class.

Revealing

When our visitors were here I thought that the words they managed to master in Portuguese to be very revealing about the type of people they were... (be it a vinho tinto/com licenca/desculpe/quantos reals...)

The ONE phrase my mom retained from being here the first time to the second?

"A conta, por favor."

My Guestbook - Part 10 - PORTUGUESE

Part 10 of an 11-part series of questions I asked my guests after they visited Brazil.

Question 10: Which Portuguese words did you pick up while visiting Brazil?

Engaged Couple Friends: Please/thank you, "I don't speak Portuguese", and then food words, especially so we could order wine. The waiters thought it was funny that we knew how to say red wine.

My Dad:  The first two words two words my brother and I learned were obrigado (thank you) and desculpe (excuse me).  Typical Canadians eh.  What other nationality would do that.  Oh yeah, almost forgot, the third word we learned was cerveja (beer)  You really don't need  to know much more.....

(DRL's note: on pretty much a weekly basis I get a voicemail from my dad "practicing his Portuguese". The message consists of him saying "Oi, obgrigada, desculpe" over and over again in a booming voice. I always know who it is.)

My Guestbook - Part 8 - What has changed about Mr. DRL & I since Moving to Brazil

Part 8 of a series of questions I asked my guests after their Brazilian vacations.

Question 8: What, if anything, has changed the most about Mr. DRL & DRL since leaving Canada?

My Mom: They are more relaxed, even though I am sure Mr. DRL's work can be quite a challenge, they are enjoying the experience and will never be the same again!!! Also, a bit of a change with preparing for baby's arrival.

My Bridesmaid & Her Boyfriend: Um, well aside from them both speaking another language and learning how to live in a completely opposite society they are still the same people we all know and love!

My Mother-in-law: We love the self-confidence they have attained by having to deal with Latin energy and language issues.  Such an interesting life they lead, when a breakfast meeting with a politician is just another day at the office.  Again, DRL's Portuguese is amazing.

Engaged Couple Friends: About 3 kilos!   :-) We were so excited to hear the news!  (DRL Note: at the point of their visit, 3 kilos was the extent of the baby weight gain!)

My Dad: Hard to see in two weeks but hopefully they've realized how fortunate they are to be from a country like Canada.

The Brazilian Meat Counter

I tend to just buy my meat at Hortifruti, and I don't get too complicated with it.  A friend passed this on and I thought it might be useful though to those of you who are more adventurous with your cooking and grilling:

Back to Brazil

Because, of course, THAT is what this blog is actually about. Well, supposed to be.  When I am not talking about myself, my baby, my family, my husband, international politics, or, er... food.

So today I went to the physiotherapist, which is actually always a lot of fun.  It's more massage-like than the physio I've had back home, and the two physio's I go to both speak a smattering of English and Portuguese so it's kind of like a mini Portuguese lesson for me and mini English lesson for them.

They were telling me about places to buy baby things here in Rio, and we got talking about bedding. Specifically, sheets.

One of them knew what sheets were but the other thought we'd somehow got onto the topic of diapers. Why? Well in the cute little Portuguese accent, sheet, and sh*t pretty much sound the same! (Kind of like gringoes saying coco and coco...)

So then we got into this pronunciation demo where I tried to show them how to pronounce the difference, about 10 times, so then they each repeated me about 15 times, so you can really see how a bystander walking in might have thought someone really sh*t the bed...

Sheet! Sh*t! Sheet! SH#t!

It was quite amusing...

Hot Water Purse, Anyone?

I am having some issues with my sciatic nerve so my doctor recommended some rest, anti-inflammatory lotion and a hot water bottle. Off to the drugstore I go, prescription in hand.  When I asked about a hot water bottle, or my translation of it (agua quente garaffa), the pharmacist took me to the water cooler and pointed out the variety of bottled water for sale.  I gave him the confused gringo face and said told him I needed to be able to heat it up, a hot water bottle. To the back he went, and came out with a GLASS bottle of water (I guess that would be somehow easier to heat?).  I then showed him my lotion he'd just helped me find, then motioned putting it on my back and said again agua quente... "Ahhh!" he said... "Bolsa de agua quente!"

Which basically translates to: Hot water purse. Done and done.

Of course!

Do you have any doubts?

Every gringo is guaranteed to be asked by an English-speaking Brazilian if they have any doubts on a regular basis.  The first couple of times, I was confused... doubts? They mean questions.  (Tem duvidas? means do you have any questions or doubts?) Confusing for gringos because there are also perguntas (questions).

What must Brazilians make of me?

So earlier this week Mr. DRL asked me to get our cable up and running.  When we first got into our place we had a bundle deal (read: cable hooked up immediately, phone after about 2 weeks, internet after a whopping MONTH.  Um, opposite order would have been JUSTFINE with me!) but ended up getting really ripped off on the phone part and weren't happy with the internet so we switched companies.  But apparently were keeping the cable (and continued to be billed for it) but I guess it didn't work. I wouldn't really know. (I actually do not even know how to turn on our TV... just ask the cable guy...)

So the cable guy comes, I let him in, try to show him around our entertainment system... he gets it all up and running in no time flat and says he didn't see any problems with it.  (Which irritates Mr. DRL who I console by saying - they must have flicked a switch at the head office and turned our cable back on or something!) So then I go to let the fellow out of the building as the porteria was on his lunch break, and I cannot for the life of me get the door unlocked from the inside to let him out.  The cable guy clearly thinks I am nuts.  I end up having to go upstairs and get my remote opener for the big garage door to let him out through there.  When I asked the porteria about it later he said he had oiled the locks after his lunch break... I see.

So basically guy comes to our house to fix the cable which apparently functioned just fine on its own and then gets locked in the building because the crazy Gringa can't get the door unlocked.

What must he make of this...

In Response to the person who googled:

Is learning Portuguese worth it? and got my blog.

Well, it depends.

If you are moving to Brazil, then yes, in my opinion.  Worth it, and totally necessary.

Portuguese is the 7th most spoken language in the world (French is number ten and Japanese is 11...) Italian? Number 24.

What can I say, it's up to you.  But when people wrinkle their noses when I say I'm trying to learn the language and ask if it's really necessary, yes, for me, it is.  You will have to decide for yourself if it is for you!

Oh the Portuguese.

This will sound lame to some but I have thoroughly enjoyed the break from the Portuguese over the past month or so I've been away.  And because of the break I've allowed my brain to take, I feel ready to jump back into it.  I realize my language skills have likely deteriorated significantly but don't really care.  I needed that break and this refreshed, actually-wanting-to-learn-again feeling is worth it.

Fluency

I found this blog post entitled "10 Steps to Becoming Fluent in a Language in Six Months or Less"...

Deciding whether or not to read it felt a lot like the feeling you have before you step on the scale after Christmas vacation...

So, just as I would jump on the scale on January 2nd, I read the article.  I am a sucker for (self) punishment. People who know more than three languages (meaning, most Europeans) intimidate the hell out of me.  I admire them.  I feel inadequate!

This article was written by a women who casually mentions that in addition to English, she "learned Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese Chinese as a child, picked up French in high school, and have recently became conversant in Spanish as I travel through South America."

I assume she has some great tips.

Here is her list of recommendations in bold, some of her comments in regular type and how I stacked up in italics...

1. Immerse yourself
Yes, if you don't count hanging out with almost exclusively "expats" the entire time I've been in Brazil, I have immersed myself... does the rest of the time count... oh and PS I still watch English TV with  Portuguese subtitles... I'm giving myself a check!

2. Forget translating: think like a baby!
...Just start talking, even if it seems like babbling. Resisting the urge to translate everything into your native language can be the single fastest shortcut to fluency...  I must say this is far more easy for me when I am ALONE - meaning not with people I know.  Although this experience has been good for hacking down that nasty ego, it's still there somewhere...
Half a check...

3. How do you say?
Besides common greetings, the one phrase you should memorize and always have at the ready is the phrase is “How do you say that / what is that called?”

CHECK! Though I don't always remember afterwards...

4. Write it
Ok thanks to my drill sargeant teachers, I actually think I can write in Portuguese better than I can speak or understand it... which would be lovely if I could communicate via msn messenger for the rest of my life, but... (and I don't even have msn messenger, imagine that...)

I should get two checks for this one... I am doing better than I thought...

5. Use cognates and draw links
Ever noticed how some words appear exactly the same across various languages? These are called “cognates.” Unlocking the usage of cognates instantly gives you several hundred more words to your vocabulary. For example, most words ending in “ion” in the Latin languages are the same in English.

This is definitely my strong suit.  I will give you one solid example that might help you if you are learning Portuguese...

"Moustache" is "Bigode" in Portuguese.  Which sounds kind of like "big orgy" - which reminds me of my favorite orgy loving moustached man, "GUNTHER".  As a side note if you do not know who Gunther is, stop reading this right now, quickly run to the washroom and relieve yourself so that you do not pee your pants when watching his video, and click here.  This is also related to learning languages because I personally feel that Gunter does not understand the words to his English songs he sings. Listen carefully. How else could he possibly keep a straight face. I would have to say that Tutti Frutti Summer Love is my official fave...

This is Gunther.  If you are meeting him for the first time, your life will officially change.  You're welcome.

Ok back to Portuguese... I think it is safe to say I demonstrate proficiency in this area...

6. Local TV, movies, music
Watch movies, listen to music, sing songs, and browse newspapers and magazines. It’s fun and helps improve your pronunciation and comprehension.

I have really tried with this one, I watched about a week of Cirandra de Pedra or whatever it's called but then got busy and frankly found it boring.  I want to find something I like and am actually entertained by so that I learn.  Any suggestions??

Half a check...

7. Non-verbal cues
Beyond words, observe locals when they talk. Be it the Gaelic shrug or a slight tilt of the head, combining body language with a new tongue helps you communicate better.

Check.  I grew up in a community with a lot of Italians...

8. Get emotional
Emotive experiences often etch impressions onto our memory. Make full use of embarrassing / funny / angry experiences by linking them to the new language.

Check...(sigh)

9. A world of friends / then going solo.
While inpidual classes can be highly beneficial for unsurpassed attention, group classes with friends can greatly aid learning. Having a friend to practice with helps you get better, and you can also learn from the different mistakes different people make.

I did the group class thing for 2 months and it was very helpful.  I need to make more Brazilian friends though! Half a check...

10. Practice at every opportunity before and after you travel.
Do my 5 Portuguese classes before I moved here count? Oh and did I mention I am going home this summer?

No check mark on this one!

TALLY TIME:  8 out of ten.
Which leads me to my number one tip on learning a foreign language: CONFIDENCE is the most important thing.  Just try. You will learn the most this way, and people will help you by correcting you (this takes confidence too...)

Os Normais

Ok so I watched about 4 episodes last night and found it to be well done, the physical humor is very funny (dancing around, etc.) but I must say that they speak so fast that it is hard to follow! And there are not any subtitles, we were hoping to read along in Portuguese to make it easier. Help! Does anyone know of a website where I can find either a transcript of each episode or even a brief synopsis of each one. I figure it would be best to watch each episode "cold" then read the synopsis/transcript to catch some of what I missed, and then watch it again...

I'm also a bit confused by the premise of some of the episodes - do these people pretend to cheat on each other? Or do they cheat on each other? Are they making fun of cheating on one another? Is it an open relationship? Between the language barrier and then potentially some cultural ones as well, I am having a bit of trouble following.  But it is definitely entertaining!

TV = Hot topic

I can't believe the response on the TV/Novella post - thank you all so much for your recommendations and insight, I am sure that many people will benefit from this info.   Before I moved here I tried to find info on Brazilian tv and novellas to help me learn the language but could not find much.  The DVDs of TV series' can be purchased at Livraria da Travessa, they have quite a wide selection.
 

Drama! And the Soap Opera Begins....

Thanks to the help of blog reader Corinne, (thanks Corinne!) I have selected a novela to watch for my Portuguese practice, especially while visiting Canada this summer, and hopefully to all around entertain me.
I have selected Os Normais, both because it sounds interesting and because I found it today. I will let you know how this improves my Portuguese repertoire...

I also plan to see the film Era uma vez in the next couple of weeks as I have guests from Canada who went to see another movie while here and saw previews for it and want to go to it even though they don't understand Portuguese.  So we're going...

The Novela

Before moving to Rio some Brazilians warned me: Don't get hooked on a telenovela! (Brazilian soap opera). But since moving here many people have advised me that I SHOULD, because it would help with my language skills. Ok seemed like a good idea.
So a few weeks ago I decided to throw myself headfirst into it. I started watching Ciranda de Pedra, printed out the synopsis of episodes so that I could translate/work on my reading skills.

I tried to make it work. I tried to be home at 6 every night.  I tried to find it interesting.  Yeah it didn't really work...

I think the problem is that I would not watch the show if it were in English.  So I am now looking for a show that remotely resembles a show I would watch in English.  Any suggestions? It would also be good if it was on DVD, then I could watch it on my own schedule...

Another Tool for Learning Brazilian Portuguese

Can you tell I've been stalking some other "Brazil Blogs" and those of other foreigners living abroad? This handy dandy blog is kept by a fellow named Adam who has taken up residence in Brazil , and has some amazing tips on learning Brazilian Portugese - here is the link to an excellent post on tricky words and verbs in Portuguese.  FYI there are several versions of verbs such as think, live, change, invite, know, spoil, etc..... this post helps!

Keeping My Recommendations Current...

So after "completing" session II of Portuguese classes at IBEU, I feel a strong need to update my recommendation of taking classes there. I had an amazing expererience taking Level 1 at the school with a very gifted teacher.  Level II has not exactly served me as well.  I missed quite a few classes for a variety of reasons, and let's just say the instructor and I were not on the same page as far as what our priorities are as far as what is important for me to learn right now.   

We also have very different ideas on what professionalism, acceptable behaviour, privacy, discretion and manners are, but that is a whole other story. I am disappointed, to say the least.

Back to the learning: I really don't care how well I can conjugate the verbs 10 ways if I still don't know what the verb means and more importantly don't have a CLUE what my doorman is saying to me when he calls - joking aside, this is an important safety issue, I just let people come in the building all the time because I say "ok" when I don't understand him... this is just one example...

In other words, I need more "practical portuguese" before I tackle more grammar and get ridiculed for spelling a word wrong.

Portuguese Dreaming?

They say you are really starting to learn a language fluently when you start DREAMING in the language.  This has not happened for me yet but the other night when my husband turned on the a/c in the middle of the night I woke up and was disoriented and said "Moito friio, moito friio...." haha.  I hope this means I am becoming a Portuguese machine.

Book: "How to Say Anything in Portuguese"

How to Say Anything in Portuguese

Recommended to me by classmates, this book is helpful for the "what to say" and "what not to say" situations that come up, many hints and tricks for social graces.  Interlaced through the book are little stories, examples and explanations of Brazilian culture.  A must for those learning Portuguese.

Learning Portuguese

More "Frequently Asked Questions" being addressed. Our language skills.

Learning Brazilian Portuguese is difficult, although we both learned French in school growing up, which helps. Being completely immersed in a new language can be frustrating and isolating, but overall is a humbling experience that I hope will build character.

Those Brazilians talk damn fast though.  Especially considering how slowly everything else moves around here...

 

Some interesting little Portuguese tidbits:

 

Saude: (Sa-oo-d-jee) Means "cheers" - and I just learned is also used in place of "bless you" when someone sneezes.

Cola: means GLUE in Portuguese. As an anti-pop-person I got a kick out of this one.

 

Portuguese seems to be a highly "emotional" language, when I say that I mean that it seems to personify many things and make them emotional.  For example agitado (like agitated) is used to describe a city as "busy" - just an initial impression from someone who is learning.

 

Classes:
I am currently enrolled with Portuguese classes with IBEU, which I highly recommend.  I actually could not find many small classes of people learning introductory Portuguese in Rio, surprisingly.  Class sizes are small (about 5 students) which allows for a decent amount of interaction while still maintaining a great deal of one-on-one attention. So far we have covered topics such as the alphabet, basic greetings, food/eating out/shopping, items and rooms in the home, furniture, numbers, telling time, basic sentences, about 50 verbs, members of the family, etc. 

 

What I enjoy about the classes:

- Interaction with other students.

- Variety, the instructor uses a variety of examples and media to keep us interested.

- Feeling like I improve every day.

 

Check out their web site for more information, link above.

 

Tool for Learning Brazilian Portuguese

I don't think it's possible to live in this country and truly enjoy and experience it all if you don't speak the language.  Before I came, I took a few private Portuguese lessons and used a couple different "on tape" type things. Brazilian Portuguese instructors are not necessarily easy to come by, depending on where you live. As far as tools go, I really liked the Pimsleur method.  Apparently in order to learn most vocabulary, our brains need for us to repeat it eight times, and the Pimsleur Method helps you do this in a way that is not annoying. So I highly recommend it if you are planning to move to Brazil or anywhere where you don't speak the language, in fact.  The Pimsleur method is available in a number of languages.

March 18 - Portuguese Lessons Can't Come Soon Enough

The language barrier makes for a humbling experience.  The most frustrating is when someone speaks a bit of English and insists that they understand you but then it turns out later that they obviously did not...

It's a good thing there are so many understanding people in this world.  Thank goodness for body language.  Thank goodness that Portuguese and English use the same alphabet.  Thank goodness the stores are so overstaffed that a whopping 8 people (employees) crowded around came to my aid to try and figure out how to help me get my point across today... wow... well maybe not "thank goodness" as it ended up being rather embarrassing... but I am grateful for their efforts nevertheless.

On Monday I start an intensive one-month (4 days per week) Portuguese class. There are three levels - each one month long. Hopefully I complete all three and turn into a Portuguese machine.

In the meantime, thank goodness the Brazilians are generous with their time and patience.  And hopefully it will help me learn patience.  One of the many ways I hope to "self improve" while abroad.  But more on that soon enough...