Monthly Archives: July 2009

Opening the cultural doors

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“RIO DE JANEIRO — The Brazilian government has announced a tax-break program aimed at helping low-income locals enjoy more cultural pursuits, which is expected to inject some 600 million reals ($315 million) in the local entertainment industry each month.

Following years of debate, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva submitted to Congress a bill creating the cultural voucher program and is pressuring legislators to speed its approval. Local companies taking part in the program will be entitled to a tax break of 1% on their revenues. Companies must use that money to buy cultural vouchers from the government, which they must sell on to employees at 10% of the face value. The program is aimed at workers earning up to $1,200 a month.

The vouchers can be spent in several ways, such as renting DVDs, buying tickets to films, plays and concerts, and buying books, CDs and DVDs. Those making higher wages can also apply for the vouchers, but will have to pay more than 10% of the face value, according to a sliding scale. The program is an attempt to open up cultural events to low-income Brazilians. Theatrical tickets are relatively expensive here, and studies show that the vast majority of moviegoers are from the wealthier, upper classes.” – Source

An interesting idea, minus the “buying…CDs and DVDs” part. Brazilians can already easily find that stuff pirated, both online and off.

70 high schools in the US offer Portuguese

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“LISBOA – The teaching of Portuguese in the United States has grown and there is still a huge potential for its expansion, according to a database that the Luso American Foundation of Lisbon (FLAD) expects to publish in the upcoming months.

“The numbers surpassed our expectations,” said FLAD spokesman António Vicente. “This effort has allowed us to know the [Portuguese teaching] situation in the United States a lot better. About 70 high schools teach Portuguese in the United States. Indicators in California have shown a big growth, but there is still an immense potential for growth.”

The database numbers, which are not being released yet, are the result of an intensive information gathering effort that the foundation and its collaborators have conducted in recent years among school officials and K-12 grade public, private and community academic institutions throughout the United States. It will include, for example, the names, location and contact persons of schools that offer Portuguese classes, in addition to information about what grades are being taught and how many students take advantage of these programs, among other pertinent details.”

- O Jornal (more here)

Unfortunately the article makes no mention of what kind of demand there is nor specifically where the demand is (aside from mentioning the entire state of California). Anything is better than just the ol’ Spanish/French offering that almost every high school offers.

Googling Brazil

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I’d like to share a few Google tips for “googling” stuff on Google (for the inside joke, go here) in reference to Brazil. First, I’d like to tell you how to search only Brazilian sites. For that, just conclude your search term with “site:br” (ex. escolas de inglês site:br) and you will only be shown English schools on Brazilian sites. Keep in mind, just by adding this tag, it doesn’t mean all the results will come back in Portuguese, it just means they will be hosted on Brazillian domains. If you want to search only for things in Portuguese, go to ‘Preferences‘ and there, you will be able to select ‘Prefer pages written in these languages’ (under which you’ll be able to select Portuguese).

Here are two other helpful tips for searching on Google (and almost anywhere else, for that matter). If you want a specific term to show up in your results and your search involves multiple words, you just need to place them entre aspas (in quotes). Ex. “Portuguese classes in Miami”. The second tip is for when you find a term in the results that you want to exclude from the search results such as in the last example, let’s say you want to exclude results that specify South Beach, you would then enter the same thing as in the last example, plus “-south beach”. Ex. “Portuguese classes in Miami” -south beach (for which you will find zero results, because there are no Portuguese classes offered in South Beach, according to Google).

Happy searching!

As time goes by…

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There are many useful linking words and phrases (transition devices) in foreign languages and Portuguese is no exception. One that I never was able to get is “as time goes by” or similarly, “as time passes”…for some reason, I always blanked when I was trying to convey this phrase and it led to the invention of my own Portuguese phrase. Many times, I just wanted to write “com a passagem de tempo” as it seemed most likely (and can even be “googled”), but allow me to introduce a few more likely canidates.

As time goes by
- com o passar do tempo (with the passing of time)
- com o tempo (with time)
- no correr dos dias (in the course of days)
- durante o passar dos anos (as the years pass by)

As a side note, allow me to go over the word passagem with you. Here are its meanings > inlet, gate; pass; transit, ticket, passage; access, alleyway; passageway, way; transition. Although in most cases, you will run into this word as a very common way to say bilhete de voo (airplane ticket), which by the way, I’ve never heard anyone actually say.

Ex. Ontem, eu comprei uma passagem para o Brasil.
Ex. Yesterday, I bought a ticket to Brazil.

The top 7 unseemly sights of Belém

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One of my missions with my sites on Brazil is to show the good side of the country and culture. With Eyes On Belém, I intend to continue in my pursuit of the beautiful things that go unseen and unknown in the capital of Pará. On the other side of things, it’s also important to insert a little bit of reality or humor into the picture. Speaking of such, I came across the blog (in PT) of a Paraense who has a list of the top 7 ugly sights of Belém. Most of them are statues of some sort while a few are landmarks. Each comes with a personalized description and for that, I hope your Portuguese is up to par…if not, enjoy the photos!

Lost Gringa – New Link!

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“Welcome to the super-über-ultimate resource for foreigners living in São Paulo and traveling in Brazil. We’ll tell you everything you wanted to know about the land of paulistanos and beyond.”

There’s a new site out there hoping to spread a little calm to those who wish to move abroad to Brazil. Lost Gringa is aiming to be a one-stop shop, so give her a hand by checking her site out and leaving comments, which I’m sure will spur her on to be the best in what she does.

Bridge Linguatec Proficiency Test

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Picture 10

I found a superb online Portuguese proficiency test which I had long forgot about and ended up retaking. It’s by Bridge Linguatec and has four sections which include (in order) Listening Comprehension, Vocabulary, Grammar and Reading Comprehension. If I remember correctly, in terms of number of questions, it’s 20, 20, 50, 10, so you are looking at 100 questions all together. In haste, I missed a few questions which I already knew but otherwise received a score I’m quite happy with. Between this test and the Transparent language test, there is no comparison. Bridge Linguatec comes out on top by a long shot. Heck, they’ll even send you the ‘official’ certificate with your score for only $49.99!

As a tip, I should point out that the Listening Comprehension is a bit tricky as it isn’t cut and dry. With some questions during this section, the woman speaker will say something and you will have to choose the answer, while with other questions in the same section, she will say something and you will have to choose the synonym to her question. I have long believed that test results aren’t the final say as much depends on the test giver and the test layout.

Anyways, go ahead and try it out!

The Consumer’s Belém – Shop ’til you drop

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If in Belém and in need of a cool place to escape the tropical heat (or the 2PM rain), you have a few options to choose from.

Shopping Pátio Belém

There’s the newly-named Shopping Pátio Belém (formally known during 16 years as the Shopping Iguatemi). Located in the Batista Campos neighborhood of the city, it is pretty centrally located and contains the niceties of most modern malls. Once there, you will find 222 shops and one megastore, a food court and 5 cinematic screens playing new releases, and a 5-story parking garage. Their address on a map is here.

Boulevard Shopping Belém

Yet to be completed, the Boulevard Shopping Belém has a completion date of November, 2009. Located a little bit North of central Belém in the Reduto district, it is only 2.4 miles from its competition. The mall will include 250 shops and 4 megastores, a food court, cinemas and a parking garage on par with the Shopping Pátio Belém. Their address on a map is here.

Castanheira Shopping Center


The first mall in the capital of Pará was the Castanheira Shopping Center located in the Castanheira district along the BR 316 (main highway into and out of Belém) on the outskirts of town. It has 153 stores, a food court and 7 cinemas, as well as ample parking. Their address on a map is here.

Now, if you are searching for a shopping district and not a shopping mall, try the Comércio neighborhood nestled in between Cidade Velha and Campina. For handmade crafts, I suggest visiting Ver-0-peso market.

Belém – Pará, Brasil – Mosaico de Ravena

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Over at Açaí das Letras blog, I came across a really nice set of lyrics about Belém and upon doing a basic search, I found a great video of Belemense singer Nilson Chaves interpreting the song. Due to embedding limitations of WordPress, I’ll have to post the edited original version from Youtube by the 80′s band Mosaico de Ravena and link to the unedited version (which I recommend) by Chaves.

Belém – Pará, Brasil

They are going to destroy Ver-o-Peso
And put up a Shopping Center
They are going to take down the small Pinho Palace
In order to make a condominium
Poor thing, the Old City
It was sold to Hollywood,
To be used as a hostel
In Spielberg’s new film
Those who want to, can come and see
But just one at a time
We don’t want our crocodiles tripping over you all
The mentality is to blame
Created about the region
Why is it that so many people fear it?
The North doesn’t start with an M (Norte > Morte = Death)
Our indians won’t eat anybody
Because now they prefer hamburgers
Why doesn’t anyone take us seriously?
and not just our minerals…

Here’s the lyrics in Portuguese, including the rest of them which I didn’t translate.