According to the Lastminutetravel.com commercial here, in case you were thinking of cheating on your spouse, try out Brazil. The waitresses, who are also Carnival dancers, will sleep with you. That’s right! So go now to the site and buy a vacation package!
…and yes, that was sarcasm.
Something I’ve always wondered about is why Brazilians, when speaking English, add and subtract Y’s from words. I know it isn’t at will, but from what I gather, usually words that end in a hard consonant, they add a “y” to, while words with “y” at the end, they don’t pronounce.
My favorite example is Luck vs. Lucky. Brazilians will pronounce the first like the second and the second like the first. Although the video above is an example of a Brazilian who doesn’t speak English well, I personally know some who do…and they still commit the “y” error. So, why the “y”? Anyone know or have an educated guess?
Right now, I’m going over my Portuguese vocabulary in my head and can’t come up with an example of a Portuguese word that ends in a hard consonant. Plus, I can say with certainty that Portuguese has no K’s nor Y’s naturally in their alphabet. Portuguese also doesn’t have a W and perhaps that’s why the W sound is difficult for Brazilians learning English also. Such words like World or Squirrel are often found to be challenging to my friends. Aside from letters that take Brazilians some getting used to, there’s also the S+consonant which almost always comes out as ES+consonant. Again, squirrel is a good example.
As for myself, I doubt I’ll ever master the LH sound in Portuguese but that’s something I’ll just have to live with. When my tongue agrees with me, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, here’s a resource to tide you over…
“Brazil’s state-owned oil and gas giant Petrobras has become the fourth largest company on the American continent, according to a study released on Wednesday by consulting company Economatica.
According to the study, which included companies from all Latin American countries and the United States, Petrobras’ market value increased 81.1 percent since the beginning of this year, reaching 173.59 billion U.S. dollars, the highest among Latin American corporations.
Last year, Petrobras was already the largest corporation in Latin America, but ranked 17th on the complete list.
The three largest companies in Economatica’s ranking were U.S. corporations Exxon Mobil, with a market value of 344 billion U.S. dollars; Microsoft, with 211.8 billion U.S. dollars, and Wal-Mart, with 194 billion U.S. dollars.” – Xinhua News Agency
I understand why Petrobras is there this time around. It is because they discovered large oil wells in the subsalt areas off the coast of Rio. Although, I do wonder, is there something wrong with this whole picture? Two gas giants, a computer company and department store are the biggest money makers? It makes me think about what kinds of companies I would like to see at the top of the list, if it were up to me. Aren’t there companies from Canada all the way down to Chile that are doing really positive work and actually making a difference in the world (or at least in the Americas)?
Not only is Brazil now an internet user nation, but large companies are starting to cater to the connected ones. As I’ve mentioned, Twitter is big and Facebook is catching on (in fact the Facebook founder just gave a speech in São Paulo in order to hook more users), Yahoo launched their Meme service only in Portuguese, Apple opened stores in São Paulo and is now even in the process of launching its online store in Portuguese.
All of this makes me think that it will be tougher and tougher to yank us away from our new second brain, our fifth limb, our connection to the world (so that we don’t feel such a need to go and actaully explore it?). Perhaps the digital divide should remain in place, but such a thing would only work if computers weren’t such an integral part of our everyday operations. There’s talk in the science and tech world to somehow put a limit on our advancements or else we may reach a stage or ‘age of the spiritual machine’. How hooked can we get and how far can Moore’s Law take us?
Fernanda Young is an intelligent Brazilian author, scriptwriter, actress and television presenter. She was born in Níteroi and never really finished school even though she attended various universities. She is most well-known as a scriptwriter and more recently, as a television presenter. Her works have included successes such as the TV show and movie Os Normais, the series A Minha Nada Mole Vida, the talk shows Saia Justa and Irritando Fernanda Young. In the latter, she presents a show where she discusses all the things that irritate her and asks her guests to discuss the same things. During the show, a number of irritating interuptions occur, some of which are funny and others only a little. Considering the theme of the show, she does a good job conveying irritation. Click the numbers to see part 1, part 2 and part 3 of the episode (in PT) with actor Luiz Fernando Guimarães.
You can find some excerpts from her fifth book O Efeito Urano here (in PT).
Average Annual Vacation Days by country: Italy 42, France 37, Germany 35, Brazil 34, Britain 28, Canada 26, Japan 25, USA 13.
This comes from a newsletter made by The American Institute of Stress and it got me wondering. How does having more days off contribute to less stress? If you are working less, you are making less but perhaps that is my American viewpoint as we place great importance on being a hard-working nation. Would the nation which ranked high on the list also need to place importance on being social and if so, how much does having a good social life contribute to less stress? Do more vacation days create a more social society or is it the other way around (meaning, does a social society create more vacation days?)? Food for thought.
The other day, I posted on how Twitter is gaining ground in Brazil and with that, I also gave my unfavorable opinion of the service. While I don’t take back anything I said, I did find a few minutes to add a little to the post later on. Here’s what I said,
“But to give Twitter some credit, it is useful as a link-rich news source. If I search for the word ‘Brazil’, I’ll get endless pages of tweets citing Brazil (even if most are teenage girls asking famous people to come to Brazil) and some offer up links to stories that I have started to post about here. Within a minute or two, Twitter told me that 50-odd more tweets had come in since my initial search results were shown to me. If only there were a ‘teenage girl’ filter so I could get more relevant results…”
Only very recently, have I been trying out Twitter (as a non-registered user) and its search in order to seek out relevant Brazil-related links. In this short time, it has been hit and miss, although today, in one page of results, I found around three usable stories. In the 20 minutes that I took to post some of these to my site here, 300 fresh results were awaiting my refresh of the search page. Does such a thing speak to the growing number of users (44m) or perhaps the growing interest of the users in Brazil? Or, just maybe, it speaks to the growing number of Brazilian users who speak English since my only search has been the word ‘Brazil’ (not that one needs to speak English to write Brazil with a ‘z’). In the end, I’m sure it is a combination of the three.
In the meantime, where else am I going to find links about not one, but two bodily functions that also tie into Brazil? ; ) Only on Twitter. Which brings me to how to do searches. Try out things like the ‘link finder code’ (brazil filter:links) to filter your search by term and link. Plus there’s always the quotes trick (“brazilian culture”) and let’s not forget the minus sign tip (brazil -soccer), for subjects you don’t care about.
National Geographic will be airing a documentary a la Elite Squad tonight at 9PM with correspondant British Chris Ryan (pictured). It is called Shadow Soldiers: Brazil. Here’s the description (and here’s the video introduction)…
“Chris Ryan travels to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil where he spends a week training with and operating alongside BOPE, the Special Police Operations Battalion of Rio’s military police. The squad’s specialty is crime fighting in the city’s slums or favelas where they have to face armed and drugged up gangs of youths who protect a vast drug dealing network. Chris Ryan trains with the squad, learning techniques for fighting in the favelas before accompanying them on a real mission to confront a drug gang holed up in one of the city’s largest favelas. After a dramatic shootout in the streets of the favela, the BOPE unit succeeds in dispersing the drug gang and disrupting their drug dealing activities.”
Review
I finally got a chance to check out “Shador Soldiers: Brazil” and learned that was just what National Geographic called it. The actual show is called “Chris Ryan’s Elite World Cops” and the host has extensive experience as a former member of the SEC, the British Special Forces.
The show itself, while entertaining, is a bit ‘softcore’ but I’m sure that was the plan all along, to take a journalist into a real battle might not end too well for the journalist. Plus, doing an easier mission allows BOPE (the Brazilian Special Forces) to show off their skills. Chris Ryan praised their methods highly and while he knows better than I do, I can’t help but wonder if he highly praises all teams he works with on his program. Then again, Special Forces units are supposed to be in top shape, so perhaps my point is moot.
“Brazil’s level of anxiety is relatively low (among the 10 markets we’ve studied, only Australia and China rank lower), since the country is having a good economic moment despite the global downturn. However, Brazil hasn’t altogether avoided the psychological repercussions caused by a global crisis like this, something that’s showing up clearly on the real estate market.
Nowadays, go to any developer and you’re likely to be offered some kind of gift—a credit for a furniture store, tickets to Europe, etc. The value of these gifts can reach US$6,000. Wouldn’t it be more logical just to reduce the price of the property? But this is not how consumers’ minds work: Professionals in this market say that gifts change how potential buyers think about the business, with gifts making them see the house as more valuable, not more expensive.
These companies realize that in a crisis, value is bigger than price. Consumers feel that it’s smart to “gain” something when nobody is giving anything away. Which doesn’t make much sense, but that’s how people tend to see it. Brands that understand that the crisis is much stronger in people’s minds than in their pockets will manage this situation most successfully.” – Source
Cry, Call Me
You weren’t supposed to fall in love
I was just having fun
I let you know!
Darling, I let you know!
You knew I was like this
One night of passion with an end in sight
I told you, darling, I told you
It won’t be so easy,
for me to be yours
You were the one used to
playing with another one’s heart
Don’t come asking me
What’s the best way to leave
I suffered a lot for love
And now I’m going to enjoy life
Cry, call, beg
for my kiss again
Ask for my help
Who knows if one day I’ll save you
Cry, call, beg
for my love
Say please
Who knows if one day I’ll come looking for you
Considering the theme of the forró song, one would think women wouldn’t be singing along…
