No matter what language you learned first, it’s safe to say you’ve been linguistically lazy at some point. Sometimes we eat our words when speaking or send shorthand text messages, but the important thing is to remember that languages are living things and cutting corners comes with the territory. In Brazilian Portuguese, the case is the same.

Dar (para)…

A phrase that starts with “dar para” (pra) looks like it means “It gives to” or “It gives for”, but that wouldn’t make much sense. In Brazil, it roughly translates to “Can I/you…” or better yet, “Is it possible…”. When you use this phrase, you’re expressing something that can be done or can’t be done (if in the negative).

Ex. “Dá pra falar agora?” (“Can I/you talk now?”)

If you think that is easy, it gets better. When something doesn’t work out, you can simply say “Não deu”, which would be the same as saying “Não foi possível” (“It wasn’t possible”). Conversely, you can also leave out the “para” when speaking affirmatively.

Ex. “Dá.” (“It’s possible.”)

A Gente

If you’ve ever dabbled in Romance languages, you may know that French allows for two ways to express “we” (“on” and “nous”). Well, Portuguese allows for the same freedom as well with “nós” and “a gente”. The easier of the two, in my humble opinion, is always “a gente” because it requires the “he/she/it” conjugation of the verb you wish to use. Percentage-wise, I probably use “a gente” around 95% of the time, even though I know how to conjugate verbs into the “nós” form. What I’m not sure about is if I learned this from Brazilians or if I naturally tend towards the simpler option. See this video and a post I did on the matter for more information.

Ex. “A gente comeu” (“We ate”)
vs.
Ex. “Nós comemos” (“We ate”)

Tu

The pronoun “tu” with the incorrect third-person verb form has fallen into popular use in recent years (correct me if it has been longer). At first, it was relegated to uneducated Brazilians but the phenomenon reached people of all levels of education and economic background. Luckily, “você” as a pronoun is still going strong and I’m pretty sure it won’t be dying out.

Ex. “Tu acha?” (“You think?”)

Speaking of the example above, what do you think about keeping things simple? I’m all for breaking the rules, as long as I don’t lose sight of the actual rules themselves. Fluency doesn’t always pertain to a subject matter. Sometimes it speaks to flexibility, too.

English is pretty popular in Brazil and English courses are a dime a dozen. When applying for the average desk job in a major city, I hear that it’s expected that one knows English. Knowledge of a third language is the new added bonus for the employer. When it comes to non-professional life, Brazilians already use many English words, even if they alter their meanings. While I wouldn’t recommend coming here and trying to get by with just your English fluency, I do think it’s important to understand how to use what you already know.

Shopping

We’ve all been shopping, but not everyone has been to a shopping…unless you are Brazilian, that is. Shoppings in Brazil are short for shopping centers, or malls, and they are hugely popular here in the capital cities. It is a rare occasion that I enter one and am not visually bombarded, both by tons of people and hoards of products.

Smoking

Imagine receiving an invitation to a “smoking only” event in Brazil. Would you bring your cigarettes, or perhaps not attend because you are a non-smoker? Despite Brazil having passed strict no-smoking laws in recent times, the event invitation might have nothing to do with lighting up. Smoking in Brazil is a term used to signify tuxedo or black tie clothing. The colloquialism was coined by the French and subsequently adopted by Brazilians.

Outdoor

Today, I went outdoors and I saw an outdoor. Wait, what? Let me explain. Here, an outdoor is a billboard (a.k.a. a large outdoor advertisement) and because several words would be needed to say the same thing in Portuguese, people just say “outdoor”. By the way, did you know the city of São Paulo implemented a billboard ban a few years ago in order to clean up the “visual pollution”?

Propaganda

For English-speakers, propaganda means biased information handed out by governments. In Brazil, the same is true…only there’s a more common meaning that most people will understand first if they hear the word. Advertisement. If someone says they saw a propaganda here, they mean they saw an advertisement.

There are many other words Brazilians use which actually hold the same meaning to English-speakers. Most are either cultural or connected to technology and business. “Light”, “layout”, “bullying”, “know-how”, “designer” and “fast-food” are a few examples that come to mind. See more here.

I’ll leave you with musician Zeca Baleiro’s jest about the invasion of foreign terms.