Lesson 23: Cool Little Words, Nicknames
Let’s see if we have this right? Michelle’s family gave her the nickname “witch” because of how moody she became when under stress at school, right? Wow, that’s a mean nickname, at least from a North American point of view.
This lesson is a bit different in that we don’t look at pronunciation directly, but we do look at the little extra words that people add to their speech, like, you know, umm, well, like, whatever, you know?
PODCAST LINK: Lesson 23
Love it, all those littel tricks to help you improve your language. Although in my country the tendecy of using an amount of non necessary words in a conv. is very big, especially it depends of the region in which you live. Making it sometimes very hard for people from Bogota to understand what a person from the coast line is talking about!
Comment by Daniel Gomez — March 24, 2007 @ 1:27 pm
Although I enjoy all the lessons about the sounds and their differences with Spanish (I listen to them over and over again), I really liked the turn it took this time. Very, very useful! I always wanted to know all these little words people really use in ordinary conversation (outside the classroom) but I never knew how to ask for them, since they’re really something you only learn by talking a lot with native speakers or living in Brasil itself for sometime. When I’ve practiced my Portuguese, my sentences usually sound like I’m reading from a book or something. I needed those “no?”, “eh?” and “verdad?” I use in Spanish to sound more natural and I think this lesson pretty much does the trick.
And I can’t even imagine Michelle as a “bruxa”… she sounds so sweet to be witch!
Comment by Emmanuel — March 25, 2007 @ 11:28 pm
This lesson cleared up some questions I had about Portuguese. I am wondering if we are not seeing with this lesson a shift in the focus from just pronuciation to a more general “Brazilian Portuguese for Spanish Speakers.” This would be wonderful! The possibilities would be limitless and of broad interest to many.
Comment by Edward W. Schiffer — March 26, 2007 @ 5:53 am
I really enjoy and look forward to your podcasts. One idea for a future lesson would be on the false equivalents between Spanish and Portuguese. I was reminded of this by the word apelido in Portuguese which would be apodo in Spanish. There is a long list of words that mean one thing in Portuguese and another in Spanish, so it would be fun to hear a dialog with them.
You may have already planned this but since we don’t know the future lessons, I thought I’d suggest it. I am just worried about your getting to an end of the podcasts so please keep creating new lessons even if they aren’t strictly on pronunciation!
Comment by Richard Finkel — March 26, 2007 @ 6:54 am
Daniel, Emmanuel,
Agreed, these little words are really important and unless they become part of how we talk, our speech will never sound natural. I liked your comparison to “reading from a book”. That’s exactly how it sounds if we don’t add these little words.
Oh, and also agreed, nobody is sweeter than our bruxa Michelle.
Orlando
Comment by orkelm — March 26, 2007 @ 8:33 am
Edward, Richard,
Funny you should ask about future plans! We have one more lesson which will be about intonation, then we have another supplementary lesson #3 on consonants. After that our plan is to move away from pronunciation and focus on usage, vocabulary, and grammar. That’s the master plan anyway. So, your suggests are right on!
Orlando
Comment by orkelm — March 26, 2007 @ 8:38 am
Please give due time to that funky infinitive in Portuguese.
Comment by Edward W. Schiffer — March 26, 2007 @ 3:45 pm
I really got a kick out of this lesson! I am so grateful that you all came up with these segments of Brazilian Portuguese. I have been trying to learn brazilian portuguese on and off this past year. Sadly, my school does not offer the language so I took Spanish instead. Not to say that Spanish is any better/worse, I thought it would help me with my future endeavors with Portuguese! Anyway, it is wonderful and fresh to hear native speakers such as Michelle and Valdo bring the language to life.
Please continue the awesome work=)
and as they say:
muito obrigado from my heart.
Comment by Chico da Sylva — March 26, 2007 @ 5:38 pm
very valuable lesson, since this stuff is never in books. When you guys/gals start with vocabulary, i would like a lesson or two on expressions/ idioms. I have seen pages of them but don’t know
which words or expressions are important to learn. When studying spanish i realized some expressions were only used by great-grandma and not kool or part of daily vocabulary. Spanish idioms helped
me survive in spain since i am not fluent but have all of the important expressions memorized.
http://cole1.com/expressoes.html here is an example of a list.
Comment by cole — March 30, 2007 @ 10:57 pm
Edward - noted, we’ll do a lesson on the funky infinitive
Chico - Agreed, listening to Michelle and Valdo is delightful, and I’ve been speaking Portuguese for 30 years. It’s still fun to hear them speak.
Cole - noted, we’ll see what idiomatic expressions we can fit into things.
Orlando
Comment by orkelm — April 16, 2007 @ 8:40 am
BOM, isso dos apelidos é interessante VIU? SABE um tio le diz “bruxa” a minha mae tambem como Michelle, e ela diz para ele outras coisas bem emgraçadas tambem e tudo mundo fica feliz! eles se adoram!
Uma coisa interessante é a sensibilidade racial, a gente lá pode colocar apelidos como “preto” sem problema e aca nos EU chamar alguem preto e proibido! aca qualquer apelido sobre cor da pele, religiao, nacionalidade todo é racismo
Comment by cynthiaz — November 29, 2007 @ 11:13 am
Gostei da lição. Essa lista de palavras vai ser muito útil. ^_^
Tomara que quando eu for para Brasil as pessoas não me coloquem um apelido que eu no goste. :s
Comment by Lisa Martinez — November 29, 2007 @ 2:27 pm
Foi minha licao predileta!! Acho tao dificil incorporar essas palavras quando nao ouco elas todos os dias. Tenho que encontrar uma estacao de radio ou algo para ouvir mais portugues.
Comment by Monica Mitre — November 29, 2007 @ 6:42 pm
Na última frase de Valdo é mais interessante para mim. Nunca ouvi alguém estender “tá” como ele faz.
O palavras no final das frases - ta, viu, etc - lembrar-me da Inglaterra, onde cada frase é finalizado com “yeah?” Canada também.
Comment by Daniel Kietzer — November 29, 2007 @ 7:43 pm
Diga ai, ha frases nesta licao que sao mais tipicos da conversacao de jovens e outros da conversacao mais formal e tradicional? E interestante que no Brasil as pessoas podem ter apelidos que significam a raca ou outras caractaresticas fisicas mas e ilegal usar o racismo na maneira hostil. Que tipo de problemas tem os brasileiros com o racismo?
Comment by ryan c. — November 29, 2007 @ 9:12 pm
Eu sou estudando portuguese agora na universidade da UF. Eu encontrei um site que chama(?) radios do Brasil. http://www.musikcity.mus.br tem muitos estacoes que ficam no Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Belo Horizante, Sao Paulo. Entao, se voces quer los ouvem, esse e o site. Tambem, eu gosto do programa. muito bem!
Comment by sheila — November 30, 2007 @ 12:14 pm
Sabe achei muito legal! UHAUA…
Sou Brasileiro como alguns de vocês,o Podcast foi excelente porém acho que teria ficado melhor se tivessem citado o fato de que nem todos aceitam apelidos, e que de certa forma isso pode até ser ofensivo para alguns.
Muito interessante mostrar esses vícios de linguagem bem brasileiros (Tá, viu, né…), na minha opinião são necessários, só que em excesso mostra a falta de vacabulário do falante.
Enfim, i love it!
Comment by Rodrigo Puls — March 5, 2008 @ 9:00 am
Rodrigo,
Nice point. Some nicknames aren’t accepted by others and not everyone likes the weird name that others come up for them. Obrigado
Orlando
Comment by orkelm — March 5, 2008 @ 6:29 pm
hello, i was just wondering.. in this episode the nickname ‘alemão’, meaning ‘german’, is mentioned. i was just curious, when do you call a person ‘alemão’ ? which traits would he have? thanks!
marie
p.s: i am eternally grateful to you guys for making this podcast, it trully is a dream come true for me!
Comment by marie — April 14, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
Hi Marie,
I can only speak from experience and that is that anyone who is tall and blond is likely to be called “alemão” at some point. I have even heard “alemãozinho” and “alemãozão,” which totally cracked me up.
Comment by orkelm — April 15, 2008 @ 7:45 am
Acho muito interessante que alguns apelidos que referem a características físicas podem referir a pessoas sem essas características, como neguinho.
Comment by Ebony Jackson — October 25, 2008 @ 1:48 am
ótimo! gostei da leção, acho que agora vou ter som mais brasileiro!! obridado!
Comment by Eduardo Gonzalez — November 12, 2008 @ 5:52 pm
Bom, esta licao para mim, e como quando o muleque gordo acha os doces. Eu adoro das expressoes que prestam autentidade ao meu portugues.
Comment by Elissa Wev — November 14, 2008 @ 12:46 am
Eu adoro esse tipo de palavra, ‘chunks’ para fazer mais natural o jeito de falar. Acho que minha predileta vem da Bahia, primeiro tem ‘Ó.’ Sempre ouvia “Ó, ó aqui,” ou “Ó aqui ó” dos vendedores nos mercados, nas lojas, etc. Então vem, ‘Ó paí ó,’ que meu irmão brasileiro teve que explicar, significa “Olhe para isso, olhe.” Por isso, sempre gosto de usar ‘Ó’ nas minhas frases.
Comment by Clyde Sheble — November 19, 2008 @ 1:17 pm
Nao sabia que se podia dizer “Cê sabe” para “Você sabe”
Comment by Kyle — November 19, 2008 @ 8:04 pm
Falô tem algo relacionado com falou?
Comment by Elena Bessire — November 20, 2008 @ 6:08 pm
Eu tenho uma caderninha que levei para Salvador (preenchava palavras em portugues quando as pessoas falavam) e tenho uma palavra escrito–ileso ( significa sim danha ninhum). Voce tem ouvido essa palavra?
Comment by lorena — November 20, 2008 @ 11:59 pm
Acho que orlando precisa dar apelidos aos alunos para preparar eles por brasilieros.
Comment by Eduard Keller — November 21, 2008 @ 12:08 am
Eu tenho a mesma pergunta que Elena. Sempre pensava que as pessoas diziam “falou”
Comment by Erin — November 21, 2008 @ 9:28 am
As “palavrinhas legais” ajudam como fillers, mas eu acho que seria mais util ter uma revisao da gramatica e vocabulario dificil/advançado. O jeito de parecer “mais brasileiro” começa com falar bem o portugues.
Comment by Shannon Zamora — November 23, 2008 @ 10:34 pm
Eu acho interessante esse tema de dar apelidos que, pelos americanos, podem ofender. Eu tinha que me acstumar com isso quando estava na Argentina, sempre me chamavam ‘gorda’ e minha mãe anfitriã me chamava ‘grandota.’
Comment by Golden Dale Oehlke — November 23, 2008 @ 11:35 pm
What a wonderful lesson! It is so helpful to know the “little words” that make your speech more authentic.
Comment by Marina Potoplyak — June 26, 2009 @ 3:03 pm
This is probably one of the most important things to learn in a language — not just for incorporating the words into one’s own speech (which is a ways off for me still), but also for understanding other people’s speech. I can get thrown off by the inclusion of extra words… so it’s helpful for me to be mindful of hearing for them.
Comment by Mary Slosar — July 1, 2009 @ 9:16 am