Poopy pretzel
One day I was at the mall in a large city in Brazil and I decided to have a pretzel. I saw that they had a coconut pretzel, and I thought that would be really neat to try, after all, I love coconut! So I proceded to ask for a pretzel de cocô. The young lady looked puzzled for a moment, and then realized that I was asking for a pretzel de coco. °ä´Ç³¦Ã´ means 'poop' and coco means 'coconut'. A subtle difference in sound, but a huge difference in reaction!
Sent by: Brian
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Olá amigos, sou brasiliero e estou aprendendo inglês aqui. Moro em Cuiabá, no Centro Oeste do pais. No Pantanal Matogrossense. Um abraço para todos.
This is hilarious! But seriously, words that may mean the same thing, may show up diferently. Like sandwiches have different names. In America, subs, and in other contries they are called logs, footers, and just plain sandwhiches. Be care ful what you say, even if your a beginner or not. you will never know the outcome.
Charlie, in fact, "caca" means poop here in Brazil too. It is a matter of pronunciation. If you make the first syllable stronger, it's poop or something disgusting.
I think this comment is very funny. Actually, this is a big problem for beginners in the language. Bye!
Accent really makes the difference in many words, when you pronouce Kaka with accent on the second syllable refers to the soccer player, otherwise it's "caca" and it is poop!
I think it's a similar situation with the word anos, years, which can sound like anus :).
In Chile some people asked me who was my favourite football player. I answered: Kaka (from Brazil). In Chile caca means poop, so I got very funny looks.
When I went to Brazil I made sure that I avoided both words ... just in case!
It just cracked me up!!! A little bit of fun to start the day:) Thanks for that!
Hi! I'd like to make a warning. In Portuguese pronunciation is very important, as we've seen above. Another example is the word "pão" (bread). So if you want to buy bread in Portuguese be sure to know how to pronounce the nasal sounds otherwise you will be asking "pau" (wood), which is what foreigners who can't pronounce the nasal sounds say instead of bread "pão" :)
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