Trying to be funny?!
A friend of mine was learning Portuguese and went to Brazil for a vacation. She was delighted by the possibility of speaking Portuguese.She did it at every opportunity to anybody who happened to stand next to her. One day she was at the beach trying to draw a woman into a conversation by stating how many 'girls' were around at the beach, using the word rapariga. The woman gave her a very alarmed look but soon she started to laugh. She explained to my friend that she should be very careful with the differences in Portuguese spoken in Portugal and Brazil. In Portugal rapariga means 'girl' but in Brazil it sounds more like 'concubine' or even 'prostitute'. Instead she should have used garota or ³¾´Çç²¹.
Sent by: Antonia
Comments
Here in Brazil, 'bicha' is a rude form of saying 'homosexual', but in Portugal, it means 'queue'
Does the same happen in Portugal? Any innocent words in Brazil that have "dangerous" meanings in Portugal?
Another example is pica: in European Portuguese it means injection, in Brazilian Portuguese it is a pejorative words for a man's private parts. And about grammatical differences the use of the continuous is different, in Portugal they say estou a comer / a beber etc. In Brazil we say estou comendo/bebendo.
Hah, I go to school in Portugal, and I'm used to European Portuguese, and we have a Brazilian in the class and he speaks very different, for example: In portugal to say 'Shut Up', you say Cala-te but in Brazil you say te cala and the te is like 'chi' so he trys to speak European Portuguese and says 'Calachi'. Brazilians are very funny. xD
Yeah, I learnt Portuguese at uni and we had a Brazilian lecturer who warned us about that one, theres a few like that where words in Portugal mean something very different to words in Brazil. So my advice would be if you learn Portuguese, check the dictionaries because Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese are quite different in terms of meaning and also grammatically. They can almost be like two separate languages at times and learn the two alongside each other. If you are going to Brazil make sure you know some of the specific Brazilian words because perfectly innocent words in Portugal like 'girl' can suddenly be changed into bad words in Brazil! So make sure you check the words that have BR at the side of them and learn them if you're heading off to Brazil!
There are a lot of words that in Portugal mean something innocent but in Brazil turned into bad words.
Things are not always as they seem in languages. It is very dangerous to directly translate from one into another language.
That's a very dangerous and common mistake here in Brazil ... but we are getting used to it!
Yes, Antonia is right. It can be "dangerous" to try to speak in Brazil Portuguese learned in Portugal and vice versa! The differences can be huge.
Durex in Brasil meansadesive tape and in Portugal is used for condoms.
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