Xovê

Oi gente!
Again, I'm here to talk about a word that doesn't exist and that is used a lot! 
You may learn that chover means to rain and it's pronounced like shover, stressing the last part. Then you start talking to a Brazilian and hear this person saying xovê but you're quite sure they're not talking about rain or the weather. So, what's he or she talking about?


Xovê or chovê is a made up word. Actually, it's a contraction from the expression deixe-me ver and it means "let me see".
Let's see the expression first, then we move on to the made up word.
The expression is imperative, so it conjugates like this:
deixe (tu)
deixa (você)
deixemos (nós)
deixem (vocês)


If you choose to say tu, the expression is deixe-me ver, but if you say você, then the expression is deixa-me ver (If you don't know which one to say, click here). The problem is that some people say deixa eu ver and that's wrong. We use eu in subjects, eu has to do the action. Because I'm the object of the sentence - I'm not doing the action, the statement is directed to you - the correct pronoun to use is me and not eu.
Now, let's see how all this turned into chovê. 

This is a made up word so there's no correct writing, it's just how it sounds, and in English it sounds like shovel, but without the L sound in the end and stressing the last part: sho-vê.

Remember, this is informal and some people also pronounce it tchovê.

Now, let's see some examples:

-Qual vestido você prefere? (Which dress do you prefer?)

-Xovê... Hmm o verde. (Let me see... hmm the green one.)

-Tem algo errado aqui. (There's something wrong here.)

-Xovê.  (Let me see.)

Xovê se o bolo já tá pronto. (Let me see if the cake is ready.)

Xovê se eu saio cedo do trabalho hoje. (Let me see if I can leave work early today.)

tantos, tantas (2)

We've already seen some uses of tão and tanto. Now, let's see some expressions.


Tanto means a great and generic number of something, 
The expressions "a number e tantos something" means that the number is greater than the one you're actually saying.


Ela tem uns 40 e tantos anos. ( more than 44, less than 50)
Tinham umas 50 e tantas pessoas. (more than 54, less than 60)
Que calor! Tá fazendo 30 e tantos graus. (more than 34, less than 40)


And if we say the number and e poucos?
Ela tem 40 e poucos anos. (from 40 to 44)
Tinham umas 50 e poucas pessoas. (from 50 to 54)
Que calor! Ta fazendo uns 30 e poucos graus. (from 30 to 34)


Here is another expression. Lá pelas tantas means later, at a late hour, later on, but we don't say the exact time.


Lá pelas tantas, o jantar foi servido.
Ela chegou, contou uma história e, lá pelas tantas, disse que tinha que ir.
O show foi ótimo. Lá pelas tantas, tocaram minha música favorita.
Falei com ele durante horas e, lá pelas tantas, me lembrei quem ele era.


É isso. Até a próxima.

Tu, você, vós, a gente

This post is not intended to teach everything about pronoun. The idea is to clear some questions about the controversial pronouns tu, você, vós, a gente.


If you look up on a classic grammar book, you'll find 8 pronouns:
Eu (I)
Tu (you)
Ele (he)
Ela(she)
Nós (we)
Vós(you - plural)
Eles (he - plural)
Elas (she-plural)


If you're in Brazil, you may notice that we use você a lot, and also a gente, and they are not on that list. Also we don't say vós. There's a big debate regarding the pronouns vós, tu and você. If you read about this on the Internet, you may get very confused. What happens is that our language is going through some changes. The formal rules have not changed, but on each part of the country different things are happening. Let's see.


1 - Vós
If you are in Brazil, you can forget vós. It's so old fashioned that only if you're reading a book from the 18th or 19th century you'll need it. Nowadays, people say vocês. But, in an extremelly formal situation, it would be possible. In catholic churches, for example, a priest may say it when quoting the Bible.


2 - Tu and Você
Tu is still spoken in some parts of Brazil. People, mainly from the north, northeast and south say it, but they usually conjugate it wrong. 


i.e.
Tu vai ao jogo? - The correct way is tu vais ao jogo?
Tu foi à praia?  - The correct way is tu foste a praia?
Tu gosta de chocolate. - The correct ways is tu gostas de chocolate.


The other parts of Brazil mainly say você and it conjugates the way ele is conjugated.


i.e 
Você vai ao jogo?
Você foi à praia?
Você gosta de chocolate.


So which one should I say?
My tip is: when in Brazil, notice if people around you say você or tu and speak like they do. Or use the one you feel more comfortable.


3 - A gente
A gente means we. Some people think it's too informal. And it conjugates like ele. 


A gente dorme cedo. or Nós dormimos cedo.
A gente mora no Brazil. or Nós moramos no Brazil.




Remember, if you're in Brazil:
Eu, você, tu, ele, ela, nós, a gente, vocês, eles, elas.


Até a próxima! Tchau!

Denda

The other day, someone asked me: "What does denda mean?"

I had no idea what they were talking about. I though this was not a Brazilian word. Then, I asked for an example and the person said: denda geladeira.

If you look up on a dictionary, you won't find it, this word doesn't exist, but we say it all the time. It's one of those things that we Brazilians would never notice.

Dentro de, dentro da e dentro do mean inside something. 

Sometimes, when we speak the word "dentro", the last part "tro" is not pronounced and the first part "den" is contracted  with de, da or do. The results are dendy, denda and dendue, spoken contractions of dentro de, dentro da and dentro do.

Be sure to know if the place you're talking about is masculine such as o carro, o armário; feminine like a gaveta, a geladeira; or if you don't say the gender like casa or pronouns.

• dentro da for feminine - de + a
• dentro do for masculine - de + o
• dentro de for no gender 

i.e.

Esqueci a chave dentro do carro. (dendue carro)

Coloque as roupas dentro do armário. (dendue armário)

Onde está o suco? Dentro da geladeira. (denda geladeira)

Tá dentro da gaveta. (denda gaveta)

Sinto um vazio dentro de mim. (dendy mim)

Eu estava no jardim e mamãe dentro de casa. (dendy casa)

Remember that if this happens, it's only when we speak. When writing, choose the correct way.

Até a próxima!

Tá ou não tá?

Oi, gente! Today I'm focusing on something very simple, tá?
Brazilians say this "tá" all the time, in different contexts, but if you don't have a good dictionary or grammar, you can't find what it  means.
You're already familiar with the verb estar (if not, click here for more info). If we conjugate estar in "Presente do Indicativo, we have:

Eu estou

Tu estás

Você/Ele/Ela está

Nós estamos

Vocês estão

Eles/Elas estão.

Tá is a simplified and informal way for está. And it can happen every time verb estar is spoken (in any conjugation). This simplification was initially phonetic, but now, with text message, e-mails and informal writing, it's even more important to understand it.
This is how it works: remove the first syllable - es - and write the ending the way you would pronounce it:

Eu tô

Você tá*

Ele/Ela tá

Nós tamos

Vocês tão

Eles/Elas tão.

*because this is informal, tu is not likely to be conjugated this way, however, in some parts of the country you can hear/see tu tais or tu tá.

• Eu tô feliz. (estou - I'm happy)
• Eu tava na praia quando você ligou. (estava - I was at the beach when you called me)
• Ele tava em casa. (estava - He was at home)
• Se eu tivesse na escola, teria feito a prova. (estivesse - If I had been at school, I would have taken the test.)

We also use tá as a short way of saying está bem and it means OK, alright, I got it - either in a question or answer. And you may also hear ah, ta as "oh, now I understand", or if someone is being ironic "oh, really?", yeah, right.
If it's Internet language, some people may write without the accents: tah or ta.

• Me liga mais tarde, tá? ( Call me later, ok?)
• Faça os deveres antes de ver TV, tá? (Do your homework before watching TV, ok?)
• Ah, tá! Você tirou 10 na prova! (Oh, really? You aced the test?)
• Ah, tá, primeiro direita, depois esquerda. (Oh, I got it. First right, then left.)

Até a próxima!

Tão vs Tanto (1)

Lots of people ask me the difference between tão and tanto. I'm going to try and be brief but solve those questions not using any of the grammar crazy words.

Tão intensifies the characteristic of something. It's about quality.

Ela é tão bonita.

O filme é tão chato.

Ele é tão alto.

Eu estava tão cansado.

Place tão before what you want to emphasise: tão cedo, tão chato, tão bonito.

Tanto intensifies an action/verb.

Ela estudou tanto.

Comemos tanto que passamos mal.

Ela faz tanta falta.

Dormi tanto, mas ainda estou com sono.

Eu queria tanto umas férias.

Place tanto after your action: estudou tanto, queria tanto, falava tanto.

Tanto also refers to a great amount, or a great number of something. In this case, we need to know if this something is femine, or masculine, countable or uncountable - tanto, tanta, tantos, tantas.

Tem tantas pessoas aqui.

Ela tem tantos amigos.

Ela fala tantas línguas.

Tinha tanta comida.

Você faz tanto batulho.

Place tanto (masculine) or tanta (feminine) before uncountable(usually words with no plural): tanta gente, tanto barulho, tanta comida, tanto amor, tanto açucar, tanta bagunça.

Place tantos or tantas after the countable words you are intensifying: tantos carros, tantas pessoas, tantos amigos. (notice the plural)

These are not all the possible uses of these words but the most used ones, and there will be more posts regarding this subject, but, uma coisa de cada vez (one step at a time).

Até a próxima!

Meia

Meia means sock or half, right?

Well, not always.

Meia can actually be the number 6 in Brazilian Portuguese. When giving someone your phone number, most people prefer to say meia instead of seis because the pronunciation of the two words can be confused, or just because they got used to saying it.

The word meia is short for meia duzia . Duzia is dozen (12) and 6 is half a dozen, then meia duzia turned into simply meia.

So, with phone numbers, addresses, or when "spelling" numbers you can use meia instead of seis.

i.e.

O endereço é Rua Álvaro, 356 (três-cinco-meia)

Meu telefone é 265-16-26 (dois-meia-cinco, um-meia, dois-meia)

Até!

Isso é sacanagem!

I know sacanagem is a tricky word. But I'm going to try and help you all understand and use it.

The word sacanagem derives from the word sacana, and according to Aurélio Dictionary it means:

Sacana: adj. e s.m. e s.f. Bras. Chul. Diz-se de, ou pessoa sem caráter, libertina. / Bras. (N) Diz-se de, ou pederasta passivo.

So sacana is a person with bad character or moral, or a libertine, or a sodomite. By reading this you'll automatically assume that this is a bad word. Well, not quite. Actually, this is a somewhat old fashioned and lately the word has a new general understanding. Maybe my great-grandma would use the word like this. Or if I'm mad at someone and I don't want to call them a bad name, I might call them sacana, if this person has done something against me. But in general, we don't call anyone sacana just because it's not part of our vocabulary.

Though sacanagem, we say a lot. The general understanding is that sacanagem is something someone does to effect you in a bad way, like pull your leg or pull the rug from under your feet. Sometimes, when something bad happens and it's not anyone fault we say it's a sacanagem, like when your team looses the final, or your car won't start, it's just those bad things that happen. We also can say a filme de sacanagem (a blue movie) or you can do sacanagem with your partner, like just mess around with your boyfriend or girlfriend and not as bad thing, just "natural stuff". And last but not least, maybe something wasn't working or wasn't possible and someone did something you don't understand and then it worked or was possible - they pulled some strings. So we say he did a sacanagem and now it's working.

And remember, derived from this word we have the verb sacanear - which is the action of pulling someone's rug from under their feet, sacanagenzinha (and it's not a little sacanagem, but a sacanagem with less importance), and many others.

Let's see some examples:

• Que sacanagem! Sua mãe te colocar de castigo no dia da festa ( Too bad your mom grounded you the day of the party.)
• O carro não queria pegar, ele fez uma sacanagenzinha, e na hora ligou. (The car wouldn't start, the he did something - i don't know what, and it worked right away.)
• Ele é um sacana. Ficou com a minha gata. (He's a jerk. He cheated me with my girl. - But only if I'm extremely polite.)
• Ele me sacaneou e ficou com o meu emprego. (He pulled the rug from under my feet and got my job.)
• Trabalhar no fim de semana é sacanagem. ( Working on weekends sucks.)

Ser ou não ser?

One of the first questions I hear, specially from beginners, is "What's the difference between ser and estar?“. 
Well, in English, we only have "to be" and we understand what's said with other words that are added to the sentence like characteristics, description, jobs, places etc. Well, in Portuguese, is quite simple, but you have to "think in Portuguese" in order to make sense. So, Let's see:


SER = Permanent We use ser, and all its possible conjugations, to talk about permanent things and situations. Real things, something real, unchangeable.


ESTAR = Temporary (conditions, mood, location, weather) We use estar, and all its possible conjugations, to talk about temporary things and situations that have recently changed or that could soon change - locations, places, mood, social status. Regarding weather, we have to be careful, because the verb estar is not the only possible way, but then we'll see it in another post.

• Eu sou mulher. (I am a woman.)
• Ele é rico? (Is he rich?)
• Ela é casada. (She's married.)
• Somos brasileiros. (We're Brazilian.)

These are things that won’t change.

• Eu estou cansado. (I'm tired.)
• Estamos atrasados (We're late.)
• Eles estão no Japão. (They're in Japan.)
• Ela está na aula. (She's in class.)
• Está quente hoje. (It's hot today)

These are not permanent things, they can change or have changed. Now, think about it:

• Eu sou feliz. X Eu estou feliz.
• Ela é casada. X Ela está casada.

What's the diference?

Because estar means something temporary, "Eu estou feliz." is now, because something happened and it made me happy, whereas "Eu sou feliz" is a general characteristic about myself. Like, I'm happy now, or I consider myself a happy person. And the second set of sentence "Ela é casada" is her marital status, but when I say: "Ela está casada" I focus on the fact that now she's gotten married. It's a new situation, it has changed recently.

Let's see if you understood

1) Hoje eu ____________ feliz.

2) Ela ___________solteira. Terminaram o casamento há dois meses.

3) Ele ganhou na loteria mês passado e agora ________ rico.

4) Eu _______ magra. Peso 50 kilos.

5) Eu __________ magra, fiz uma dieta e perdi 20 kilos.

Até a próxima!