INTRODUCTION |
Thássia: Bom dia! |
Braden: Braden here! This is Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 19 - Brazilians Striking Problem. So Thassia, what are we going to learn in this lesson? |
Thássia: In this lesson, you will learn how much Portuguese articles are used in speech. |
Braden: Where does this conversation takes place and who is it between? |
Thassia: This conversation takes place at the bus stop and it's between Leonardo and Julie. |
Braden: The speakers are co-workers; therefore, they'll be speaking casually. |
Thassia: Let's listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation
|
(Casual) |
Julie: O ônibus está atrasado hoje. |
Leonardo: Talvez os motoristas estejam de greve. Onde você mora? |
Julie: Eu moro em Campo Grande. |
Leonardo: Ah tá, eu moro lá perto. Vamos pegar um táxi? |
Braden:One time slowly. |
Julie: O ônibus está atrasado hoje. |
Leonardo: Talvez os motoristas estejam de greve. Onde você mora? |
Julie: Eu moro em Campo Grande. |
Leonardo: Ah tá, eu moro lá perto. Vamos pegar um táxi? |
Braden:One time fast with translation. |
Julie: O ônibus está atrasado hoje. |
Braden: The bus is late today. |
Leonard: Talvez os motoristas estejam de greve. Onde você mora? |
Braden: Maybe the bus drivers are on strike. Where do you live? |
Julie: Eu moro em Campo Grande. |
Braden: I live in Campo Grande. |
Leonardo: Ah tá, eu moro lá perto. Vamos pegar um táxi? |
Braden: Oh, okay, I live close to there. Shall we catch a taxi? |
POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
Thássia: "Estar de greve" means "to be on strike." |
Braden: Yes, and certainly, it is fairly common in Brazil these days. |
Thássia: You sound like you are talking from experience. |
Braden: Well, yes I am actually. Three days after I arrived in São Paulo for the first time, the entire "national mail system," called "Correios," went on strike. |
Thássia: Oh, I remember when that happened. |
Braden: Luckily, that was resolved in about a month but I soon travelled to Brasília where all the banks around Brasília went on strike and I couldn't get any cash for almost two weeks. |
Thássia: And how did you deal with that? |
Braden: Luckily, I had some friends in the area and I borrowed cash from them until the banks started working again and I could pay them back. Then a year and a half later and still in Brasília, the entire bus system went on strike. |
Thássia: Wow. That was probably hard. |
Braden: It was. They planned it well too so they took everyone to work in the morning and then went on strike at noon so that no one could get home. Slightly malicious. |
Thássia: Right. I bet that made a lot of people very angry. |
Braden: Yes it did. Four hundred thousand people who had to either sleep in the streets or catch a taxi made the front page and a deal was struck the next day. |
Thássia: Any more lovely striking stories? |
Braden: Way too many. Just one. But for now, just one. A year after that while in Vitória, Espírito Santo, all the workers at CST, a huge steel factory near there, went on strike for a month. |
Thássia: I bet that was expensive for the company. |
Braden: Very. Here's the best part, all of this happened within three years. Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
VOCAB LIST |
Braden: The first word we'll look at is. |
Thássia: O [natural native speed] |
Braden: The (masculine, singular) |
Thássia: O [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
Thássia: O [natural native speed] |
Braden: And what's our next word? |
Thássia: A [natural native speed] |
Braden: The (feminine, singular) |
Thássia: A [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
Thássia: A [natural native speed] |
Braden: And next we have? |
Thássia: Talvez [natural native speed] |
Braden: Maybe |
Thássia: Talvez [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
Thássia: Talvez [natural native speed] |
Braden: And our next word is. |
Thássia: Os [natural native speed] |
Braden: The (masculine, plural) |
Thássia: Os [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
Thássia: Os [natural native speed] |
Braden: And next is? |
Thássia: As [natural native speed] |
Braden: The (feminine, plural) |
Thássia: As [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
Thássia: As [natural native speed] |
Braden: And our next word is. |
Thássia: Grande [natural native speed] |
Braden: Big |
Thássia: Grande [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
Thássia: Grande [natural native speed] |
Braden: And our last word is. |
Thássia: De [natural native speed] |
Braden: Of, from |
Thássia: De [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
Thássia: De [natural native speed] |
KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
Braden: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
Thássia: Let's look at "tá." |
Braden: "Tá" means "okay," and in the dialogue, Leonardo said "Ah tá" to mean "Oh, okay." |
Thássia: This is a very useful phrase! We say this all the time. |
Braden: And she's not kidding. I hear this many, many times every single day. |
Thássia: One of my favorite examples of this phrase is "Ah tá então tá," which means "Oh, okay, then it's fine." |
Braden: I know people have survived for months in Brazil only knowing this phrase and "por favor," which means "please." |
Thássia: That's a good combination. |
Lesson focus
|
Braden: Let's take a look at this grammar point which is… |
Thássia: Articles. |
Braden: Like in the newspaper? |
Thássia: No. Grammatical articles like the words "o," "a," "os," and "as." |
Braden: Normally, I would tell her to stop using so many grammar terms but this one is actually pretty useful. |
Thássia: Portuguese uses articles much more often than English does. |
Braden: That's right. Grammatical articles are words like "the," "a," and "an," and shouldn't be confused with articles in a newspaper. |
Thássia: Brazilians use articles so much that a list of nouns will often include the articles. |
Braden: Portuguese uses articles much more than English. Many times they make perfect sense like they did on the dialogue. |
Thássia: But sometimes they won't, like in "os meus amigos," which means "the my friends," or in comparisons using "do que," which means "of the that." |
Braden: Which obviously doesn't make any sense. Articles are very important and sometimes the article is the only way to identify grammatical gender. |
Thássia: To simplify the rules for using articles in Portuguese are, one, every noun must have an article in front of it. |
Braden: And two, the article much match in gender and plurality with its noun. |
Thássia: There are exceptions to this rule but the exceptions are more complex than the rule and can even vary from dialect to dialect. |
Braden: The best tip for now is to listen to how the people in your region say it and if they include the article then you should; if they don't, then you don't. |
Thássia: So let's go over the words "o," "a," "os," and "as." |
Braden: Which all translate to "the." So, "the book" is. |
Thassia: "O livro." |
Braden: And… |
Thássia: "Os livros" |
Braden: Is "the books." That just about does it for this lesson. Okay. Premium members, use the review track to perfect your pronunciation. |
Thássia: Available at PortuguesePOD101.com. The review track gives you vocabulary and phrases followed by a short pause so you can repeat the words aloud. |
Braden: Listen and repeat. Copying a native speaker is the best way to start sounding like one. |
Thássia: Give it a try today. |
Braden: Have a nice day. |
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