Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Notes

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Lesson Transcript

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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