Learn about a preposition that has several meanings and a Brazilian place that is a planned city
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Sílvia: Bem-vindo ao PortuguesePod101.com! |
| Braden: Upper Beginner Season 1, Lesson 6, An Eventful Christmas in Brazil. Hello and welcome to PortuguesePod101.com, where we’re studying modern Portuguese in a fun, educational format. |
| Sílvia: So, brush up on a Portuguese that you started learning long ago or start learning today. |
| Braden: Thanks for being here with us for this lesson. Sílvia, what are we looking at in this lesson? |
| Sílvia: In this lesson, we’ll be learning about the preposition “em”. |
| Braden: Where does this conversation take place and who is it between? |
| Sílvia: This conversation takes place in the evening at the cafe, and it’s between Marcelo and Rosana. |
| Braden: And what’s the formality level? |
| Sílvia: Well, they’re friends, so the conversation here is pretty much informal. |
| Braden: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Rosana: Como foi o seu Natal? |
| Marcelo: Foi bom, eu passei em Curitiba. |
| Rosana: Nossa, Que legal! |
| Marcelo: Foi ótimo! Eu fui no teatro do HSBC e assisti o coral das crianças cantando músicas de Natal. |
| Rosana: que bonitinho! |
| Marcelo: aí, Eu estive no museu de arame e um homem começou a passar mal. Logo logo, a ambulância chegou e o levou ao hospital. |
| Rosana: que medo. Mas isso não acabou com sua viagem? |
| Marcelo: nada! Achei máximo que chegaram tão rápido e cuidaram tão bem dele. Todo mundo foi muito educado e muito trabalhador. |
| Rosana: Poxa, Eu sempre sonhei em conhecer Curitiba. Falam que é uma das cidades mais organizadas do Brasil. |
| Braden: One time slowly. |
| Rosana: Como foi o seu Natal? |
| Marcelo: Foi bom, eu passei em Curitiba. |
| Rosana: Nossa, Que legal! |
| Marcelo: Foi ótimo! Eu fui no teatro do HSBC e assisti o coral das crianças cantando músicas de Natal. |
| Rosana: que bonitinho! |
| Marcelo: aí, Eu estive no museu de arame e um homem começou a passar mal. Logo logo, a ambulância chegou e o levou ao hospital. |
| Rosana: que medo. Mas isso não acabou com sua viagem? |
| Marcelo: nada! Achei máximo que chegaram tão rápido e cuidaram tão bem dele. Todo mundo foi muito educado e muito trabalhador. |
| Rosana: Poxa, Eu sempre sonhei em conhecer Curitiba. Falam que é uma das cidades mais organizadas do Brasil. |
| Braden: One time fast, with translation. |
| Rosana: Como foi o seu Natal? |
| Rosana: How was your Christmas? |
| Marcelo: Foi bom, eu passei em Curitiba. |
| Marcelo: It was good, I spent it in Curitiba. |
| Rosana: Nossa, Que legal! |
| Rosana: Wow, that's cool! |
| Marcelo: Foi ótimo! Eu fui no teatro do HSBC e assisti o coral das crianças cantando músicas de Natal. |
| Marcelo: It was great! I went to the HSBC theater and watched the Children's Chorus sing Christmas music. |
| Rosana: que bonitinho! |
| Rosana: That's so cute. |
| Marcelo: aí, Eu estive no museu de arame e um homem começou a passar mal. Logo logo, a ambulância chegou e o levou ao hospital. |
| Marcelo: Then, I was at the Wire Museum and a man became very ill. The ambulance arrived very quickly and took him to the hospital. |
| Rosana: que medo. Mas isso não acabou com sua viagem? |
| Rosana: That's scary. But didn't that ruin your trip? |
| Marcelo: nada! Achei máximo que chegaram tão rápido e cuidaram tão bem dele. Todo mundo foi muito educado e muito trabalhador. |
| Marcelo: No way! I thought it was awesome how they arrived so fast and took such good care of him. Everyone was so polite and hard working. |
| Rosana: Poxa, Eu sempre sonhei em conhecer Curitiba. Falam que é uma das cidades mais organizadas do Brasil. |
| Rosana: Shoot, I always dreamt of going to Curitiba. They say it's one of the most organized cities in Brazil. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Braden: Where is Curitiba located, roughly? |
| Sílvia: Curitiba is located in Paraná state in the southern region of Brazil. It’s a planned city and therefore, it’s very proud of its organized system of roads and mass transit. |
| Braden: With a really big emphasis on preservation of nature. |
| Sílvia: Yes, right. |
| Braden: Curitiba is much more of a business-oriented city, not so much a tourist center. But two major attractions of Curitiba are the Botanical Gardens and this Wire Opera. The Wire Opera is like this theater that’s made entirely of steel. It looks like a bunch of wire, that’s why it’s called Wire Opera. But these Botanical Gardens, could you tell us a little bit about those? |
| Sílvia: They have lots of flowers and gardens in front of a wire structure as well. |
| Braden: Mm-hmm. |
| Sílvia: And within this wire structure, they have a greenhouse. |
| Braden: Estufa, that’s what the word is. That’s how we say “greenhouse” in Portuguese. It’s actually a really pretty big building. |
| Sílvia: Yes. |
| Braden: Within its own glass and wire. |
| Sílvia: You can walk around it. |
| Braden: And it has several natural native things to the region around here. |
| Sílvia: Mm-hmm. |
| Braden: So as a lot of stuff from other parts of the country and other parts of the word for that matter, all planted in there, nice and pretty. |
| Sílvia: Yes. I think Curitiba gives much attention to this because we are very close with the Atlantic Forest and it’s one of most important environments for natural biodiversity. |
| Braden: In the region. |
| Sílvia: In the region and in Brazil, it’s a very important ecosystem here in Brazil. |
| Braden: Okay. Research that, the Floresta Atlântica. There’s a lot of stuff about this and it’s a big deal. |
| Sílvia: You can also find it as Mata Atlântica. |
| Braden: Okay, so moving on. Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Braden: The first word we’ll look at is… |
| Sílvia: natal [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Christmas |
| Sílvia: natal [slowly - broken down by syllable] natal [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Sílvia: teatro [natural native speed] |
| Braden: theater |
| Sílvia: teatro [slowly - broken down by syllable] teatro [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Sílvia: HSBC [natural native speed] |
| Braden: the HSBC bank |
| Sílvia: hsbc [slowly - broken down by syllable] hsbc [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Sílvia: coral [natural native speed] |
| Braden: choir |
| Sílvia: coral [slowly - broken down by syllable] coral [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Sílvia: música [natural native speed] |
| Braden: music |
| Sílvia: música [slowly - broken down by syllable] músicas [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Sílvia: cantar [natural native speed] |
| Braden: to sing |
| Sílvia: cantar [slowly - broken down by syllable] cantar [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Sílvia: arame [natural native speed] |
| Braden: wire, steel wire |
| Sílvia: arame [slowly - broken down by syllable] arame [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Sílvia: levar [natural native speed] |
| Braden: to take |
| Sílvia: levar [slowly - broken down by syllable] levar [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Sílvia: viagem [natural native speed] |
| Braden: trip |
| Sílvia: viagem [slowly - broken down by syllable] viagem [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Sílvia: educado [natural native speed] |
| Braden: polite, educated |
| Sílvia: educado [slowly - broken down by syllable] educado [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Sílvia: trabalhador [natural native speed] |
| Braden: worker |
| Sílvia: trabalhador [slowly - broken down by syllable] trabalhador [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Sílvia: trabalhador [natural native speed] |
| Braden: hardworking |
| Sílvia: trabalhador [slowly - broken down by syllable] trabalhador [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Sílvia: pôxa [natural native speed] |
| Braden: man, shoot, or wow |
| Sílvia: pôxa [slowly - broken down by syllable] pôxa [natural native speed] |
| Braden: And our last word is... |
| Sílvia: sonhar [natural native speed] |
| Braden: to dream |
| Sílvia: sonhar [slowly - broken down by syllable] sonhar [natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Braden: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Sílvia: The first phrase we’ll look at is tão bem. |
| Braden: Tão bem means “so well” or “so good.” We've already learned the word "bem" but "tão" is a bit more difficult to define as it has a few rather distinct and kind of separate uses and meanings. |
| Sílvia: As it was used in the dialogue, tão is an intensifier much like "so" is in English. For example, to say "It's so cold" in Portuguese, you'd say "Está tão frio." |
| Braden: And as a quick tip, tão as an intensifier is most naturally used immediately after a verb. So in the dialogue… |
| Sílvia: Cuidaram tão bem dele… |
| Braden: Literally translates to "took care so well of him." |
| Sílvia: Since Portuguese is so flexible, you can restructure the sentence and say cuidaram dele tão bem to mean "took care of him so well," but that's not the natural way to structure the sentence in Portuguese. |
| Braden: Could you break this down for us? |
| Sílvia: Cuidaram tão bem dele. |
| Braden: And one time fast. |
| Sílvia: Cuidaram tão bem dele. The next phrase we’ll look at is levado ao hospital. |
| Braden: Levado ao hospital means "taken to the hospital." Here, the "to the" is contracted as "ao." |
| Sílvia: Here, the preposition "a" is used instead of "para" because "a" is short term than "para." |
| Braden: Oh. |
| Sílvia: Para is more long term and would give the feeling that he would stay at the hospital for a long time, possibly forever. |
| Braden: Could you break this down for us? |
| Sílvia: Levado ao hospital. |
| Braden: And one time fast. |
| Sílvia: Levado ao hospital. |
| Braden: What’s our next word? |
| Sílvia: The next word we’ll look at is educado. |
| Braden: Educado literally translates to "educated," but it's a bit more complicated than that. About 100 years ago in English, the term "educated" meant not only that you had gone to school and knew a lot of stuff, but that you also were very polite and genteel. In English, that extra meaning, though, has pretty much died off. |
| Sílvia: In Portuguese, however, that meaning still exists and it’s arguably even stronger than the meaning "they went to a good school." Most of the time, when someone says that you or someone else is educado, it means you are polite. |
| Braden: And not that you are very smart or that you’d been to school or that you know a lot of stuff. There’s also a negative form, which would be? |
| Sílvia: Mal-educado. To say that someone is educated in the school sense, you can use the term letrado, which means “lettered” as in they know their letters well. Letrado for a man. Letrada for a woman. |
| Braden: Could you break this word down for us, educado? |
| Sílvia: educado |
| Braden: And one time fast. |
| Sílvia: educado |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Sílvia: The focus of this lesson is the preposition em. In the dialogue, we heard the phrase - Foi bom, eu passei em Curitiba. |
| Braden: Which we translated as it was good, I spent it in Curitiba. |
| Sílvia: The preposition em in Portuguese means "on" or "in." |
| Braden: When I was learning Portuguese, after teaching us about "em" and seeing the confusion on our faces, my professor grabbed the garbage can and placed his hand on the outside and said "em." Then he placed his hand inside the garbage can and looked at each one of us and said, "em" and then he moved on to the next topic. |
| Sílvia: He’s right. |
| Braden: Is that right? Is that how it works? It’s really confusing to English, but when you really need to differentiate between inside and on top of, you can use dentro, which means “inside” and em cima de, which means “on top of.” But for the most part in Portuguese, context is more than enough to distinguish the two. When someone is there and they’re just pointing at something, I mean you just kind of know, well it’s em, it’s on top of or it’s in em, it’s inside. You just kinda know. It’s just how it works. |
| Sílvia: Mm-hmm. |
| Braden: Em is one of many prepositions in Portuguese that contract with articles, both in spoken and written Portuguese, but it does this in several different ways. |
| Sílvia: So, when you ever have em followed by the articles “o” or “a,” they must be contracted. This is a rule. In English, you would say “in the” or “on the.” |
| Braden: To say “on the” or “in the,” in Portuguese, we use the following contractions. |
| Sílvia: em + o = no (preceding a masculine noun). For example: No pacote. |
| Braden: And that means “in the package” or “on the package,” depending on the context. Another example, for the feminine? |
| Sílvia: em + a = na (preceding a feminine noun). For example: Na caixa. |
| Braden: Once again, could be either “in the box” or “on the box,” depending on the context. So, could you give us some context for these words, so we can learn how to distinguish? |
| Sílvia: Sure. Ele trabalha na sala de aula, which means “He works in a classroom." |
| Braden: And how about one more, a masculine one? |
| Sílvia: Ele escreve no quadro. "He writes on the blackboard." |
| Braden: Rather difficult to write within the blackboard. He writes on the blackboard. It’s kind of an obvious context idea. So, you’ll frequently use em by itself, but you’ll rarely, if ever, see something like em a anywhere. |
Outro |
| Braden: Tchau pra vocês! |
| Sílvia: Obrigada! |
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