Saturday 24 August 2013

Money, Moolah, Cash

Notas (Notes)

All bank notes have the statue representation of the Republic shown in the the front.

R$ 50 Onça pintada (Jaguar)

If you look at the two versions you'll note (ha ha) that the word fifty  is spelled a bit differently from one version to the other. That's because the umlaut accent (known in Portuguese as the "trema") was recently removed from the Portuguese language during the orthographic reform. So while the word is still pronounced the same, fifty is now spelled "cinquenta", not "cinqüenta".

The "old" version of the R$50 bill




The new R$ 50 bank note. 

Thursday 22 August 2013

Colloquialisms, sayings, & Slang

Churrasquinho de gato – Cat barbecue
Any BBQ of questionable origin (it isn't actually made of cat... one hopes).

Véi, véio – Oldie, old
Slang akin to “dude”. It's particularly popular among  those of the 90's generation.

Estar frito – To be fried
A term used similarly to “to be screwed” in English, but isn't considered to be a swear like “screwed” is. Closer to "to be in a jam" swear-wise.

Tuesday 20 August 2013

Apologies for My Grand Disappearing Act

I was accepted into a program at my university to go live in Cuba for 4 months. Through said 4 months, my laptop was resuscitated from the blue screen of death twice, before eventually succumbing into a speed coma (that is, it works enough to remove one or two files before freaking out and shutting down). All my documents are (slowly) being retrieved from its hard-drive little by little.
Colloquialisms, sayings, & Slang

Nem aqui nem lá na China! - Neither here nor in China!

A way of saying something is ridiculous or untrue. Eg. Someone offers you a food you've never tried.  You ask them what it tastes like and they say it's kinda sweet, but when you try it it's extremely bitter. Then you would say “isso não é doce nem aqui nem lá na China!” (this isn't sweet neither here nor in China!).

Nem que a vaca tussa (em Alemão)! - Not even if the cow coughs (in German)!
A somewhat equivalent exclamation to “in your dreams”. Can also mean “never ever in a million years” depending on the situation.