language notes

noticing laguage stuff

i hear a lot:

everthing is "-inho -zinho": diminutives are a characteristic of Bahian portuguese because it's just a way of adding affection to everything you say apart from making things small.

devagar/devagazinho= slow or slowly. Bahians have several reputations and stereotypes and one is the preguiça bahiana, that they are lazy and slothful very slow and just have parties all the time. i can't say i have enough experience to know about this but my sister is a full time university student and does construction work almost every day too. my host father works a lot too, but there definitely is an air and way that people have of speaking kind of slowly and relaxing when they can. i must say i don't see anyone rushing practically anywhere. once i think my sister was going to be late to class but we walked super slowly to the car while conversing and what not. i'd be running may be or speed it up a bit but no...no.

Direito, direitinho "voce comeu direitinho? "

which is hard to translate but it would be like a did you eat well but with another connotation, because direito means right, directly, or properly soo..

"mesmo" sometimes used at the end of sentences to ask "really?"

For spanish speakers:

• Salada/salgada: salada is salad not salty; salgada=salty
• puxar not= push so don't be suprised if you're pushing and pushing and nothing happenss. puxar=pull. it more sense once you see empurre [rr=j] on the other side
• pastel vs. bolo: pastel is not cake, it's like an italian calzone kind of. bolo is cake
• vitamina in portuguese means licuado/shake
• assistir televisao, nao e ver televisao
• precisar=to need; necessitar isn't really used
• brincar doesn't mean jump. it is to play.
• legal=cool/chido
• can’t say "mais grande" or "mais pequeno"; it's maior and menor i kept saying "e mais grande .." and i kept bieng corrected because in no occasion is it okay. jaja. it's like saying "mas mejor" or something
• ps: mucho in spanish is muito by the way
• and older and younger is mais velha and mais nova even for people; it’s not rude to say "estas mas vieja"