Instant Messaging in Portuguese
Posted on 25. Jun, 2007 by Transparent Language in Slang, Technology
Is there anything more important? It’s funny that in this day and age one of the most practical modes of language communication is not only not taught in school, but most adults are completely unaware it even exists. Luckily I’m here to shed some light on the all-important dialect: IM!
Some quick terms to get you going:
</ |
|
|---|---|
| Kkkkk | Laughing out loud |
| Rsrsrs | Lol |
| Vc | You |
| Cd | Where are/is (cadê) |
| Oq, q, oke, o q | What (O que, que) |
| pq | Why (por que) |
| Tbm, tb | Also (também) |
| td | Everything (tudo) |
| tc | Chat (teclar) |
| Blz | Great, “Word” (Beleza) |
| Aki | Here (aqui) |
Be sure to check out the BYKI Web list
that I’ve made for these terms!
I’ve been IM-ing a lot more lately in Portuguese, and I think you could really get by with a few hundred word vocabulary, certainly on the speaking side.
Phonetic typing can take some getting used to, especially since people IM with varying degrees of accuracy. Common
substitutions include ‘k’ for ‘qu’ dropping ‘es’ from all forms of ‘estar’ and o for ‘ou.’ Also it’s very common to see ‘eh’ instead of ‘e.’
Check out this sentence from an IM conversation: “to kerendo comessa por ai.” The ‘real’ Portuguese behind that sentence looks pretty different: “Estou querendo começar por aí.” [English: “I’d like to start there.”]
The ability to chat in Brazilian Portuguese is incredible. Young upper-middle class Brazilians are just as obsessed with their online social lives as we are in the US, and are typically very eager to chat, especially when they share a common interest (I generally end up chatting about either Music or Poker).
Imagine being able to bounce ideas off of a friend in another country! It’s fantastic to gain insight into how the US country is perceived, how news stories are reported differently, what’s going on in popular culture, and pretty much anything else we think about on a daily basis.
Hi,
your blog is great!
but I guess you should change “Cd” for “Kd”, Kd is much more used.
as Mariana said on the comment below, it is kd and not cd, because the real word is “cadê”, where the ca is the sound of the K letter, and dê, the sound of the D letter.
Pq is not only used for WHY but also for BECAUSE
what about “c”?
neh (não é?) = isn’t it??
tah (está) = is/are
tah (tá bom) = ok
vc and c are also used depending on when you’re saying them.
for example, to ask something, you’d say “kd vc?” [cadê você? - where are you?]
another example would be “c vai?” [você vai? - will you go?]
“c” is also used for “if” ["se"], for example
“c vc for eu vo” [se você for eu vou - if you go i'll go]
another thing about laughter in brazilian chat-speech.
there are several ways to say “lol” in brazil and they mostly include random entries of letters, most commonly the letters H, A, U, and S intermixed.
for example
“rhasuahsuahsua” is actually laughing really hard
in some parts of brazil, the letters P and C are also added to the mix. some letters are replaced, others added. there’s nothing 100% certain when it comes to laughing in brazilian chat-speech
9dades? = What’s up?
Mixing the number nine (nove) to abbreviate the word “novidades”.
e muinto bom este tradutor
i’ve never seen anyone write “9dades” in a brazilian chat. it has gotten indeed the same sound of “novidades” which means “what’s up”, but is definatly not used commonly hence i’d not recommended to a gringo wasting time by learning minor stuff like this. sry in advance for my broken english
When saying “don’t worry about it,” it is common for Paulistas to say “imagina,.” which normally means “imagine.”
Hi,
I found this information great, it would be amzazing if there could be some more posts as this way has helped me learn a little portuguese.
If there could be more translations and just general words with meanings that come up in chat etc etc
Thanks
Marc