Go with the Flow: in Portuguese!

Go with the Flow: in Portuguese! Posted by Transparent Language on Feb 1, 2008 in Uncategorized

Ever try to say ‘chill,’ or ‘laid-back’ in Portuguese? For a long time I’ve been trying to find just the right way of saying the equivalent of ‘I’m just chilling,’ and I think I’ve found it.

Here’s a quick list of terms for when you are ‘just kicking it’ in Portuguese:

relax: relaxed, chill, ‘all-good’ (pronounced ‘hey-lax’)
tranqüilo: mellow, tranquil (pronounced ‘trahn-kwee-loh’)
de boa: chilling (example: “cê tá de boa, mermão?” = “You chilling brother?”)
só na maciota: no worries, living the good life, it’s all good

It’s interesting that the common greetings in Portuguese tudo bom / tudo bem already literally mean ‘it’s all good.’ This literal translation when used in English implies tranquility and mellowness. Perhaps the constant reaffirmation of all-goodness in the Portuguese language has a calming effect on the cultural temperament. Is that possible?

Now I’m going to go tell my Brazilian friends that they ought to start saying ‘hunky-dory’ a lot; let’s try to bring that one back. After all, Brazil is perhaps the last place on earth where you can go to a disco and ask a woman (or man for that matter) ‘hey baby, what’s your sign?’ and not look ridiculous.

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Comments:

Bob:

Hey, great blog you got there!
Found it on a google ad. Quite interesting!

Just a doubt here. I live in the capital, Brasília, and here people tend to say /hee-‘lax/ and not /hey-‘lax/ when they say ‘relax’. I don’t know if the rest of the country pronounces it the same, but I’ve seen people from other states using the same pronunciation. Where have you seen the /hey’-lax/ one?

Cheers

Bob
Tiago:

Hi, as a native speaker i like to add that relax is not a portuguese word, is the original english word – very used in Brazil because of the strong U.S. cultural influences here – so the pronunciation is a brazilian tentative to emulate the U.S. accent. The correspondent portuguese words are relaxe, ou relaxa in the imperative form.
- José Maria Montargil:
  
  @Tiago This is not portuguese, it’s a brasilian dialect. Portuguese its a very structured language. In Brasil its a different situation, no rules applied.
Dario:

no man, i’m from Brazil and if you get to a disco and ask a girl sign, you’ll look stupid as in every other disco in the world. haha
Ramay Nunes:

ahahahaha…not even the brazilian understand each other…from the verb relaxar, the correct imperative is relaxe, but most of the brazilians for an unknown reason end up saying relaxa as it were tyhe correct imperative forms.

and remember…agduqdhuahdajhd = lol
Br Dude:

I’m with Dario on this, the “baby, what’s your sign?” line is just as ridiculous in Brazil as in anywhere else. Maybe you got lucky because some chicks just dig foreign guys.
Carla:

To start up a conversation with a Brazilian girl at a disco why don’t you trying inviting her on a dance? LOL
Clara:

I’m with Dario and Ramay. Please don´t ask “baby, what’s your sign” for a brazilian girl at a disco! LOL
I’m from Rio de Janeiro and we used to say “relaxa”.
Jose Farenzena:

Restating the words which were written above: if you come to Brazil, do not ask the sign to a girl wherever, you´ll surely look ridiculous.
Ricardo:

“from the verb relaxar, the correct imperative is relaxe”
There are two imperative forms in the portuguese gramar, dude:
Relaxa tu
Relaxe você
(We usually cut off the pronoun here)

I live in Santa Catarina,
and we also say “heelax” (as oposed to “heylax”). Gotta agree with Bob…
Elisa:

I Know “na boa”or “numa boa” “cê tá na boa, mer mão?”. I am from Minas, we reduce a word to just one syllable. So this expression in good Portuguese is “Você está numa boa, meu irmão?””cê tá na boa, mer mão?”. As for the question in the disco, I am sorry, it does not work!
doriedson da silva souza:

hey here in rio we don’t say “da boa ” to express
our state of mind, we say “na boa” otherwise.
“da boa” is often used to express quality of something
doriedson da silva souza:

when you go to a disco the things girls usually
like to hear is “cê tá uma delícia gata”.or any other thing that goes like a compliment to her beauty.
Moema:

Congratulations!

I’m Brazilian and I’m realy glad on reading such an interesting blog about Portuguese.

^^
Nat:

In Brasília we say “tá de boa” as something is just fine, or someone is well, or doing nothing… And works also as an answer to “i’m sorry!” = “desculpa!” Answer: “De boa!”
fred:

the best way to get a girl in brasil is to be, or pretend to be from europe, (sorry dont like the USA) tell her you’ve just arrived…….then tell her how much the flight was, that should do it.
Gato Medio:

Hi,
I found a link to this blog while I was looking for something else. As I’m interested in language usage, I decided to have a look.
First some general comments: When we use language, we don’t only transmit a meaning, the choice of words also says something about the speaker. It’s an important aspect of slang that its use places the speaker into a specific group (age, social class and region). When slang is used in the wrong context it can cause embarassment or offence, just as overly formal language in an informal environment sounds ridiculous. So, particularly when you don’t speak the language well, you need to be careful when you use slang. I felt this needed to be said. It seems that the assumption is that everybody reading this blog is young, male (based on the comments about chatting up a girl) and fun loving. 😉
Now some specifics: You give ‘relax’ as the equivalent for ‘chill’ but it’s not clear how this word would be used in a sentence. Relax is a noun, but people would probably use the verb, relaxar. Incidentally, I’ve seen many ads where professional ladies offer ‘2 relax’ – but that’s probably something completely different.
carol:

i live in sao paulo, and please, PLEASE never hit on a girl at a disco by asking her what is her sign. you look really ridiculous, and besides not getting a conversation with her, she’ll laugh at you and tell all her friends about it. (personal experience)

p.s.: i was the girl who was hit on, and my friends and i made fun of the guy for the rest of the night.
Isabela:

There´s so many brazilians in here!

I´m from São Paulo and I don´t agree with Fred. The girls in Brazil are not that “easy”…

But I really liked this blog, is so interesting!

(Sorry about my poor english XD)

xxxxxxxx
Benjamin:

I think you should hit on her and ask her her sign, just for fun. If the girl wants to talk to you, she’ll put up with anything you say!

But there are much better ways to hit on girls. Don’t call her a gata, I actually think that’s far more tired of a line than what’s your sign. Just be creative, it’s not the line that wins them over, it’s the sell!
Renato:

I’m a brazilian guy…

o site é muito bom… se quiserem aprender o português mesmo, o site está ajudando e muito…qualquer problema, entra em contato… estarei pronto pra ajudá-lo… I’ll help you!
Jake:

Here in Curitiba, Ive heard people say “tudo susse”, susse as in sossegado, which means calm. Its mostly teenage slang, and its never used among adults.
José Alfredo Leite:

Hi, there!

As I native speaker of Portuguese I find it funny to see your your discussions of language problems (considering they’re no problems to me). But then I turn the problems around (how
would you say that in English) and then the problem suddently
becomes quite serious or quite interesting. Just to mention the
first problem in your list, “I’m just chilling” should be
translated as “Estou morrendo de frio” (I am dying of cold).
I will come back to this site later, as “(Es)tou sem tempo agora”. Té mais.
dri:

Hey there

I’m a brazilian living in UK… Here they say a lot: what’s up? and just answer, “ok”, “fine”,”not so bad”… and it’s just about the last response I’d like to ma ke a comment… I think in Brasil we’d never say “Not so bad”… It sounds so strange for me since the beggining… I can’t think about somebody asking me how I am, and I answer: “Nao tao mau…”… Definitely, we are such great people that even on that bad days, we keep confirming it’s everything ok…

And, just to finish, in SP we use to say “Beleza”, or “Belê”, that means (literally), “beauty”…

I AM SO PROUD OF BEING BRAZILIAN!!!!!!

xxx
Fabiane Mazzochi Scheultz:

HI everyone.. i’m Fabiane from Brazil.. and PLEASE! do NOT go to a club here in Brazil and ask a girl/boy “What’s your sign?”.. because i’m telling you.. you all will look super ridiculous to us!.. just a tip 😉

see ya.
José Maria Montargil:

“Not so bad” in portuguese we say: “não é mau, de todo”.

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