Lixo Extraordinário Posted by Rachel on Feb 22, 2011
With the Oscars coming up this weekend, I wanted to make sure you’re all in the loop about the one Brazilian candidate, which is nominated for Best Documentary. Personally, I’m a huge fan of the movie which I’ve seen multiple times and written about for a long time, so I wanted to share the info…
Brazilian Recipes: Pastel de Feira Posted by polyana on Feb 21, 2011
If there’s one place one needs to visit in Brazil, no matter what city you go to, it’s the local feira, or farmer’s market. Every neighborhood or small town has at least one (please let me know if I’m wrong!) and you can buy all sorts of things you need for the week without having…
Carnaval 2011 Countdown: São Paulo Samba Schools Posted by polyana on Feb 17, 2011
Since I live in São Paulo, I know more about the São Paulo samba schools than the Rio schools. Also, since São Paulo & Rio de Janeiro have similiar Carnaval experiences, I’m going to use this post to talk about the samba school desfiles and another post to talk about Rio’s street blocos, which you’ll…
Ronaldo Retires Posted by Rachel on Feb 17, 2011
As many of you may have heard, one of Brazil’s biggest soccer stars, Ronaldo, announced this week that he is retiring. In Portuguese, the verb to retire is aposentar-se, and the noun for retirement is aposentadoria. The Carioca footballer had most recently been playing for Corinthians, in São Paulo, after playing for five major clubs…
Portuguese Words of English Origin Posted by Rachel on Feb 15, 2011
Between globalization and the rise of technology, you’ll find dozens, if not hundreds of Portuguese words that come directly from English. In some cases, the spelling of words are changed to adapt to the Portuguese pronunciation, but the words essentially stay the same. In Portuguese, these words are known as anglicismos. Here are some examples…
Canção do exílio Posted by Rachel on Feb 11, 2011
Since we’ve been discussing expats and poetry this week, I thought we could take a look at another poem, one of the most beautiful in Brazilian literature. Thanks for the suggestion from one of our users, who posted the poem on the Portuguese Blog Facebook page. “Exile Song” is one of Brazil’s most famous poems…
Elizabeth Bishop Posted by Rachel on Feb 10, 2011
As those of our non-Brazilian students may know, once you fall in love with Brazil, there’s no going back, and sometimes you end up staying longer than you expect. Such was the case with one of the United States’ most brilliant poets, Elizabeth Bishop. Bishop (1911-1979) was born in Massachusetts, and traveled extensively after graduating…