For today’s podcast, we’re going to talk about haggling and asking for prices while shopping.

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Posso ver os brincos? Quanto custam?
Cinquenta reais? Obrigado, mas não gostei.
E o anel? Quanto tá?
Não quero nada, valeu.
Bom, levo a pulseira por cinco reais.
Tem uma sacola? É um presente.

First of all, it’s important to remember that you can’t haggle just anywhere in Brazil. Your best bet is at fairs and public markets, like Rio’s Hippie Fair, for example. Sometimes, if you pretend not to want anything after you’ve found out the prices, they will lower them for you.

“How much is the bracelet?” Pulseira is bracelet, and a good way to remember that is by thinking of taking your pulse on your wrist. Quanto é is one way to ask how much something costs. It literally translates to “How much is it?”

This means, “Can I see the earrings? How much do they cost?” Quanto custa means how much does it cost, and when the subject is plural, it becomes custam. Poder ver means to be able to see, so when you want to ask to see something, you say Posso ver…in the first person, present tense. Brincos are earrings. The verb brincar, though unrelated, means to play, so it’s fun to associate earrings as something that plays on your ears.

Here, the speaker says, “Fifty reais? Thank you, but I don’t like them.” In Portuguese, fifty is cinquenta. After the accent rules changed, the u no longer has an umlaut. The real is used as currency in Brazil, but when you pluralize a noun that ends in -al, it becomes -ais in the plural. Even though we use the past simple tense here with gostar (to like), we express a present sentiment—I don’t like them. Don’t forget that when a male says thank you, it’s obrigado, and when a woman says it, it’s obrigada.

Next, this means, “What about the ring? How much is that?” With a simple “and” (e) we mean “What about.” Anel, a masculine noun, is ring. Quanto tá (short for está) is a slangy way to ask about the price.

The speaker says, “I don’t want anything, thanks.” To say anything, in this case we use nada (which literally means nothing). The first person present of querer (to want) is quero. This is the grammatically correct way to say it, but the slangy version would be Quero nada não, by inverting the order. Valeu is a slangy way to say thanks, though mostly young people use it.

This means, “Alright, I’ll take the bracelet for five reais.” When we start a sentence with bom, it means alright, or ok. Levar means to take, so here we conjugate it in the present simple tense. The difference between por and para is very tricky, but in this case, since we are referring to price, we use por.

Finally, this means, “Do you have a bag? It’s a gift.” Sacola refers to a plastic bag, the type you get at a store or supermarket when you buy something. Note that you don’t have to use você (you) before tem; it is understood as part of the conjugation. Gift is presente.