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Vocabulary (Review)

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Hello and welcome to Portuguese Survival Phrases brought to you by PortuguesePod101.com. This course is designed to equip you with the language skills and knowledge to enable you to get the most out of your visit to Brazil. You will be surprised at how far a little Portuguese will go.
Now, before we jump in, remember to stop by PortuguesePod101.com, and there, you will find the accompanying PDF and additional info in the post. If you stop by, be sure to leave us a comment.

Lesson focus
In today's lesson, we're going to take a trip to the post office. Now, the post office in Brazil is called correios. The buildings are bright yellow and everywhere, so you shouldn't have any trouble finding them. The post office or correios is government-owned and controlled just like the USPS.
You will probably want to send some packages home and certainly, some postcards to friends. Today, we're going to work on getting your postcards, letters, and packages sent home. The expression to accomplish this is "I'd like to send this to," and then, the desired location. For today's lesson, we'll use New York.
In Portuguese, "I'd like to send this to New York." is Eu gostaria de enviar isto para Nova York.
Eu gostaria de enviar isto para Nova York.
Let's break it down by syllable: Eu go-sta-ri-a de en-vi-ar is-to pa-ra No-va York.
Now, let's hear it once again: Eu gostaria de enviar isto para Nova York.
The first word eu means "I."
eu
eu
The next phrase is gostaria de, and it means "would like to." The conjugation is outside the scope of this lesson, but the verb gostar is always followed directly by de. Therefore, it's good to learn them as the phrase gostar de or in this case, gostaria de.
Let's break this down and hear it one more time:
go-sta-ri-a de
And gostaria de
This is followed by enviar, which in Portuguese is "send."
En-vi-ar
enviar
enviar
So to recap here, we have Eu gostaria de enviar. Literally, this means "I would like to send."
Let's take a look at the next word isto, which we've already learned and means "this."
Then, we have para, which means "to."
pa-ra
para
The last word we have is the name of your destination. In the case, Nova York or "New York."
No-va York
Nova York
So all together, we have Eu gostaria de enviar isto para Nova York. Literally, this means "I'd like to send this to New York."
Now we can build this up a bit by adding in the words for what we would like to send. For example, above, we mentioned postcards, letters, and packages. So let's start there.
In this case, you can't just insert the word you want. You need to put the words um or uma before the item you want.
For example, the word for postcard in Portuguese is cartão postal.
car-tão pos-tal
cartão postal
So the expression would now sound like this Eu gostaria de enviar um cartão postal para Nova York.
Let's break it down by syllable: Eu go-sta-ri-a de en-vi-ar um car-tão pos-tal pa-ra No-va York.
Now, let's hear it once again: Eu gostaria de enviar um cartão postal para Nova York.
Notice that um cartão postal took the place of isto in our original phrase.
Now, let's try letter in Portuguese, which is carta.
car-ta
And carta
So our phrase becomes Eu gostaria de enviar uma carta para Nova York.
And finally, we have the word for package in Portuguese, which is pacote.
pa-co-te
pacote
Our phrase now becomes Eu gostaria de enviar um pacote para Nova York.
Now, packages require a closer look, which we'll do in the next lesson, but remember that in this phrase, two parts are changeable, the location, New York, and the thing you are going to send such as a pacote, carta, or cartão postal.
CULTURAL INSIGHTS
For me, probably the biggest mailing difference I encountered in Brazil was with the envelope. In Brazil, they don't have the kind of envelopes that you just lick to activate the glue, and then, close them. Someone told me that before I went down the first time, so I bought a box of 100 envelopes and put it in my suitcase. I thought, "It must be too expensive for them to do it that way". I sent a few letters after I arrived, but then, things became pretty busy for a while, and I wasn't able to write letters, just email. Once things calmed down, I wrote a letter to my mother, but when I went to get an envelope, I found that the humidity in the air had activated the glue, and they were all now glued shut and stuck together. That's why they don't use those kinds of envelopes in Brazil.
So when you go to send a letter using a Brazilian envelope, you'll have to glue it first. You can do it at home, or there will be a bench or podium somewhere in the post office lobby with a pen and a bottle of glue.

Outro
Okay. To close out today's lesson, we'd like for you to practice what you've just learned. I'll provide you with the English equivalent of the phrase, and you're responsible for saying it aloud. You'll have a few seconds before I give you the answer, so boa sorte!
"I would like to send this to New York." - Eu gostaria de enviar isto para Nova York.
Eu gos-ta-ri-a de en-vi-ar is-to pa-ra No-va York.
Eu gostaria de enviar isto para Nova York.
"I would like to send a postcard to New York." - Eu gostaria de enviar um cartão postal para Nova York.
Eu gos-ta-ri-a de en-vi-ar um car-tão pos-tal pa-ra No-va York.
Eu gostaria de enviar um cartão postal para Nova York.
All right. That's going to do it for today. Remember to stop by PortuguesePod101.com and pick up the accompanying PDF. If you stop by, be sure to leave us a comment.

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