Learn how about female speech vs male speech
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Paloma: Olá! Bem-vindos ao PortuguesePod101.com! I’m Paloma! |
| Gina: And I’m Gina! This is Upper Beginner Season 2 Lesson 19 - Running Late for a Brazilian Appointment. In this lesson, you’ll learn some differences between female and male speech. |
| Paloma: The conversation is between a brother and sister, and it takes place in the afternoon at home. |
| Gina: The speakers are family, so they’ll be using informal Portuguese. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Paloma: Often, English speaking cultures are very stressed about time and time frames. If you plan to meet somebody at two o’clock, then you’d better be there at two o’clock. |
| Gina: In general, Brazilians feel the same way except that they’re much more flexible about these kinds of things. At first, to foreigners, it may seem like Brazilians don’t care about being punctual. And that isn’t true. |
| Paloma: Yeah, it’s actually that most of them use the bus to travel around their cities, and using public transport makes it difficult to arrive at a precise time. And for those who own cars, it’s not that much better because of serious problems with traffic jams. |
| Gina: Brazilians are all aware of this, so they’re very forgiving about being late for meetings or anything, really. However, there are some exceptions. |
| Paloma: That’s right! Some of these exceptions are the post office and the bank. Never be late when going to these places or you’ll find yourself standing outside of a closed business! |
| Gina: That’s a good tip! |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Gina: Let’s take a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. First we have a kind of formula, right? |
| Paloma: Yes! It’s tá…já! which means "it’s… already!" This formula is used by inserting something between the tá and the já. |
| Gina: The interesting part is that practically any word in Portuguese can be put between these two words, and still make sense. However, usually, it’s best to only use adjectives. |
| Paloma: That’s right. So for example you could say tá caro já. |
| Gina: “It’s expensive already.” For example, if you want to stop someone from buying something because it’s too expensive. |
| Paloma: You could also use a sentence like tá quente já. |
| Gina: “It’s hot already." |
| Paloma: You can use a phrase like this when talking about food that has already been warmed up. |
| Gina: You can use this phrase in many different situations of course. These are just a couple of examples. |
| Paloma: So, next we wanted to look at the word precisar. |
| Gina: This is literally translated as "to need", and is used differently depending on whether a noun follows it or if it’s followed by another verb. |
| Paloma: Yes, specifically, when the verb precisar is followed by a noun, you have to insert the preposition de between the verb and the noun. |
| Gina: Right. So, could you give us an example? |
| Paloma: Certainly! Eu preciso de mais sapatos. |
| Gina: "I need more shoes." |
| Paloma: Now, by contrast, when the verb precisar is followed by another verb, then you don’t need the preposition de. |
| Gina: And what would a good example of that be? |
| Paloma: Eu preciso sair. |
| Gina: This sentence means "I need to leave." Perfect! Okay, now onto the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Gina: In this lesson, you’ll learn about female speech versus male speech. |
| Paloma: In the dialogue we heard the phrase Vai rapidinho então. |
| Gina: Which we translated as "go fast then". |
| Paloma: In Brazilian Portuguese, everybody uses the same words. So when we talk about female and male speech, we’re not talking about completely different vocabularies for the two. |
| : |
| Gina: Right! But, there are some things that can make you sound more feminine or more masculine. And remember, this has nothing to do with the masculine and feminine nature of Portugeuse words. |
| Paloma: Exactly. Let’s use an example from the dialogue. Usually, but not always, women use the diminutive form of nouns and adjectives. The diminutive form is the -inho ending that is on the word rápido. |
| Gina: So that ending makes it sound feminine? |
| Paloma: Not exactly, it’s more like women are the ones who use those endings. So it’s not that the sentence sounds feminine, it’s that the person speaking it would likely be a woman. |
| Gina: Oh I see. But it’s not exactly a rule, because men can use the diminutive form too. |
| Paloma: Right. But, if the men were to say the same thing it probably would’ve been vai rápido então, without the diminutive. I once heard a foreign man say Que bonitinho. That means “that’s cute”. |
| Gina: He must have spent a lot of time around Brazilian women! Would a Brazilian man have said that? |
| Paloma: Probably not. Again, it’s the diminutive form which makes the speaker sound like the person is a woman. |
| Gina: We should also point out that there’s a word that’s almost exclusively female, and is a great way to purposely make almost anything you say sound more feminine. What is that word? |
| Paloma: That's fofo and fofa, meaning “cutie” or “sweetie” as in, Venha aqui fofinha. This means "Come here sweetie." This phrase is most definitely spoken by a woman. |
| Gina: (laughs) Okay so, what’s typical of males? In general Brazilian men tend to use more contractions than women, right? |
| Paloma: Right! But not the standard ones like do or na. We're talking about contractions like in the word até. |
| Gina: There was a good example in the dialogue, wasn’t there? |
| Paloma: Yes. It was Té mais maninha, where the word até is contracted to just té. |
| Gina: Ah, I see! So that’s why there’s a difference when he says it and when she says it without the contraction. |
| Paloma: That’s right. But remember, these are just tendencies not rules. You’ll hear girls say té just like the boys do, but just not as often. |
| Gina: But wait, he also uses a diminutive word. |
| Paloma: Oh, you mean maninha? |
| Gina: Yeah! Doesn’t that make him seem more feminine? |
| Paloma: (laughs) No, he uses that to talk about a woman, so it makes sense. The diminutive ending -inha in this case is used when referring to his sister, so the feminine feel is still there but it’s just like a nickname. |
| Gina: Gotcha! Ok, the last thing we're going to talk about is how men tend to use fewer interjections than women. |
| Paloma: That's right. Here, the words are pretty much the same, but men just use them less often. So, for example, if a man saw a cute little baby girl he would probably say something like Que coisa linda! |
| Gina: Which means "What a beautiful thing." |
| Paloma: But a woman would say Nossa! Que coisinha fofa! |
| Gina: Which would be "My word! What a cute little thing!" |
Outro |
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| Gina: Ok, that’s all for this lesson! Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time! |
| Paloma: Até mais! |
| Gina: Bye! |
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