Learn how to use the Portuguese spoken contractions pra and pro
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Paloma: Olá! I’m Paloma. |
| Gina: Gina here! Welcome back to PortuguesePod101.com. This is Upper Beginner Season 2 Lesson 5 - Do You Know Your Brazilian Barbecue History? In this lesson you’ll learn about Brazilian spoken contractions. |
| Paloma: The conversation is between two friends, and it takes place in the evening at a churrascaria; a barbeque restaurant. |
| Gina: Since the speakers are friends, they’ll be using informal Portuguese. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Paloma: It's rare to agree with someone all the time. What's nice about Brazilians is that they are often able to disagree in a happy, agreeable manner, which is very important. |
| Gina: Yes it is. To Brazilians, being able to laugh and smile even when you disagree strongly with something the other person is saying, is a mark of polite behavior. |
| Paloma: In particular, with more sensitive topics such as politics, religion, or soccer, Brazilians often crack jokes and attempt to say things in the funniest way possible. |
| Gina: And this is done for two reasons. First, Brazilians use jokes to express their disapproval. Plus, it's easy to see when a joke may have offended someone. That’s when they stop laughing. |
| Paloma: ...and change subjects. |
| Gina: (laughs) speaking of which, |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Gina: Let’s take a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Paloma: Okay, the first phrase we’ll look at is ao longo de. |
| Gina: It means “throughout.” If it helps you remember, you can think of it as “for the length of”. This is a formal phrase and usually isn’t used when talking about daily activities. |
| Paloma: For example, it would be very strange to say Ele cantou ao longo de sua ida pro supermercado... |
| Gina: “He’s been singing throughout his trip to the supermarket.” |
| Paloma: But it would be very normal to say something like Eu aprendi muito ao longo da minha jornada. |
| Gina: “I learned a lot throughout my journey.” |
| Paloma: And next we have sem falar. |
| Gina: This phrase means “without saying” or sometimes, “without saying anything.” In the dialogue, this phrase is used in the sense of “not to mention”. |
| Paloma: The friend uses sem falar to connect two ideas in his rather long sentence. |
| Gina: But, in general, this phrase is used when you list reasons for something. |
| Paloma: Yes, you can list a few reasons, and then use sem falar. After this come the other points that are “not mentioned”. |
| Gina: Now, our last phrase means “isn’t just” or “isn’t only”. How do you say this in Portuguese, Paloma? |
| Paloma: That would be não é só. The main tip with this phrase is that it’s almost never used by itself. |
| Gina: It will be inside another phrase just like it was used in the dialogue. Okay, now onto the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Paloma: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the Portuguese spoken contractions pra and pro. |
| Gina: Brazilian Portuguese can be broken up into two different types of language. The first type is written, which is very structured, has many rules, and is what you use in formal situations. |
| Paloma: And then there’s spoken Brazilian Portuguese, the second type. |
| Gina: It’s very similar to the written form but there are some specific distinctions. In this lesson we’re going to talk about spoken contractions. |
| Paloma: The first spoken contraction we’re going to look at is the word pra. This word is the contracted form of the word para. For example, Pra ela, o maior luxo. |
| Gina: The literal translation is “For her, the greatest luxury.” |
| Paloma: Another way we use pra is as a contraction between the words para and a, as in Ele enviou o pacote pra casa dele. |
| Gina: “He sent the package to his house.” |
| Paloma: Here, the pra actually means “to the” and not just “to” like it usually does. If this sentence were written down, it would read as Ele enviou o pacote para a casa dele. |
| Gina: In English, a literal translation of this would sound very strange; something like “He sent the package to the his house.” |
| Paloma: (laughs) Yeah, that sounds weird. However in Portuguese the a, which means “the”, is necessary. |
| Gina: Right, so listeners, don’t forget about it. Now, the second spoken contraction we want to talk about is what, again? |
| Paloma: The word pro; a contraction of the preposition para and the article o. For example, Ele deu o livro pro Daniel. |
| Gina: “He gave the book to Daniel.” |
| Paloma: In proper written Portuguese, however, the sentence would be written as Ele deu o livro para o Daniel. |
| Gina: ...literally “He gave the book to the Daniel.” Again, the Portuguese needs the extra “the” before “Daniel”. |
| Paloma: To wrap things up, let’s take a look at an example that uses pro to mean “for the.” That could be something like Ela chegou atrasada pro trabalho. |
| Gina: And how would that change in written Portuguese? |
| Paloma: It would be Ela chegou atrasada para o trabalho. |
| Gina: “She arrived late for work.” |
| MARKETING PIECE |
| Paloma: Listeners, do you know the powerful secret behind rapid progress? |
| Gina: Using the entire system. |
| Paloma: Lesson notes are an important part of this system. |
| Gina: They include a transcript and translation of the conversation... |
| Paloma: ...key lesson vocabulary... |
| Gina: and detailed grammar explanations. |
| Paloma: Lesson notes accompany every audio or video lesson. |
| Gina: Use them on the site or mobile device or print them out. |
| Paloma: Using the lesson notes with audio and video media, will rapidly increase your learning speed. |
| Gina: Go to PortuguesePod101.com, and download the lesson notes for this lesson right now. |
Outro |
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| Gina: That’s it for this lesson. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time, bye! |
| Paloma: Até mais! Tchau tchau! |
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