Semantica Portuguese in partnership with Street Smart Brazil are presenting a special one-time deal:
Series 1 + Advanced Dialogs + as Músicas + 2 hours of private lessons with the amazing teachers at Street Smart Brazil.
All of this would cost you $180 normally. *Offer good until January 31 2013
Street Smart Brazil has teachers in different timezones: US west coast, Brazil and Europe — so, it’s easy to schedule a time that works for you!
Pensou?
You can also say that something has everything to do with whatever by simply modifying nada a ver >> tudo a ver –!!!
That was obvious, right?
And you can also modify even more, throwing a “quase” in front:
>> Olha, eu acho que ela não gosta de mim porque eu não tem carro próprio.
>> Cara, isso tem quase nada a ver!
We ‘re taking a moment here to review a new Portuguese vocab app – recently released for IOS called Noyo Portuguese.
The ficus on this app is vocab-building, but it’s not done with flashcards.Instead, it presents graphic scenes with vocabulary words that pop-up on touch. There is also an option for them to be spoken as well.
Made for the iPad, this app costs $7.99 and features a very nice to look at series of slides with really nicely done graphics, albeit geared for a youngish audience. It’s truly a pleasure to look at / “experience” the different screens — and there are lots. There are some 177+ slides with collections of words hidden within each.
Some screen-shots:
There are 10 categories for word-building such as Ordering at a restaurant, Transportation, Vacation activities and so on. The idea here is that after exploring the slides, the user will test himself using the assessment feature. This section quizes the user with multiple-choice and T/F question formats. The app keeps track of progress of course, and the user can save his results and even email them to a teacher. The one drawback with this feature is that we didn’t see any way to save & send scores of multiple users.
The voice-speaking feature is of course very useful although with a very, very strong Carioca accent. It would be nice to see this app with another option for the speaker’s voice.
All in all a nice little tool for increasing vocabulary. There are some bugs that we would not expect to find in a tool like this but nothing too annoying (just some typos and incorrect vocab words).
To need and to have-to :
Just as in english, there are two clear ways to express this:
PRECISAR (to need) and, TER+QUE (to have to)
Precisar is a little tricky because you must always put a “de” after it unless it’s followed by a verb.
> Preciso de uma lan house, urgente!
> Preciso achar uma lan house, agora!
Entendeu?
Let’s say it using the verb TER + QUE:
> Tenho que achar uma lan house, agora!
> Temos que ir ao supermercado hoje.
* Note that the meaning here is “have to” –
Let’s suppose you wanted to say something tricky like:
You have to have a license in order to drive a car:
Você tem que ter uma licença para dirigir um carro.
Or,
Você precisa de uma licença para dirigir um carro.
Even trickier:
You have to have had sex in order to become pregnant.
> Você tem que ter tido relações sexual antes de ficar grávida.
Check out the use of the verb precisar in this clip: (from Series 1)
Não preciso me drogar para ser um gênio;
Não preciso ser um gênio para ser humano;
Mas preciso do seu sorriso para ser feliz.
Charles Chaplin
HURRY. What a strange word. Even stranger is the way it’s actually used.
Here’s how you would say,
* I have no idea why “depressa” is written together like that, but it is.
Now try this one:
Could you please hurry it up? >> …you could say, “você poderia se apressar?”
Gotcha.
What’s the verb here?
Depressa. The verb means to rush, hurry.
There are lots, & lots of ways to express the idea ‘hurry up’ but you need to know how to use this one first.
Here are some ways to use this very useful verb:
cama compartilhada >> a shared bed.
internet compartilhada > shared internet.
visão compartilhada >> shared vision.
responsabilidade compartilhada >> shared responsability.
From upcoming series, Semantica Intensivo. Should be out end of 2012.
PHILLIP
Ai, ai, ai que dor! BIANCA Meu Deus. Ai foi mal peraí, peraí fique parado. PHILLIP O que foi? BIANCA Você se machucou e caiu. PHILLIP Isso eu sei. BIANCA Você está com uma dor? PHILLIP Você apareceu na minha frente! Você deve andar no calçadão! BIANCA Não, senhor! A ciclovia é compartilhada! PHILLIP "Com parte de yada"? BIANCA Com-par-ti-lha-da. É para bicicletas e pedestres. O senhor não é daqui, não é?
There are too many ways to say “something” … it’s way too confusing!
Do not worry about whether to use “algo” or, “alguma coisa” — USE EITHER.
Examples:
I gave her something to drink. > Eu dei a ela algo para beber. == > Eu dei a ela alguma coisa para beber
I have to do something later on today. > Eu preciso fazer algo mais tarde hoje. ==> Eu preciso fazer alguma coisa mais tarde hoje.
