Falsos amigos — as palavras que parecem inglês e não são
Falsos amigos are words that look like English and mean something else. They are the fastest way to be misunderstood in Brazil, because your brain trusts the resemblance and skips the check. The core list: assistir is to watch, not to assist; pretender is to intend, not to pretend; livraria is a bookstore, and a library is biblioteca; lanche is a snack, not lunch (almoço); educado is polite, not educated; parente is a relative, while your parents are pais; data is a calendar date, and data in the statistics sense is dados; eventualmente is occasionally, not eventually; sensível is sensitive, and sensible is sensato; comprido is long, and largo is wide, not large. Learn each one in a pair — the trap plus the right word — and they stop costing you anything.
Os clássicos do cotidiano: assistir, pretender, lanche
assistir a = to watch, to attend. Ontem assisti a um filme ótimo. Vou assistir à aula amanhã. Two things to hold at once: grammar books want that preposition, and that is what you write — but in everyday Brazilian speech it quietly disappears, so assisti o jogo and assisti o filme are what you will hear from Manaus to Porto Alegre. English 'to assist' is ajudar: Ele me ajudou com a mudança. Never assistir for that. pretender = to intend, to plan to. Pretendo ir ao Rio em maio. English 'to pretend' is fingir: Ele fingiu que não me viu. A Brazilian who hears pretendo understands a plan, not a performance. lanche = a snack, and in Brazil the word stretches: o lanche da tarde is bread, cake and coffee around four, but um lanche on a menu is a sandwich or a burger, and a lanchonete is the counter that sells them. Vou comer um lanche can be either. Lunch is almoço, never lanche. comprido = long in length: um vestido comprido, cabelo comprido. English 'large' is grande, and largo means WIDE — uma rua larga is a wide street, not a big one. 'Committed' or 'compromised' is comprometido: Ele está comprometido com o projeto.
Os clássicos sociais: educado, parente, embaraçada
educado is about manners, not schooling: polite, well brought up. Que criança educada! English 'educated' is instruído, culto, or in everyday Brazilian ter estudo and ser formado: Ela é uma pessoa culta. Ele é formado em direito. And mal-educado is the standard Brazilian rebuke — rude, not badly schooled: Não seja mal-educado. parente = a relative: uncle, cousin, in-law. Tenho parentes em Minas. English 'parents' is pais: Meus pais moram em Salvador. The whole clan is a parentada. Now the doubled trap: embaraçada. In Portuguese it means tangled, flustered, awkward — Fiquei embaraçada com a pergunta — and uma situação embaraçosa is an embarrassing situation. The 'pregnant' meaning belongs to SPANISH embarazada and not to Portuguese; pregnant in Brazil is grávida. For 'embarrassed' about yourself, Brazilians reach for envergonhado / envergonhada, estar com vergonha, or the very Brazilian passei vergonha = I was mortified. Fiquei envergonhada quando me chamaram no palco. One more in this family: realizar means to carry out, to accomplish — Realizamos o projeto — and NOT to realize in the sense of noticing. For that, Brazil says perceber or se dar conta de: Percebi o erro tarde demais. Me dei conta do erro tarde demais.
constipado — o falso amigo perigoso
constipado is the most dangerous word on the list, because it points at opposite ends of the body on the two sides of the Atlantic. In Brazil, estar constipado is the bowel sense, and the everyday way to say it is estar com prisão de ventre or estar com o intestino preso. A head cold here is um resfriado: Estou resfriado. Peguei um resfriado. If it is heavier, gripe is the flu and estar gripado covers most of what English lumps under 'a cold': Tô gripado, não vou sair hoje. Note that English 'constipated' and Brazilian constipado actually agree — which makes this the rare false friend that is only false abroad. Abroad is the other half of the story. In Portugal, estou constipado means 'I have a head cold' and uma constipação is a cold, so a colleague from Lisbon who says it is talking about a runny nose, not the bathroom; the Portuguese word for the bowel sense is prisão de ventre or the clinical obstipação. Two rules to carry with you. In Brazil, say estou resfriado for a cold and keep constipado for the intestine. And when a Portuguese speaker says constipado, translate it in your head to 'cold' before your face reacts.
data, eventualmente, sensível, livraria, biblioteca
data = a calendar date: Qual é a data de hoje?, data de nascimento. English 'data' — figures, statistics — is dados, always plural: Os dados mostram que o preço subiu. Singular dado is one fact, or a die you roll. A romantic date is um encontro. eventualmente = occasionally, from time to time, possibly. Eventualmente eu almoço lá. = I eat lunch there once in a while. It does NOT mean 'eventually'. For 'eventually, in the end', Brazil uses acabar por + infinitive in writing and, far more often in speech, acabar + gerund: Acabei por desistir / Acabei desistindo. Also useful: no final das contas, com o tempo, mais cedo ou mais tarde. sensível = sensitive: uma pessoa sensível, um assunto sensível, pele sensível. English 'sensible' is sensato or razoável: Foi uma decisão sensata. livraria = a bookstore, where you BUY books. biblioteca = a library, where you BORROW them. Comprei o livro na livraria e estudei na biblioteca. The people match: o livreiro sells, o bibliotecário lends. Drill the pair once, out loud, and the reversal stops happening for good.
Mais armadilhas e como evitá-las
Quick-fire list, all of it Brazilian. puxar = to PULL: Brazilian doors say puxe on one side and empurre on the other, and every English speaker gets it wrong in the first week. excitado is the trap nobody warns you about — in Brazil it reads as sexually aroused, so for 'excited' say animado or empolgado: Estou animado com a viagem. costume = a habit or custom; a costume is fantasia, as in fantasia de carnaval. esquisito = weird, odd, off — never 'exquisite', which is requintado: Esse gosto tá esquisito. prejuízo = a financial loss or damage; prejudice is preconceito. atual = current, present-day (a situação atual); 'actual' is verdadeiro or real, and 'actually' is na verdade. fábrica = factory; fabric is tecido. colégio = a school, usually private and secondary; college is faculdade. escritório = an office, while the desk itself is a escrivaninha or just a mesa. êxito = success; an exit is a saída. gentil = kind, not physically gentle, which is suave or delicado. suportar = to put up with, to tolerate (Não suporto barulho), while to support someone is apoiar: Eu te apoio. pasta = a folder or a briefcase; the Italian food is massa or macarrão. balcão = a counter; a balcony is a varanda or a sacada. The strategy is one line long: when a Portuguese word looks suspiciously like an English one, do not commit until you check. The check costs three seconds. The mistake costs you a story your friends will retell for years.
