Finding Context In Brazilian Portuguese
In my article regarding word gender in Brazilian Portuguese we looked at a table of word-endings (suffixes).
This table included an example for each word-ending and also listed its gender. Obviously in real life conversation you will rarely stop someone to ask them what the gender of the words they are speaking is.
In my experience from my travels in Brazil, I never once encountered anyone who gave me too hard of a time for getting the gender of my words wrong. It’s really one of those things where you just do your best and learn as you go.
There are a lot of words that simply do not follow the rules that are established. Just like how in English we have particular rules for spelling and grammar but there are always a few words that break these rules and make it just as hard to teach someone English as it would be to learn Portuguese.
The best thing you can do for yourself, is to memorize as much as you can, and then use context mapping to connect the dots. This is one of my best techniques that I used to finally get a handle on the language.
It’s not so much about knowing everything by heart as it is about using context to guide you.
Let’s go over some examples of what I mean.
Let’s pretend you are talking with a friend, and they are telling you in Portuguese, the following:
“Estou atrasado para o meu teste. Perdi o ônibus e já deveria estar na
aula.”
Let’s imagine that when you hear this sentence, you are already pretty fluent and so you know what your friend is saying.
They are telling you:
“I am late for my test. I missed the bus, and I should already be in class.”
You understood what your friend said but when you heard the word, “aula,” at the end of their sentence, you thought to yourself, “I wonder if aula is a masculine or feminine word.”
Given that your friend is already late, you don’t want to ask them and so you dissect their sentence a bit by yourself.
You notice the word they used before the word, “aula,” was the word, “na.”
We’ll imagine, at this point, that you already know that the word, “na,” is a contraction for the two words, “em,” and, “a,” meaning, “in,” and, “the.”
Based on this understanding, you conclude that, “aula,” must be a feminine word because the definite article, “the,” that preceded it used the form, “a.”
Let’s look at another example of using context to guide you toward understanding. This example is not related to word gender, but just using context in general.
Let’s assume that you are in a market in Brazil and you bring your product to a cashier. She tells you your cost by saying the following:
“Um real, por favor.”
Let’s say you didn’t understand what the cashier said but you are excited to buy your product. We’ll pretend that you were under the impression that you could use American money in Brazil, and so you pull out your wad of American dollar bills. You hand the cashier a 1-dollar bill.
The cashier looks back at you and says:
“Não. Preciso de um real, não de um dólar.”
Puzzled for a moment, you stop and consider the context.
The cashier is refusing your money, for some reason, and so this should be a clue that something you are doing is incorrect. The next thing you realize is you heard “não de um dólar.” You realize that this phrase sounds an awful lot like English for “not one dollar.”
Immediately it dawns on you that you are paying in the wrong currency.
You conclude that, “um real, por favor,” must mean something like, “one of our currency, please.”
And just like that, you used the context of the situation and word sounds to get you to a place of understanding.
One of the best pieces of advice that I can give you regarding finding context in the unknown is to remember, always, that Portuguese and English, at their core are very common languages due to their common roots.
There are many, many words in Portuguese that have a relationship to an English word, even when it is not immediately apparent.
One of the best tricks you can do, when you encounter a word and you don’t know its meaning, is to scrutinize it and weigh it against all the English words with similar stems and roots that you can think of.
For example, to say, “chewing,” in Portuguese, we say, “mastigando.” Now, at first, you may see this word and think that it has nothing in common with the word, “chewing.”
In a sense, you’d be right. But it does have a common root, “masti-,” with a
particular English word, “masticating.”
Masticating is a technical, scientific way of saying, “chewing,” in English. In other words, it is a synonym. And, if you happened to know that, then you would be able to perhaps make this connection based on the context of where you encountered the word, “mastigando.” Context helps a lot.
A lot of times, you will learn a new word in Portuguese and think, “oh wow, that’s just like the English word.” These are known as cognates, and the two languages have tons of them. So, always take the time to compare unknown words and sounds to similar English words and sounds that you already know. Very often, it will lead you to the correct translation, or a very similar one.
Once I got a handle on how to look for clues in the surrounding context of a word, I realized that I was able to use logic and reason to teach myself much faster. I want you to start thinking this way, as it is the best way to expedite your learning. In every situation you are in, there will be clues all around you that can help you piece together what is being said.
One of the major differences between those who are successful at learning a new language and those who are not, is the ability to accept that they are going to make mistakes. I know I have talked about this before, but it is important to bring it into focus here before you go any further.
Some concepts in Portuguese get a little tough and you will not remember everything immediately. But you must go into this knowing that this is normal, and ok.
Making mistakes is part of the learning process. In fact, in a way, it is just as important as learning itself. When you make mistakes, those mistakes often stick out to you the next time around and help you get better at remembering certain rules and concepts. The very best thing you can do for yourself is just to keep going forward. Don’t stay hung up on anything.
Just keep going.
To further support your language-learning journey, check out my comprehensive Portuguese Resources Page for a curated list of tools and programs that will accelerate your progress.
-Galilee Berman