MP3 Audio (Lesson) | MP3 Audio (Dialog)
All that sneezing and runny nose! You’ve got a cold, poor thing. Chances are you aren’t in the mood to do a lot of talking, but in this lesson at least you can learn about how to talk about it.
| A: | E, você pegou uma gripe! Wow, you’ve caught a cold! | |
| B: | Não é nada, estou bem. No, it’s nothing, I’m fine. | |
| A: | Não, você pegou sim. Você já tomou alguma coisa? No, you really caught one. Have you taken anything? | |
| B: | Só o remédio que a Marina me deu, e muita vitamina C. Just the medicine that Marina gave to me, and a lot of vitamin C. |
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The way the girl from Rio said “você” sounded like “se” and that was followed by “ja”. I thought she said “seja” like you be. My question is do most people in Brazil say você like this? I feel it would be easier if they left você out completely haha. Going to carnival in recife next month. I’ll let you all know!
Joe
Super observation Joe. OK, cê vs. você. Indeed, Brazilians are likely to pronounce você simply as cê. I would say that it even sound better than você in many cases. There is one big exception, if você comes after a preposition, use the full form você. For example:
cê quer falar comigo? (Do you want to talk to me?)
cê sabe que te amo querida. (You know that I love you dear.)
Não, eu vou com você (No, I will go with you) – Notice the full form of você
Essa é pra você (This is for you) – Notice the full form of você.
Second issue, cê is pronounced with a closed “e” sound. Compare that to the reflexive pronoun “se” that is pronounced as if it were written with an “i”. For example
Cê sabe que Marcos está louco (You know that Marcos is crazy.) – Notice the pronunciation of “cê”, similar to the English “say”
Se sabe que Marcos está louco (One knows that Marcos is crazy.) – Notice the pronunciation of “se”, similar to the English “sea”
Once you start hearing the difference between these two, you will feel that your Portuguese as arrived! It’s a great feeling.
The way the girl from Rio said “você” sounded like “se” and that was followed by “ja”. I thought she said “seja” like you be. My question is do most people in Brazil say você like this? I feel it would be easier if they left você out completely haha. Going to carnival in recife next month. I’ll let you all know!
Joe
When in Rio I usually use resfriado when talking about a ‘cold’ and gripe seemed more like a flu or really severe cold. Is that your take? BTW I found out about your site through Semantica and other Portuguese speaking sites. The structure is fantastic insofar as it allows you to roam at your pace. I think the product is great as are your contemporaries. Valeu!
Hi Donald, I think that all of us who are native speakers or English really try hard to make the distinction between cold and flu in Portuguese, but Brazilians simply don’t have as hard and fast of way to make that distinction. What you’ll hear more is “gripe” and “gripe séria” “Resfriado” sounds a little more high society, but that might be splitting hairs. Perhaps we do the same thing in English when we talk about “a stomach ache” when indeed we have no idea what part of the body is really aching.
Hi Orlando,
my husband from Rio also uses ‘um resfriado’ for a cold vs. ‘uma gripe’ for the flu.
Madhuri,
That’s a great starting point, and it works quite a bit of the time. Other times, there still seems to be a breakdown where resfriado and gripe get mixed up. Thanks for your addition.