"Curl up!"

During my trip in Argentina, I picked up a Get South Free Guidebook for independent travellers in Buenos Aires. An interesting guide for backpackers, written in English, with tourist attractions, general informations about cities around Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and hostels addresses. Nice! I used five texts from it for translation in my classes. It was awesome, because students knew some different places next to them.

While I was reading about Rosario-ARG, I noticed a curious phrasal verb. Read this: "... curl up with a book from the free library". Do you know what curl up ("cãrl âp") means? To bend your knees, legs, foots, body and arms, like a curled hair. So the guide invited me to do it on a sofa and try an old book there. 

But curling up is an act basically american. Or even european. I remember a girl from USA in a straight corridor, with her laptop, totally curled up on her own, in a limited, small space. American behaviour. I think you've already watched that in a movie: "Hey, you're invading my space!"

Brazilians do that different. We stretch out! We put our legs in a place, the body in another and the head or arms in another one. We occupy lots of spaces, often spreading ourselves over other people.

This advertise was written for americans, we see. Brazilian people like free space, instead of curling up.

Kindly tip # 5: Curl up means to bend members and turn into a ball form. Stretch out means the opposite: to spread your body along your space.

Movie tip # 3: watch The social network. The youngest people may not like this film, because we don't find trully action scenes. But the dialogs are incredible! American accent and velocity level extreme. 

"Keep cooler!"

This is my own theory. It's interesting, although I think it's not so true. And I confess: I haven't researched anything in any place.

The famous Keep Cooler, a sweet, smooth fizzy wine, has a strange name. We call this kind of alcoholic beverage "Cooler", but here we got some explanations.

When you say cooler, it means 2 things:

1- the verb to cool. In Portuguese, we have resfriar. If you put the termination er in a verb, you got "who or what do the verb action". I mean: cool (or something very cold); cooler (the device or person that colds something). That's why you find an intercooler sticker on huge trucks (because of the turbo cooler inside the engine) and that's why we call cooler that back fan in your PC.

2- the adjective cool. Part of the time, this words means nice. But originally it means cold or iced. If we put the termination er, we have "more cold/cool than something". Ex.: England is cool, but Russia is cooler (than England).

So, when you sink a Keep Cooler (you may say "kip cúlãr"), you are drinking an order: please, keep it cooler than an other booze! Or depending our mood: please, keep it nicer!

Kindly tip #4: don't buy the terrible flavor Citrus. Prefer the Peach one.

"Perks of the job!"

"Off the Radisson for a 4 course meal. Perks of the job!"


I read this sentence on a post from my scot friend, Mark. For a while, I thought it meant mishap of the job (in Portuguese, we'd say "ossos do ofício").

I was utterly wrong! Reading the post again (and consulting a reliable dictionary, of course), I found the meaning. Perks mean privileges, comfort for businessmen.

So my friend got out of one of the best hotels wide world (it's present in Montevideo as well) and earned a free huge meal. Perks of the job, y'know?

You say perks like "pãrcs".

Kindly tip #3: you may use the expression perks of the job every time you want to talk about something really nice that comes with your job or situation.

"You feel me?"

It was in Rosario. We first met on July 2010. I was with my friends on trip and we found this guy from Sierra Leone, Africa. He was trying to join some football team in Argentina with his friend.

But the second time was on feb 2011. I was drinking some cold Quilmes and insisting on watching football matches on TV. Yeah, I know this is going common in my life, but...

Whatever. I had gone to the kitchen to pick my frozen bottle of that cristal booze when I ran into the nigga. I can't remember his name. It doesn't matter. The african, 7 months after, was still there, trying the same job! He recognized me:

- Mmm... I know you, man...
- Yeah, you really know me, ol' boy!

And we started a nice and curious chat about football, countries, prejudice...:

- You don't see any black guys here in Argentina... you feel me? The coach took my money and then... he ran away, you feel me?!

His accent was terrific! It seemed the accent we hear from that Harlem/Bronx niggers. Nice! He asked about the girls and the police in Brazil and said him: "The girls are the best wide in America! The police doesn't mind if you're black, white, yellow..."

Sure: they spank you in any situation, hahah.

Here, we have You feel me?, variation of Do you feel me?. It means something like Do you know what I mean?, that is mainly used by britishes.

Kindly tip #2: use "You feel me?" at the final of normal sentences if you want to look like some rapper, african or just to try a calculated informal chat.

Movie tip #2: watch Invictus, a new film about a south african rugby team that defied the prejudice and agreed to Nelson Mandela's nationalist feeling to win '95 Rugby World Cup. Pay attention on the almost-tribal-british Johannesburg accent.

"Shite!"

My first post... what a fucking emotion! ... not!

I'm kidding.

Today, I talk about my scotish friend, Mark Shields. We first met in Cordoba during a long trip I made with my close friends around Uruguay and Argentina. While we were watching an awesome football match on TV (Internacional x São Paulo, July 2010), he told me a lot about the interesting scot accent (note: he's from Glasgow, that you can say "Glásgou", not "Glésgou").

My friends asked him about Rafael Scheidt, a defender that had already defended Grêmio and played on Celtic, Shield's fave team:

- Do you know Scheidt?
- Who? What?

After this, a friend of mine tried to explain. "Did you say Rafael Scheidt?", answered Mark. He laughed of the pronunciation of Scheidt and told us that Celtic fans called him just "Rafael", 'cause his last name sounds like "shite!" (you can say "cháit!"), scotish way of saying shit. And we know: when you put an "e" after the final consonant, the pronunciation changes completely. Ex:

Quit ("cuít") and quite ("cuáit")
Sad ("séd") and sade ("sêid")

Kindly tip #1: you may use "shite!" instead of "shit!" while in Scotland.

Movie tip #1: watch "Trainspotting", a scotish film about some guys looking for a cheaper way to get satisfaction with heroin. Pay attention on the accent!