"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. 

"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.