To be excited about something
BEWARE!
One of the expressions that, when translated literally, can cause a lot of embarrassing situations in Brazil.
In BP, the direct translation for excited always relates to sexual excitement (being h*rny).
WHAT YOU THINK YOU’RE SAYING: I am so excited!
How you translated it: Eu tô tão excitado!
What you are actually saying: I am so h*rny!
WHAT YOU THINK YOU’RE SAYING: They are getting excited!
How you translated it: Eles tão ficando excitados!
What you are actually saying: They are getting h*rny!
To convey the same meaning as excited, you can use the adjectives animado(a) or empolgado(a).
Não fique tão animado.
Don’t get so excited.
Eu tô animado e um pouco intimidado.
I’m excited and a little intimidated.
Eu tô tão empolgado quanto uma criança.
I’m as excited as a kid myself.
Eu já tô ficando animado.
I’m getting excited already.
Todo mundo na Inglaterra tá muito empolgado com isso.
Everybody in England is very excited about this.
Quando eu fico animado, eu fico nervoso.
When I get excited, I get nervous.
To be on fire
PAY ATTENTION
This is also one of the main culprits behind really troublesome mistakes people make when learning Brazilian Portuguese.
In English, we mostly use it for situations where someone is doing really well at something. But in Brazilian Portuguese, it means something entirely different.
The problem is that when we translate idiomatic expressions into another language, they won’t always mean the same thing, and people may use completely different expressions to convey the same idea.
to be on firein Brazilian Portuguese also means to be h*rny
When we translate it literally into Portuguese, we get tá com fogo or tá em fogo, and in Portuguese these expressions mean to be h*rny.
You are probably thinking that Brazilians are a bunch of perverts, but that's not the case. It's just that our curse words are very sexually related and highly descriptive, so any shape, sound, or wording that might remind people of s*x can trigger these kinds of situations.
For example, porra is one of the words we use to say damn, and it literally means sperm. Another example is that the word for cassava (mandioca) can be used as a synonym for d*ck, and so can the word for a female pigeon (pomba). I think you get the picture now.
I could never say, in English, the things that most Brazilians say while cursing, because they are so descriptive and vivid that I would probably be arrested in most countries.
It's said that if there were a cursing contest between nations, Brazilians would come out on top. I'm not proud of that, really!
To convey the same meaning as to be on fire, we use the casual expression estar amassando (lit. to be denting).
Mano, tô amassando hoje.
Bro, I am on fire today.
Caramba, você tá amassando cara!
Wow, you’re on fire dude!
Ela tá amassando no jogo.
She’s on fire (in the game).
O homem tá amassando!
The man is on fire!
Vowel Sounds
PAY ATTENTION
Just like the TH and R sounds, and words ending in consonants, are hard for Brazilians to pronounce, nasal vowels are very hard for English speakers. Because of that, we end up with some funny and embarrassing situations when learners try to use these sounds.
Ordering a coffee with d*ck
This one is a classic for anyone learning Brazilian Portuguese.
pão: the word for bread, but since theã(nasal A) doesn’t exist in many languages, people use the closest sound,a(oral A), and pronounce it aspau. And pau is one of the many words we have for d*ck.
Quero um café com pão, por favor.
I want a coffee with bread, please.
Quero R$ 3,00 de pão.
I want R$ 3,00 worth of bread.
Eu gosto muito de pão de queijo.
I like cheese bread a lot.
My advice is that if you don't know how to pronounce the nasal sound yet and are afraid of being embarrassed, order something else. Order
bolo(cake) or apedaço de pizza(slice of pizza).
If you aren't afraid of making funny mistakes, say it anyway and laugh with us.
Because there are so many ways people can end up in awkward situations involving sexual connotations in Brazilian Portuguese, there's actually a way to negate this connotation and neutralize it. Just addlá eleat the end of any sentence that can be misinterpreted.
This expression comes from the beautiful state of Bahia, and thanks to social media it has spread across Brazil. It neutralizes any possible sexual connotation that comes from ambiguous wording or mispronounced words.
Ordering “water of poo”
The words for coconut and poo sound dangerously alike, and this is also responsible for many funny situations (at least for us Brazilians). If you can’t tell the ô, o, and ó sounds apart, it’s a sign that you need to work on your listening skills. 1
So many people will walk up to a guy selling coconut water on the beach and say:
Eu quero uma água de cocô, por favor.
I want a water of poo, please. 2
Eu quero uma água de coco, por favor.
I want a coconut water, please.
coco: coconut
cocô: poo, shit
The “secret” to distinguishing between the two is knowing that any word ending in o is pronounced with a ‘U’ sound in Brazilian Portuguese.
coco: pronounced close to “koku”
cocô: pronounced close to “koko”
You can listen to them and see the difference in the waveform below.
Test yourself
Footnotes
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If it makes you feel any better, Brazilians also have trouble pronouncing: beach, bit, beat, and bitch. Most of the time, they all come out sounding like bitch. Huge problem! ↩
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I am so sorry for my knock-off American accent, I couldn’t resist the impulse. In this context, the guy selling coconut water would understand you because he is selling coconut water on a beach, so what you really mean is obvious, but if you are at the supermarket, they will probably point you to the bathroom. ↩