Portuguese vocabulary - Talking about sickness

The flu - gripe
a high fever - febre alta
a slight fever - um pouco de febre
a sore throat - dor de garganta
a cold - resfriado
asthma - asma
bronchitis - bronquite
an upset stomach - dor de barriga
a backache - dor nas costas
arthritis - artrite
a toothache - dor de dente
a headache - dor de cabeça
diarrhea - diarréia
the chicken pox - variola
a hernia - hernia
a cough - tosse

Brazil: An Exciting Place to Vacation

 Brazil is an amazing country to visit. The country offers a lot of possibilities of things to do and see. In this continental country, you can see beautiful landscapes, have fun with friendly people, and practice a new language without spending a lot of money.

1) The unique and exotic landscape

Brazil is in an amazing country to see different kinds of beautiful landscapes. With an extensive coastline in tropical and subtropical areas, the beaches are wonderful. Also in Brazil the world's largest rainforest - the Amazon - where the highways are rivers. In addition, there are a lot of natural places to explore like waterfalls, caves, lakes, canyons, and mountains.

2) Fun, friendly people

In the country of football and Carnaval, you have a lot of fun things to do, not just during Carnaval, but all the year. Brazilian people enjoy life and openly receive foreigners regardless of their origin. On the weekends, Brazilians like to play football, drink beer with friends, have a barbecue, or go to the beach. Sunday is the day to stay with family and friends.

3) An affordable vacation

The most expensive cities to live in Brazil are Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. But if you go to other cities, such as Natal, Fortaleza, and Salvador, it is not so expensive to stay. As Brazil produces many agricultural products, food is not expensive. On the other hand, electronics are more expensive to buy, but you can bring these items with you.

4) Language

Once a Portuguese colony, the official language of Brazil is Portuguese. Brazilian people like to help foreigners who don’t speak their language. Because English is not a language spoken by most of the Brazilian population, it is still a good idea you study basic Portuguese before travel.

I teach Portuguese in individual lessons on Skype. With a package of 10 lessons, you can learn survival Portuguese to travel. If you are interested write to me portuguesewithangelica@gmail.com or at Cafetalk .

3 Aspects of Portuguese Language That You May Not Know

What do you know about Portuguese? I invite you to expand your knowledge about the Portuguese language. Here are some aspects of the Portuguese language that you may not know. 

1) There are more words in Portuguese similar to English than you think.

Agenda, animal, artificial, bar, base, cafeteria, capital, casual, central, chance, chic, chocolate, cinema, colonial… all of these words are cognates, meaning they are written the same in both English and Portuguese. In fact, many other words are identical in English and Portuguese like real, natural and hotel. There are also other nearly-identical words such as apartamento, simples, and opinião. It happens because many words in both English and Portuguese have Latin origin. 

2) 80% of all people who speak Portuguese are actually in Brazil.

Portuguese language should be called “Brazilian” language as most people that speak this language are in Brazil. There are 244 million people speaking Portuguese in the world. About 80% of that is in Brazil. Nevertheless, for the longest time, the Brazilian government wasn’t interested in promoting the Brazilian dialect as a foreign language. On the other hand, Portugal has always promoted its dialect by the Camões Institute and other initiatives. 

3) Average Brazilian people do not speak English.

For a long time, English was not an obligatory subject at school. In addition, the quality of the English teachers in Brazilian schools are not good enough at effective conversation. Private English courses are expensive and the teachers are not native speakers. In general, Brazilians people don’t need to speak English in their everyday life. There are plenty of materials translated from English to Portuguese, and there are good publications produced in Brazil for the country's needs.


If you want to be updated about Portuguese language and Brazil send me an e-mail portuguesewithangelica@gmail.com to receive a list of cognates in Portuguese and English.